ASUS N71JQ Owners Lounge

My December 2009 unit also has cycling fan, so I don't think manufacturing date matter much.

 

I have USA model, but the TV antenna connector is missing.

 

Yes it is a bios problem that is not related to manifacturing date.

ASUS understands the problem now and they suggest that the fix is to increase the lowest rpm of the fan from 100rpm to something higher.
They are saying that the lowest rpm is too low for hardware to be cooled effeciently without the fan cycling up and down very often.
It seems the cooling system is not effecient enough if the fan is running very slow at 100rpm.

I hope they will not set it too high. We suggested to them that it should not be set much higher than 2200rpm. At speeds lower than 2200rpm the fan is not very load.

Let's wait and see what they will do.

 

If you want a TV tuner installed, you should check out the guys from XOTICPC.
Pretty much they can customize this laptop in any possible way, including installing a tuner.

 

Unfortunately, if the connector is missing, I don't think there is much that can be done. Even if you managed to get the right part from Asus, installing it would be a huge pain (judging from the disassembly guide). Plus, now that I think about it, I'm not even sure where you'd get drivers for the ATSC version (US standard) of the card or if they'd work correctly.

There is a 34mm ExpressCard tuner from Avermedia, but the reviews are kind of "eh". I think I'll just skip the TV for now.

 

Anyone who has installed new bios?
ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/N71JQ/

 

It seem to be very new.
I will ask Ken Lee if he knows something about it.
I don't want to try it without knowing anything.
As far as I know ASUS was working on new bios to fix fan problem, but I am not sure if this is the one.
I have not heard anything about it from Ken Lee who is working with ASUS to solve the fan issue.

 

moehaha who goes first?

 

Well, for sure, if you check their page, you will notice that they say they can do it. I know what I'm talking about, I bought my lappie from them.
Regarding the pain of doing it, I don't think it should be a problem, especially not after they managed to fit a second HDD (also a huge problem and pain if the laptops don't come fit with it).
For the part with the drivers, again, doable, I guess, since it's an US company.
However, I think that the best might be for you to contact them and get all the answers.
I already started to sound like a commercial for them, so I will stop here

 

Well I am not confident if this contains the solution for fan issue.
Ken has discussed with ASUS on 1st of June and until then they had not made up their mind concerning if they will increase the lowest rpm of the fan.

So I think they may need some more time before they release solution, but I am tempting to try it.
I think PaulW and I love new advanture.

 

Whehe yeah it could be it, and what the worst the can happen right?

Let's tosh a coin, I'll pick heads..

...and....

Tails!

you're it!

 

oke screw it, I'm going for it.

 

I am also going for it.

 

Nope that wasn't it, seemed similar to v206. Fn-Esc solved, on/off cycling still there, 4000 rpm fan starts at a higher cpu temperature..

I would say don't bother..

 

whoe whoe whoe!

Maybe it will work differently on your machine since it has a will of its own.

 

Well I have flashed it.

So far it seems like nothing visible changed.
The fan issue is still there as I was expecting.
Still there is no EASY OVERCLOCK feature in the bios.

I looked at the file and the time stamp says it is from 14-05-10 so it could not have the solution to fan issue.

As usual ASUS does not provide a change log so it is hard to say what they changed.

 

Unless I'm missing something, I only see where they will bundle a USB TV tuner with the laptop.

Anyway, I got mine today, and sure enough, the antenna connector is left out. Kind of disappointing, but a large-scale trial of Mobile DTV was just launched here in the DC area, so that'll probably be the better option anyway. Hopefully expresscard and/or USB tuners will be released soon.

 

I don't think XOTICPC can offer you a solution for this.
I don't think they will build in the antenna connector for you. This will involve finding the correct antenna port and soldering it onto the board. I don't know if it is only the antenna port that is missing. It could be that there is also a pre-amplifier after the antenna and some matching network. I have to look at the actual board to see if there are some other component left from soldering behind the point where the antenna connector is.

The only thing that could be done is to order another board from ASUS which has this antenna port on it and also ask them if they have the corresponding TV card and the corresponding cabling.
Maybe ask at ASUS esotore here: ASUS Online eStore

Building in the complete board in would not be that difficult. The only thing is that you have to take appart the complete notebook.

I would say the easiest solution is to buy an external USB TV card.

 

This does not explain why there are no intermediate RPM levels for the fan though. If this were the only reason then I am inclined to think that the fan would speed up to 500 or 2200 RPM (just guessing) before going all the way to 3000. Hasn't it been mentioned somewhere in this thread that some DO have these intermediate speeds?

 

Mine has also these intermediate steps but only under certain conditions these are observable.
Especially when the environment temps are low and only under bios v204.
I have seem that the fan in my notebook cycles at 2200rpm and remains there for certain time when room temps are around 19 to 20°C and when the ATI PowerPlay is set to Maximum Battery life.

The ASUS R&D seems to have programmed the fan to cycle up and down very rapidly when the system is idle or under low load.

 

Yesterday I noticed that my screen had a dead/stuck pixel - I have extremely bad luck with LCDs, and my heart just sank when I saw it. When I ran some colors on the screen to check for more, I noticed what appeared to be a piece of dust or something stuck under the screen in another spot.

Needless to say, this blows.

I actually called them around 1am (ET) on Sunday, fully expecting to get a recording saying what time I should call back. I actually got a person! She set up a repair for me. So, I'm going to send it back, hold my breath, and hope I get a defect-free screen back.

 

This worries me.
It seems more and more people are getting dust under the glass cover in front of the LCD.

I heard it is not easy to get rid of it. To open the screen you need a Cleanroom environment otherwise even more dust will land in there. Maybe ASUS will replace the whole screen for you.

 

Asus tech support is available 24/7

As for your LCD problem, I had a similar issue on my Dell Precision M2400. I wouldn't say it happens frequently, but after owning more laptops I could remember, things like this do happen and Asus would most likely replace the screen for you.

 

Well what I meant up there is that he is not the first person owning N71JQ or N61Jq who had this issue.
Already 5 or 6 other persons had dust under the screen of one of the N-series machines.

I wonder if it is going there through the cable opening at the bottom of the screen where all the cables comes from the screen to the mainboard.

 

Hey folks,

I finally got my backlit keyboard today! Here's what I did to make it work on the N71jQ, and thereby becoming the owner of probably the largest keyboard-backlight switch in asus history First of all massive kudos to Soulsaber and Skyrise who are the inventors of this mod, all respect goes to them! Read that thread first if you want to do this too (at your own risk!).

Materials:
- The Keyboard - this is the US-International keyboard (different serial number but exactly the same as the US keyboard ). The asus store is much cheaper but often out of stock, ebay might have it too. On a sidenote, however the original isn't that bad either, this keyboard is definitely more sturdy and feels a bit better.
- QT110 chip (I used this one, if you can try to get the DG version which is larger, but seems to be obsolete)
- 10 nF capacitor
- wire glue
- soldering kit
- wires
- heat shrinks


I used the usb2.0 port on the sound board to get the +5 volts because there was slightly more room there to drop a tiny lump of wire glue. Make sure you scrape the coating from the solder point first and be careful that the glue doesn't touch other contacts. Don't use solder because it will void your warantee if they find out. There are many places to connect the ground to but I found the screw next to the usb port convenient.
There is nice open space next to the optical drive to leave the chip and the capacitor. Make sure everything is sealed (heatshrinks), connected (solder for wires) and taped properly so don't short-circuit your lappy! You can find the circuit for the QT110 in skyrise's post linked above. Again, the chip is tiny, so make sure you have the skills and the gear to do it!

Sorry for the lousy resolution phone-pics/video, it's all I got..


The wires to the keyboard and touch sensor can go through the gutter in the metal plate. The QT110 is a micro controller that allows you to switch the voltage on and off by touch, and because we have a massive aluminium (-looking?) panel above our keyboard, you can use this to control the backlight!

There are little pieces of the panel sticking out inside (see the picture), use those to wireglue the sensor wire onto. Make sure to sand it and clean it with alcohol, it has a coating, but don't try to bend the thing because it will break! (as with me).


The keyboard wires can go through one of the holes in the casing, I'd put mine through next to the white ribbon. Solder the power ribbon contacts to the wires and put the heatshrink in the hole where the speaker cable is. The keyboard power ribbon has 4 contacts, but the two on the left (+) are the same as well as the two on the right (-).

That's about it! Here's the result:
(you can still use the media keys without switching the lights on and off if you use the tip of your finger)
Click click!

EDIT: the sensitivity of the touch panel does vary with the contact you and your laptop are making with the earth. For example it is very responsive when the computer is on my lap, but less so when it's on a wooded desk. Maybe the mod needs some tweaking (different capacitor)...
EDIT2: Nevermind, touching the laptop with the other hand solves the problem.

 

Awsome; Nice Job!!!

Dave

 

Hello ASUS N71JQ Owners Lounge members,

Thanks for the valuable information you share in this thread.

Just bought yesterday an ASUS N71JQ and I am pretty satisfied with it. I was just a bit disappointed when I discovered that some versions come with a 2nd hard drive and/or bay and some not.

Anyway I wanted to upgrade the HDD and bought a OCZ Vertex 2 100GB SSD drive which apparently is one of the fastest SSD drives at the moment (even faster than the famous intel x-25m g2 80gb according to the reputable Anandtech benchmarks).

My question is: what is the most appropriate way of replacing the existing HDD considering that i have just bought this notebook and i have not started copying personal data or setting up email or other software.

Here it is what I would do step by step:

1) make a windows 7 recovery disk (4 dvds)
2) change the bios settings so that the pc boots from the dvd drive
3) shut down the pc and replace the hard disk
4) start up and follow the recovery disk wizard

Now the question are:

a) do I have to install also the drivers/utilities included in the original Asus Disk provided or they are all included in the newly created recovery disk?
b) do I have to somehow fine tune some windows 7 or SDD settings after reinstalling windows 7?

If anyone is interested I would be happy to post some bench test results after installing the OCZ VERTEX 2 SDD. Just suggest which test is most suitable.

thanks for any help or tip you can give me.

 

Hey world33

In theory your approach should work, but for some reason it does not always do so. Problems with the recovery disks are often reported. I did the same thing, but windows crashed after loading the 4 disks. It's better to a clean install. Save your OEM windows key, and burn a windows installation disk following this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/mic...-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html

a) If you do follow the recovery procedure, it will ask you to insert the driver disk after windows is installed. If you don't want all of the bloatware installed, apparently it is possible to do a ctrl-alt-del at that point, but I don't think anyone has tried this on a N71.
b) Some fine tuning is recommended, e.g. turn off recovery point and hibernation. Search the forum for guides.

And have fun! I would definitely like to see the benchmarks, try the CrystalDiskMark first after you finished installing.

 

@ PaulW
That's great that you made the backlit keyboard work on your notebook.

I will try it also when I get time next month.
I am very busy at the moment.
I am thinking maybe the antenna hole on the side which is covered by a plastic could also be used to mount the touch sensor.

 

Cheers m8 very helpful, I read somewhere about Partition Alignment and its 300% performance boost. Does it apply to my case with option 1 (recovery disks) or option 2 (clean install)?
Do i need to do it after installing the operation system or before when and if formatting the SSD ... i am confused. btw congrats for the DIY lighted keybord. I wish it came as standard but i guess we cannot complain when it comes to value for money.

 

Glad to help. Partition alignment does not really boost performance but makes sure performance does not degrade much with time (especially when you have trim support like you have). Windows 7 automatically aligns the partition correctly when formatting. During a clean install you have the option of formatting the disk/create partitions manually. I believe recovery does not give you this option but does it automatically (obviously, for sure when you make sure the disk is unformatted). You can check if it's properly aligned using this calculator: techPowerUp! :: SSD Alignment Calculator

BTW before anything, see if your disk has the latest firmware (it probably has since it's a new one). You can only update the firmware before installing windows. It might make a difference in performance.

Thanks for the congratz

 

Looking forward to your results

The antenna spot is indeed a good one, and close to other useful stuff.

 

Thanks again. I found this blog with some tips on windows settings to optimize ssd performance (some of them you mentioned in the previous post).

 

That is quite a good guide, but you don't neccessarily want to change too much. Window 7 is already quite a good system, and some tweaks may not be appropriate for your specific case. Google and try to understand each specific tweak.

For instance, a controversial item is the page file. The guide recommends to switch it off completely (to save diskspace), other people say it does get used even when you have lots of ram. I do a lot of heavy audio editing so I only reduced it and fixed it in size. Some of the tweaks like completely disabling superfetch, HD power shut down may not be the best if you have multiple harddisks.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that this has to wait for some time.
In the next weeks I have to concentrate to finish my doctral dissertation, so most probably I will also be coming less often to this forum until end of July.

 

I feel ya, business comes first. I'm supposed to be writing a phd proposal and working on my MPhil thesis now.. This place is good for study-avoidance but at some point you have to set your priorities.

Good luck with that!

 

I finally installed the new SDD and Windows 7 (clean install) following Paul's suggestions. Hopefully I did everything correctly and optimized its performance.

Here the CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Test results for my ASUS n71jq-ty022x (4GB Ram 1066) with a new OCZ Vertex 2 SDD 100GB:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 201.552 MB/s
Sequential Write : 135.773 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 183.043 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 131.418 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 12.219 MB/s [ 2983.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 20.817 MB/s [ 5082.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 117.786 MB/s [ 28756.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 127.367 MB/s [ 31095.5 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 12.9% (12.0/93.1 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/06/11 17:38:05
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

Results are slightly slower than those available at Techspot

I also attach ATTO results:

 

@ PaulW

The Keyboard you ordered is not an Isolation type right?

I am thinking of ordering the stuff in the next week so that when I have time near to the end of July, I will have everything ready to do the Backlit mod.

I want to order the German version of this keyboard and this seems to be the right one:
http://www.asusparts.eu/product_inf...73347_127974_127990_128008&products_id=35540]

It seems ASUS has not made any Backlit Isolation keyboard so far. If you seem any Isolation Backlit that will fit our notebook please let me know.

 

Euhm.. what's the difference between an isolation and chiclet keyboard? I thought they were the same (with keys isolated from one another like little islands).

You have linked the right one, it's the G60 keyboard.

 

Nice speeds, don't worry about them being slightly lower, techspot probably have their ways to make them look as good as possible. Running it in safe mode for instance increases the speed substantially.

Similar to my Intel X25-M 160GB but with better writes: http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/6599/hdintelregular.jpg

 

Thx to everyone for the invaluable posts here,
i'm looking to order mine in only a couple weeks.

Would someone be able to answer these ? : see post #1069, 2 down

 

Isolation means chiclet keyboard.

What I wanted to say is that I did not find any chiclet backlit keyboard that will fit our model.
I think there are some chiclet backlit keyboard available for Eee PC.

I guess I have to order this non-chiclet keyboard from G60.

 

yes, google is our friend, to answer my own ? = about 75 GB

 

Lol now I'm even more confused...

So you don't think the G60 one is a chiclet keyboard? Because it is, same as the original N71JQ keyboard.

Check the 3rd pic here, it's the same one:
Hands-on with Newly Unveiled Asus G60Vx - Laptop News - TrustedReviews

 

I have the 80 GB intel drive. I have Win 7, Ms office, firefox, and my monitoring utils (hwinfo, everest ultimate, etc..) drivers, and various other programs, no games.

 

Hey dewdad,

There are basically two sides to your answer:
1) The OCZ drive does have 80 GB, unlike the Intel with has less due to the GiB/GB difference.
2) The notion about 'extra flash' is about overcapacity. Because the SSD's performance decreases when full, some manufacturers overcapacitate their drives, so it will degrade less when filled. Still it's good to keep about 20% empty, even for drives with overcapacity.

So basically it depends on your definition of actual space. I don't think you should store 75GB of data on your 80GB drive, you can, but it will degrade performance.

Hope this is clear

 

You are right it's my mistake.
It is actually chiclet keyboard.

It seems my job stress at the moments that makes me see wrong things. :wub:

 

@ jbermi & PaulW - thank you both for your responses.

jbermi's screencap does show ~ 75 GB "capacity",
& Paul I understand your point about the performance aspect & leaving some "headroom" .

I hope to have this lappie within the month,
& I'm just researching capacities so I can figure out which hdd setups
will accomodate the partitioning/multiboot installs I want to do -
(all relative to the $_budget_$, ya know? )

Having read thru all 100+ pages today, I did not see one mention of a strategy
which seems obvious to me, since I have laptop tech skills -

since SSDs can be purchased "aftermarket" for the same $$$ as choosing that config-option from any of the resellers,
why not just go with the 2 @ 320 GB standard, THEN spend the same ~$220 aftermarket to get your SSD,
but end up with an "extra" 320 GB drive ?

.... terrific forum & sharing, & when I get mine configed,
I will surely post back to share some of my <different> ideas.

:thumbs.up:

 

I considered doing that, but I already had an external 320GB, I just got the 80 GB as an upgrade, my other upgrade was an Intel 6200 wifi card, but i downgraded to a dvd burner, no need for blu-ray player, i own none.

definitely worth it, I was going to get a G73, but I am not a hardcore gamer, just moderate gaming, just getting back into it, really, and for what I needed, this laptop was perfect. and seeing the issues the G73 seems to have happening, lately, I am glad the fan ramping is the only issue I have. no regrets.

 

I would say go with the extra HD. If you don't care too much about your optical drive you can always install the third HD in a optical drive bay caddy and keep you ODD in your laptop bag for in case you need it. This is what I did and am really liking it. Third drive now holds second OS, image of new OS, backups of important files and other large datafiles.