Asus Vivotab Smart ME400 experience

I just picked one of these up at Best Buy and my first initial impressions were the build quality is quite good. It feels sturdy and the soft touch backing is nice. The screen seems fine but the viewing angles are a bit strange. You can still see the screen fine if you tilt it, but the brightness deteriorates quickly at an angle. Also the screen reflections are quite bad compared to other tablets I've used, it's like a mirror.

Other than that, just your normal Atom based win8 tablet, performance is roughly the same (comparing to my Thinkpad Tablet 2). I ran windows update and that went fine, but when I ran the Asus update utility it said there was a BIOS update as well as a driver update. I ran the BIOS update and it pretty much killed the OS... on reboot Windows said it couldn't start correctly and I should restore using a restore point which I'm doing now. Will update this later...

Edit: well the restore completed and I'm back to when I updated windows previously. The BIOS update seems to have worked though, installed the rest of the driver updates from the asus utility and everything is up to date finally.

The speaker (yes, only 1) on this thing is quite bad too, low volume and a bit tinny. I actually compared it to my phone (Galaxy S3) and the phone is almost twice as loud from the same distance!

 

I'm quite interested to know what drivers Asus is pushing for this device via LiveUpdate. Would you be able to tell me your current Graphics driver version?

 

The graphics drivers I have say 9.14.3.1099

 

Thanks for that. Hope they push something a bit newer for the TF810C when they finally get around to it.

 

Mine is freezing and BSODing on the regular. Is anyone else experiencing this? I don't wanna do an exchange if the new one's going to have the same problems. The error is usually kernel driver power state failure, but sometimes it's different.

I thought I did the LiveUpdate. I know I did Windows Update. How can I check that I have the latest drivers, firmware, BIOS, whatever I should? I see that the Intel graphics driver is at 9.14.3.1082 which I guess is not the latest.

 

Since the device has a SOC, the graphics, sound, power management etc. drivers all get updated together. You're running the stock graphics drivers, so it sounds like your VivoTab Smart didn't update correctly over LiveUpdate. Your symptoms are what us VivoTab TF810C owners experience with the stock drivers. Asus haven't even released anything over LiveUpdate for us, so we're stuck with using other OEMs drivers.

Run LiveUpdate again, if you don't see the updates, try a refresh then run it again.

 

Thanks Breed,
since posting, I did 3 things:
- I found your TF810 thread, decided it would work for me and downloaded the hp chipset driver
- I actually ran LiveUpdate, it gave me a BIOS and "drivers"
- I checked the hp exe, it says my drivers are the same or newer. A scan shows that my display driver is a little newer (3.1099, Oct), etc.

So your comment makes sense to me, thanks. I'll wait for a while to see if I have any more issues. Hope LiveUpdate comes thru for you guys

 

Are the live update drivers downloaded to your hard drive or just executed directly? Could be better to load those ones onto the 810, maybe would fix the screen flickering that the HP and other drivers cause. Any chance you can check and upload them if so? Thanks.

 

Can't find where Asus put them but I zipped them up with Double Driver.
Download ME400C LiveUpdate DD backup 1-27-2013.zip from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

Looking at the log from running the HP exe though, it seems to say that the drivers inside are almost all newer than mine. Thoughts?
IntelAtomz2760Drivers.log Download IntelAtomz2760Drivers.log from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

Example:
Scanning Graphics\igd_gfx32_clv.inf (Name: Graphics\igd_gfx32_clv.inf, Version: 9.14.3.1102)
14:34:19:747: Section with the best match: KMD.Mfg
14:34:19:778: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08C7 (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:794: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08C8 (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:809: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08C9 (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:825: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08CA (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:840: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08CB (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:856: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08CC (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:872: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08CD (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:887: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08CE (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:903: Device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08CF (Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator)
14:34:19:965: Matched with: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_08CF&SUBSYS_85621043&REV_05
14:34:19:981: Current driver: oem42.inf
14:34:19:997: Name: Graphics, Provider: Intel(R) Corporation, Version: 9.14.3.1099, Section: generic32_VEN_8086&DEV_08CF

OR

Scanning Audio\rtii2sac.inf (Name: Audio\rtii2sac.inf, Version: 6.2.9200.53)
14:34:18:262: Section with the best match: Realtek
14:34:18:262: Device: ACPI\INTCCFFD (Realtek I2S Audio Codec)
14:34:18:309: Matched with: ACPI\INTCCFFD
14:34:18:325: Current driver: oem34.inf
14:34:18:340: Name: , Provider: REALTEK, Version: 6.2.9200.46, Section: Codec_Device

 

Hello guys, im seriously considering buying this model, it will be my first tablet, now i have a doubt about cases and keyboards, im buying from abroad, did you bought the tablet + keyboard + case bundle? where did you got it, it seems most online stores dont have it... or have you found an alternative? does the cases for vivotab rt, fit this one? or any other?

 

would you mind testing a lower resolution on your Thinkpad tablet 2? If you would, i'd like to know if y are able to make a lower resolution stretch to fit the full screen, or if it will only display with black border. I cannot stretch on my Smart, but since the tablet 2 uses the same chipset that might shed light on where the problem lies for me. Thanks!

 

Thanks, i'll have a look at them later, a lot of components to update so I may just try a few key ones. Wish there was another device I liked that I could move to though, tired of this lack of support.

The HP drivers were definitely newer but I wanted to try drivers from a device closer to the 810 family, on the off chance there were optimized drivers.

 

I tested this with the TPT2 and the only other resolution I can set is 1024x768 and it just chops off the sides. I don't think I can stretch it to fill the sides on either the Asus or the Lenovo.

 

Okay, thanks... That was my suspicion: I don't think the absent stretch option is an Asus issue, it's an issue Intel not fully supporting their range of GMA hardware on Windows 8... I've seen a few angry threads at the Intel forums about this. It seems nothing but GMA hardware baked into the newer core-i chipsets are getting decent support, despite things like the Atom z2760 being a 2012 chipset.

 

The graphics chip in the Atom z2760 isn't a GMA, it's a PowerVR. They licensed it from Imagination. I wonder if Intel or Imagination do the drivers...

 

It's still a GMA: Intel frequently uses PowerVR SGX* GPUs in their chipsets, especially Atoms, but prior to this has fully supported them. Take a look in their own marketing material for the z2760, which states that it has a Graphics Media Accelerator. (http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...-briefs/atom-z2760-consumer-tablets-brief.pdf) Device manager on my tablet states the same. You can see the whole line of GMAs using PowerVR here: Comparison of Intel graphics processing units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Intel's driver support site has plenty of software for those older ones complete with the full range of options in the GMA Control panel, but despite their own marketing material stating that the z2760 is "Purpose Built for Windows 8", you'll find no driver support from Intel. It seems they aren't giving much to the OEMs either.

 

I haven't had much experience with Intel GPU's. Is there a correlation between Intel-designed GPUs, PowerVR's and driver support? I reckon Imagination probably do the drivers for PowerVR and then pass it on to Intel.

Another interesting thing is that the page you linked says the SGX545 only has DX9.0c capability, but in the main PowerVR article it says it supports DX10.1

 

Yeah, the GPU is not Intel-built, but I don't think licensing the GPU from a 3rd party excused Intel here: For one, the third party they are licensing from, Imagination, is a company they partly own, I think nearly a full quarter- They may in fact be the single largest shareholder, though I'm not positive. Second, I've owned other Intel systems with PowerVR graphics, the GMA 500. It has a full suite of drivers, with the complete set of Control Panel options I usually see in Intel integrated graphics. And you're right: The SGX545 is DX10.1 capable... if OEMs were relying on Imagination for drivers, I would think that Imagination would provide a driver that actually utilized the full functions of the chip. Instead, Intel has built this driver, though only through to Windows 7 (It's the GMA 3600 series, confirmed to me by Intel support). They simply took the GMA 3600 series GPU, bolted it on their new Atom chipset in the form of the z2760, and provided the barest of support for Windows 8 while rebranding the GMA 3600 to just a general "Graphics Media Accelerator". That rebranding alone cost me hours of research to try and find out what actual mode was in use, to see if I could track down drivers. When ultimately I had this confirmed by Intel support, It was quite disappointing, since I was already familiar this document from Intel stating that they would never provide Windows 8 support for the GMA 3600 series: Microsoft* Windows 8* Intel Graphics support FAQ

I tried for some time to get the Windows 7 driver to install, but Windows 8 won't allow it: Even disabling Driver Signature Enforcement didn't allow it to install. It's all very frustrating... Intel provides a new Atom chipset, brands it as "Purpose Built for Windows 8", and then provides no official support for the integrated GPU, insteal passing on a bare-bones driver to manufacturers like ASUS and Lenovo.

 

Any idea when Asus will start selling the transleeve cover and BT keyboard?