please, do you have A8J Disassembly Guide downloaded? The link above is broken.

Thanks.

Has anyone actually tried to do a cpu upgrade on the A8Jm? I emailed Asus in regards to the question and they dont offer any support as it voids the warranty. I was just wondering if the current BIOs support Core 2 Duo CPUs? I know that the 945PM chipsets does and it should be a straight swap for the T2400 if the current BIOs support a Core 2.

I appreciate anyone who can shed some light on the subject.

have you any confirmation that is possible or not to upgrade the T2400 cpu to a T7200 in the A8jm ?
It seems that some people did in China…

Thanks,

Philipe

- The fan stopping problem, maybe faulty fan, but I had a similar issue before and it was because I used SpeedFan (known issue with certain ASUS models)… dunno if you have it, but since you’ve gotten a new machine I assume everything’s good.

- I’ve heard about the loose hinges too… somebody managed to open up the machine and tighten it up himself.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=56703&page=8
Look at post #389, there’s an A8J disassembly guide if you’re feeling very technical

- I’ve tried using RivaTuner as well as CoolBits to overclock (software OC .. nothing in BIOS to OC ). Try googling them up, very simple to use. I think Coolbits might be easier to use for our Go7600.

- yep, agree with your top 3 upgrades… I’ve got the 2GB Ram… don’t need the 7200 at the moment, and I damn wish ASUS would manage to fit more cells into the current shell to increase the battery life.

Nice review, i own the A8Jm, (the Australian version, so it does have the Bluetooth). I am thinking of upgrading to 2GB of RAM, as that and the slow HDD are the only two things that really hold this machine back from being a great gaming rig. At the moment, i play F.E.A.R, BF2, BF2:SF, NFS:MW, The Sims, CS:S etc etc, I play all games on all high, except BF2, i have to put textures on medium, and F.E.A.R, which i have to bring down a few settings to high/med instead of maximum. This is simply because of the 1GB of RAM, not beacause of the video card, that is a beast!

I just finished running 3DMark06 and got a score of 2353, which isnt bad.

I have had 2 problems with the machine, firstly, withing 2 days of opening up the laptop, i had this weird problem of the fan stopping , without notice. I then realise that my CPU is in the nigh 90’s my GPU is over 100 degrees C. I called them up and they were great about it, got it replaced with a new one.

The one thing about this machine that isnt well built is the screen hinges, yes they hold well… at first, i have had the machine for no more than 3 months now, and my screen is now very, very loose. It wobbles terribly, moving up to 5cm at the top. It turbns out the hinges are plastic and so they are more likley to break. I have been planning to ring them and get it fixed, but have not had a chace to yet.

When you said you did some video card overclocking, how did you do that? i cant access any of that stuff in the BIOS, and i know my way around comps quite well. Did you use in OS OC’ing programs or is there somethign im missing here? Any reply would be great.

But as you would, i would reccomend this system to anyone, well built, performance is amazing, and quite lightweight for what it can do.

Top 3 things to upgrade…

1. RAM (if you game at all) get 2GB of it.
2. Faster HDD, 7200RPM will make a lot of differnce to loading times
3. Bigger battery, when gaming you can throw away that 3hrs of battery life and replace it with 1. So a better and bigger battery will increase that nicely.

Mine didn’t come with any protective covering on the camera lens, so the same as yours.

I finally got my a8jm! It’s awesome! The glare on the screen does not bother me at all (after all, I am paying attention to what is on the screen, not the glare). Thanks for the great review and pictures– they really helped me in making my decision.

I have a question: I remember reading something on the notebookreview forums that said something about the camera coming with a small piece of protective plastic covering the lens. I don’t seem to see it on mine, but then again, the lens is quite small. Did you see any piece of plastic on your camera lense that you had to take off?

I have to re-iterate the general consensus that the machine looks even better in person!

~Dan

Chris: You will be able to run Vista 32 bit version no problems, now if you want to run the 64 bit version, you’ll prob need an upgrade to Merom, which at the moment seems possible, but would require ASUS to release a BIOS update.

Sly: I think you can plug and unplug, but don’t quote me on that, might be better to ask around in the forums so some resellers can help you out.