Noise and Heat
Noise
Noise isn’t much of an issue on the A7J. Even when completely loaded, the fan is pretty quiet and produces a quiet blowing sound, and the keys make soft clicks when pressed so they won’t disturb anyone around you. There is a bit of tactile feedback on the keys, so it’s not completely “mushy”.
Unlike other DVD drives I have used, the optical drive on the A7J is very quiet even during spin-up – you can hear it activate, but it doesn’t reverberate like the models on the Compaq V2410 and W5F.
Temperature
Using a CompuNurse Advanced thermal probe, we measure temperatures around the laptop to give you an idea of the heat distribution. For measuring the exhaust temperatures, we place the probe inside the exhaust grill and take a reading. We load up the laptop for 20 minutes, then take the maximum temperature sampled during a 1 minute reading at each location.
Laptop Temperature Readings | |||
Location |
Asus A7J |
Asus W5F |
Compaq |
Exhaust |
119.9 F |
115.5 F |
108.7 F |
Left Wrist |
77.9 F |
71.6 F |
86.0 F |
Right Wrist |
73.9 F |
77.9 F |
81.9 F |
Touch Pad |
83.9 F |
78.9 F |
91.9 F |
Center Keyboard |
84.6 F |
80.9 F |
82.9 F |
Bottom Left |
84.9 F |
77.9 F |
89.8 F |
Bottom Right |
84.9 F |
78.9 F |
80.8 F |
Battery Base |
77.9 F |
77.9 F |
84.8 F |
Average Body Temp* (Excluding Exhaust) |
81.1 F |
77.7 F |
85.4 F |
Ambient Temperature |
67.2 F |
63.9 F |
63.9 F |
* Ambient temperature will affect results.
The A7J gets pretty warm just about everywhere and considering the size and the graphics onboard, you really can’t expect a cool laptop. The base of the laptop gets very warm so having it on your lap for extended periods of time is probably not very wise as it affects the laptop’s ability to cool itself. The exhaust gets fairly warm with a reading of 120F, so if you’re planning on using the A7J for extended periods, you may want to invest in a laptop cooler.
The three big heat generators on a laptop are the hard drive, graphics, and CPU, and how well the laptop keeps these components cool is critical to the longevity of your computer. To test the laptop’s CPU cooling we load up the system with two instances of SuperPi and record the highest CPU temperature after 20 minutes. For HDD cooling, we perform a FULL HDTach test and record the hottest temperature after 20 minutes. All temperatures taken using internal sensors.
Hard Drive and CPU Temperature Readings | |||
. |
Asus A7J |
Asus W5F |
Compaq |
HDD Model |
Fujitsu 100GB 5400 RPM |
Fujitsu 100GB 5400 RPM |
Fujitsu 80 GB 4200 RPM |
HDD Idle |
93 F |
95 F |
117 F |
HDD Load |
117 F |
102 F |
126 F |
CPU Model |
Intel T2300 |
Intel T2300 |
AMD Turion |
CPU Idle |
115 F |
126 F |
124 F |
CPU Load |
133 F |
131 F |
135 F |
Ambient Temp |
67.2 F |
63.9 F |
Can you please tell me How to
Can you please tell me How to access the slots to add supplementary memory ?
Thanks on advance