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Asus F3M-AP027C
Reviews Views Date of last review
1 80590 02-05-2009
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Recommended By Average Price Average Rating
100% of reviewers None indicated 8.0
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Description: I've run (mainly) ubuntu linux on this laptop for about 18 months now.

It came with a 120gb hdd and 1gb ddr2 memory (which I upgraded cheaply to the maximum 2gb - accessing the spare slot was easy). The optical drive is a DVD-burner.

The restore CD that came with the machine gives no partitioning options, and will blow away all partitions and install vista on one big C drive. gparted (an old version in feisty) managed to shrink this NTFS partition down, and although windows complained and wanted to check the disk next time it booted, it was able to fix whatever it didn't like, and I've had it multi-booting with grub quite happily ever since.

Unfortunately there seemed to be a problem with linux kernels between 7.04 feisty fawn (2.6.20) and 8.10 intrepid ibex (2.6.27).

I tried Gutsy and Hardy on this laptop, and experienced freezes where - at fairly unpredictable times after boot - the whole machine would freeze up - I couldn't restart X, I couldn't SSH onto the machine, the magic Prt Sc incantation did nothing - a hard reset by the power button was the only option. I couldn't find anything useful in the logs. So I stuck with feisty for a long time.

I tried several other linux distros such as fedora and mandriva, and had the same freezes (I even had systemrescueCD freeze up on me with a > 2.6.20 kernel, and had to use a version based on an older one). It seemed there was something about the kernels after 2.6.20 that this laptop didn't like.

The good news is that as of Ibex, the problem seems to have gone away - it seems to work pretty much flawlessly with an up-to-date kernel (currently Linux 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Thu Jan 29 19:24:39 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux).

So with ibex the webcam works out-of-the-box, as does the SD card reader, most of the Fn keys I've ever wanted to use (volume, screen brightness etc...), wifi, audio (including the mic), twinview using the VGA out with the nvidia driver, compiz, CPU frequency scaling etc... - there's nothing I can think of that doesn't work. Oh - I've never tried the TV-out (which is an s-video connector), or firewire.

Here's the output of lsusb showing the onboard ports and the built-in webcam:

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 05e1:0501 Syntek Semiconductor Co., Ltd WebCam, Chipset DC-1125 similar to 174f:a311 - Asus F2F, F2J, F3J, F3T, G1, Z53JA
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

I've also run PC-BSD (1.5.1) and opensolaris (2008.05), and they seem to work fine (no freezes - so looks like it was a linux kernel issue?) - although the atheros wifi doesn't work in solaris out-of-the-box.

I've also tried 64-bit distros (this didn't fix the freezing up problem), but not since it started working again with ibex - I've no reason to think an up-to-date 64bit kernel would have any problems.

here's the /proc/cpuinfo for mine:

processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 76
model name : Mobile AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3400+
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 800.000
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow up pni cx16 lahf_lm extapic cr8_legacy
bogomips : 1607.30
clflush size : 64
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

(n.b. the 800mhz is because of CPU Frequency Scaling - I think it's 1.8ghz at 100%)

Overall, I'd thoroughly recommend one of these as a linux laptop.
Keywords: AMD Sempron nvidia atheros laptop notebook
/sbin/lspci output: 00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI-X GeForce Go 6100 (rev a2)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a3)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev a1)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
05:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller
05:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19)
05:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 0a)
05:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev ff)


Author
Post A Reply 
Old 02-05-2009, 06:23 PM   #1
mr_git
 
Registered: Dec 2005
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 10

Rep: Reputation:
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): None indicated | Rating: 8

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.27-11-generic
Distribution: ubuntu



I've already written my review in the product description really - if most of that would be better in here, I'll move it if anyone asks.

I could add that I've just had mine repaired under warranty - it needed a new motherboard it seems - ASUS arranged a courier to collect it from my door, their contractor did a brilliant repair job on it (replacing the very well worn facia with a nice new one while they were at it), and delivered back to me - and it didn't cost me a penny. Pretty good.
 




  



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