Gigabyte U2442N Review

Thanks for your prompt reply, TheLawIX! You're right about the amount of RAM, although I've noticed that a fluid UI experience in most modern OSs requires a good amount of RAM. Quick task switching and other seemingly trivial tasks depend heavily on RAM for caching, thus making it important for a snappy feel.

 

I've had this issue. It started up as I saw deteriorating performance in general. I thought it was from some software I installed but I believe it's because my mSATA started to "die." If you're experiencing freezing that hasn't occurred before or if it feels not as fast as before I'd advise you to keep your data backed up. After everything is all set you can see if a SSD benchmark will go through and show the performance levels it's suppose to. Caution here. My Crucial m4 no longer booted after it froze in the middle of the benchmark.

 

Thanks for the advice, wasnt a SsD problem thought. The GAM freeze in multiplayer game, doing that also with my desktop.

Envoyé depuis mon Nexus 7 avec Tapatalk

 

Guys, I need your help please!

My U2442N is broken (doesn't start any more, so mainboard seems to be defective) and repair departments are often checking out what's on the hard drives, so I can't take that risk.

I remember folks here have been able to replace the internal hard drives, so I am asking for help if someone here can help me with detaching the back case and how to remove the hard drives.

It is my understanding that I only need an adapter to connect the internal hard drives (128 GB SSD + 750 GB HDD) externally via USB 2.0 in order to wipe out the data on it.

Now I have already removed the screws from the back case but I am not sure how to remove the back case without breaking it. There seems to be a resistance and I don't want to get it damaged.

So PLEASE could someone who knows how it works explain it here step-by-step (with pictures maybe) or make a video tutorial (I think more people would be interested how to replace the internal hard drives for this wonderful laptop)?
I would appreciate any help very much! It is a wonderful device, I'm very frustrated it is now broken and I need to wipe out the hard drives which I can't access right now and thus need to remove them.

I'm German, you can write in German or English, I'm thankful for every kind of support/help.

 

Agreed but I don't call it "caching" and you do not really comment on what is a good or correct amount of RAM. You really are 100% spot on about what you call the switching between "trivial" tasks. When the application you go to is already in RAM light speed if not then SSD is nice and HDD is painful to load.

But once again what is your magic number? For most 4GB is not that bad. It really is not. Sure if you do certain things then OK. 90% of people don't have a clue about the basics and the other 10% have it wrong.

 

Get an external drive of a size to back up your data. Here in the States might cost me $100. Then download a free "erase" data overwrite app/utility so many free. Wipe the data. If you are very concerned wipe it 1,2,10 times. It will not be recoverable after one wipe but if others don't agree 2 will do.

Why take the drives out?

I assume you have private corporate stuff or a pron habit. Not anything evil?

Good luck.

 

Unfortunately I HAVE to take out the drives because I cannot access them otherwise, my U2442N is "dead", it does not do anything when I press the power button, so I assume that its mainboard is defective.

I have passwords, emails and other sensitive data that I don't want to see popping up on some black market.

 

Might be selling a new U2442N with a 128gb SSD and 1TB HDD if anyone is interested.

 

Has anyone had problems with their webcam, speakers and microphone after upgrading to Windows 8 Pro? The Device Manager doesn't detect my webcam and the speakers and microphone stopped working after updating. I can listen to music if I use earphones though.

I tried updating the BIOS from (FOC to F307A) like some other sites recommended but I keep getting the error "Cmdlet not supported on this platform: 0xC0000002". I read it has something to do with the Secure Boot Keys but I don't have the option to clear them in my BIOS setup. Solution anyone?

EDIT: Forgot to mention I also tried reinstalling the Realtek Windoes 8 drivers from the Gigabyte U2442N website but there were no changes.

2nd EDIT: Pretty strange but I installed RAZER Surround and my speakers suddenly started working. Microphone and webcam still don't work though.

 

I know this is an old thread, but I still use this laptop and would like to try the OC bios, however all the rapidshare links are dead by now.

On top of that I am a newbie here and without having posted several times I can't contact Amal77 directly.

Thanks for anyone that has still a copy of the BIOS.

 

BTW... I have seen some posts of people saying that their Gigabyte would not boot any longer when pressing the power button. As a matter of fact it seems like the power button has no effect at all (LED stay dead even if the charger is plugged in). I had this happen to me too and opened a service ticket with GB. Because it took them 5 days to get back to me I had put the laptop aside for shipping. The day I received the RMA I tried starting it up again just for good measure and the LED's flicked on for a split second and then the laptop screen showed the initial boot logo. Then 2 seconds later the laptop shut down again (drained battery). This prompted me to do some reasearch and I found out that older HP laptops had an issue where the startup circuit would get stuck and basically make the laptop look like it was completely dead regardless of the fact that the battery was good and the charger was plugged in. Then 5 weeks later this happened again and this time I cracked open the case and disconnected the battery from the motherboard, let it sit for 10 sec and plugged the battery back in. The laptop booted fine again.

In both cases there wasn't anything special I did to the laptop to prompt this. It also hasn't happened since which is now over 3 months ago.

Hopefully this will prevent someone else from sending it in and try to either disconnect the laptops battery or let the battery drain over 3-4 days.

I am still extremely happy with this laptop even though I am drooling over the new 24 series.

 

Updating to windows 8.1 seem to completely break the ELAN touchpad scrolling for me. I fixed this by downloading the 8.1 beta drivers for the Elan Smart-Pad from the P34G driver page. Everything works after installing drivers and rebooting.

Note: Windows 8.1 update is downloaded through the Store App accessed through Windows Metro interface.

 

Does anyone know if I can purchase this in Canada WITHOUT being shipped from the US, or any other area of the planet or alternative galaxy?

I am located in Toronto, Ontario; I've ordered from reputable dealers in the US before, got it shipped to depot in US close to border and picked it up that way; but I'd like to avoid the trip to the border if at all possible.

Does look like a nice machine, I do not game, so I was between this one and the new Lenovo T440s that comes with Haswell CPU; does anyone know if Gigabyte is planning to update in the near future (within 30 days) this machine with Haswell CPUs? -- as for the GPU, I am happy with almost any reasonably good card as I do not game with it.

Cheers!

 

Well I can't suggest any retailers in Canada, but GB has the newest series of the 24's out which are based on the Haswell core.

These are all 14inchers
2 core no touch : GIGABYTE - Notebook & Netbook - Notebook & Netbook - U series - U24F
2 core with touch: GIGABYTE - Notebook & Netbook - Notebook & Netbook - U series - U24T
4 core no touch: GIGABYTE - Notebook & Netbook - Notebook & Netbook - P series - P34G

 

I've bought Newegg.com - Open Box: GIGABYTE U2442D-CF1 Intel Core i5 3230M (2.60GHz) 8GB Memory 128GB SSD 14.0" Notebook Windows 8 and when the i5 gets to 80% using PCSX2 playing Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 it does not activate turbo boost even though I have it enabled in my bios. I have downloaded Intel's Turbo Boost Manager which is just really a widget and it cannot be manually activated. What can I do?

 

I thought I updated the bios. Seems you cannot go straight to F30ca, one has to download F30aa. That fixed it for me. This laptop is a champ. Happy New Year!

 

Does anybody know how you install a second 2.5 HDD in this laptop? I'm pretty unfamiliar with adding components to laptops and am scared less. I have no idea where the bay is...