ASUS N71JQ Owners Lounge

I already have a Logitech Speaker Lapdesk N700, it has cool stereo speakers. They are a bit louder than the notebook's, good for music.

I thought I use mechanic oil, since the grease on the bearings were still in good condition. I'm not much of a mechanic engineer myself, I read it somewhere that grease hardens after a time and a bit of oil thins it back.

I definitely like your idea of the cooler desk. I wouldn't mind doing it myself, I'm just curious how did you get the fan powered up on the desk? Using it from USB?

 

Yes, these things generally power from USB. Just be sure it's blowing the right way! I've seen such fans set up in opposition to the laptop's internal fan. (Not to mention additional fans in a desktop case that actually made airflow where it mattered WORSE! Setting such things up isn't always intuitive.)

 

Thanks, this was the issue!
I simply powered on the laptop, and used my vacuum directly on the air output to catch dust.

Now, it stays around 65°C

 

In my case, the desk fan is powered by another laptop AC adapter.

The laptop is placed over the fan so as not to interfer with it's external fan & obviously designed to cool the lower case. Cost me nothing to install so even if it only helps fractionally with heat dissapation, I'll use it. It helps more than fractionally though, as I said earlier. I have tried placing it directly over the internal fan but it gets cooler quicker by not doing this for some reason.

And yes, if you do this make sure it's blowing towards the laptop & not the reverse.

 

Ugh.

When I opened my laptop earlier today, it opened with a green line the width of a single pixel going from the top to the bottom of the screen.

Anything I can do to fix it?

(I bought the laptop last March, so my year of warrantee also just expired...)

 

@adewade maybe the LVDS (display cable) is loose? If you know where it is you can try pushing down on the connector to make sure it's well connected.

 

Hi all, I was wondering if someone could help me troubleshoot a small fan issue I'm having.

I've had my computer for 11 months and a few days ago I noticed my fan sounded slightly different. In the lower speeds (ex.2300 RPM) I can hear an ever so slight, barely audible, very low rumbling tone if I put my ear right next to where the fan is located. I don't notice it during higher speeds (ex.4000 RPM) but that could just be due to the normal increase of noise.

Now last night and this morning, I noticed that upon waking my computer from sleep mode, when the computer finally warms up and the fan kicked on for the first time (around 2200/2300RPM), the low rumbling tone was much louder, not blaring, but one could definitely hear it. But as the computer continued to warm up (not overheat, just reaching normal light usage temps in the 50s) the rumbling went back down to the barely audible levels as described before.

This morning it was the same thing, louder when the computer is cold and still warming up, and then barely audible. Sometimes I do not hear the noise at all. Right now as I am typing there is nothing (2300 RPM, ear right next to fan).

I supposed I'll have to RMA it, but I'm kinda scared to, because my computer is pristine and working perfectly, and I don't want it to come back to me with a properly working fan and everything else all dodgy and wonky, lol.

Bit of final details people might ask, my computer has never overheated and shut down. My fan does not excessively ramp up and down, and rarely goes past 2300 RPM with normal internet usage/background task activity. If I run something like The Sims 3, the fan is between 3800/4000 RPM and temps fall between 77-79 C average although core 1 usually hits 81C. Upon exiting, temps quickly drop to 60-62C, then return to mid 50s average.

I wipe my desk under the laptop daily for dust, all my computer are located in a room with a hepa filter to avoid excessive dust, I perform regular cleaning maintenance on the computer, and I did gently spray a few quick burst of compressed air into the vents and left side outlet to see if it would correct the situation but nothing changed. I don't really think it's a dust issue though. Sigh, I wish the fan wasn't such a pain to get to.

Anyway enough rambling from me, if anyone has a suggestion of what else to try or what the problem might be, it is much appreciated. Thanks!

ETA: I'm running bios v208

 

has anyone bought and tried the HDD BOARD to see if it works in the X1? anyone maybe seen both A1 and X1 taken apart to see what is needed to add a second hard drive?

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Any ideas on how I could find said cable?

 

The cable will be connected from the motherboard to the inverter (usually located on the bottom of the screen bezel). Some disassembly will be required.

 

@adewade there's a disassembly guide here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/507561-n71jq-backlight-keyboard-implementation.html#post6567857

The LVDS connector can be seen on p. 17 of the disassembly guide.

@David Just a minor correction, there is no inverter on this machine since it's not CCFL, but LED backlit.

 

Hi all. I'm still having random freezing problems. I've tried everything to try & fix it but no joy.

I think I've tracked it to the video card. It's hardware, as I can hear a weird buzzing noise everytime it freezes. I realize the graphics card is built in to the mother board, is this correct? So I can't just swap it out. What about the possibility of adding an external card? Will doing this 'over ride' the internal card? Pretty computer illiterate, so please keep the answers simple for this computer dummy, lol.

Thanks for any help!

John

 

Damn - Just had a BSOD straight after posting the above. It wasn't up long enough to read it all but it mentioned a hardware failure. That'll be the 12th or 13th BSOD since owning this nightmare of a laptop.

 

How can I use my Smart Media camera card with this laptop?

 

Hello guys,

I have been missing from this forum for some time now. I was very busy with my new job.

Yes on this notebook the GPU is built onto the mainboard. If you believe it is defective then the best thing is to RMA the notebook.
Usually there is no way to build in an external GPU into a notebook.

Are you sure that this freeze issue is not due to some driver conflict or some other software?
Have you tried the latest AMD Catalyst drivers?

Did you try using the card reader slot which is located on the front side near to the WLAN ON/OFF switch?

 

Welcome back! Hope all is well with your new job and you are happy.

That slot is too small. My card is a Smart Media for the Olympus C2100 digital camera which is about 6 years old.

 

Thanks. Yes I like my job.

Yes you are right Smart Media card has larger dimensions than SD card and will not fit into this slot.

The specs mention that this notebook has multicard reader, and should read Smart Media, but I am not sure what ASUS meant by that.

 

Hey everyone I just bought an N73Jq to use exclusively for Pro Tools. I'm having a problem where it seems that the onboard Realtek HD Audio card is unable to play .wav audio files that are at 24bit/88,200 kHz. It doesn't even list it in the default sound playback rate in the sound properties. Is there anyone on here that's audio savvy that could check if this is also the case with the N71Jq?

 

I use my N71JQ for PT 9 also. I don't see 24/88,200 listed in the Default Format pull down menu. I see it indicates the offered settings as choices applicable to "shared mode", not sure what that means.

That said I haven't had any issues playing back anything through the onboard sound on this machine but I don't think I have tried anything at 24/88,200. I just leave it set at 24/48,000 and don't bother with it.

 

Thanks WKG. Funny I saw your posts on the duc and was gonna send you a pm. My main issue is that PT 9 won't initialize the asio driver because by default PT9 starts up at 88,200 and crashes asioforall. I started a thread about it here: Pro Tools 9 wont initialize ASIO driver for Realtek HD audio device and more - Avid Audio Forums

Would you do me a favor and try to create a new project in PT at 88,200 just using asio and your onboard sound and see if it opens? Or if you have any other means of playing something back at 88,200 that would be great. I verified 100% that no matter what the source whether it's reason or PT, I I try to play 88,200 through asio and the Realtek the driver crashes.

 

Followed you right into oblivion...

No 88,200 here. The only way I could get ASIO4ALL to switch back from 88,200 was to connect back to my 003R and choose it as the audio engine. PT should boot normally. First I opened a 44.1 session file just to test and closed it. From there I changed the audio engine back to ASIO4ALL in setup > playback engine and then went to setup > hardware > launch setup app which triggers PT9 to tell you that changes require restarting of PT or something to that effect. Closed out, disconnected from the 003R and PT recognized the ASIO driver in standalone. ASIO4ALL recommends in the manual that changes should be initiated from within the audio application.

I'll have to see if there is an updated Realtek driver, device manager is showing the current one as 6.0.1.5995.

I'll follow back over at the DUC also.

 

This might require the purchase of an ExpressCard SmartCard reader. There is an ExpressCard slot on the left side of the machine. This brings up another interesting question. If you remove the plastic blank that is inserted into the ExpressCard slot, there appears to be storage space in the blank for either an SD card or a Sony MS stick (regular or PRO). It almost looks like placing the memory cards in the blank would allow them some electrical connection with the pins at the back of the ExpressCard slot. But alas, no such thing. Just another Asus mystery.

 

Hello,

I wonder if anyone can help me. I have an ASUS N73JQ and I am trying to buy a recovery disk for Windows 7. The ASUS estore has these recovery disks but they don't seem to list N73JQ in there type of notebook drop down field. I phoned ASUS and they said I have to phone the estore directly. When I phone the estore I am on hold forever and I am working long hours at the moment so I can't stay on hold for 1 hour plus...

Instead I sent them an email, but they haven't replied yet (sent 2 days ago). Does anyone know if the Windows 7 N71JQ recovery disk is compatible with the N73JQ? Or what disk I should get?

Thanks,

Dean.

 

@Dean_555556 just download the drivers from ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download and use a generic windows 7 hp disc from http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html

 

Hi,
A year ago I bought myself an ASUS N71J laptop. I use the laptop to watch movies, listen to music and play demanding games.
The last few weeks my temperature went all the way to 95°, which means a blue screen and a shutdown. Now it goes up to 90° by just starting up the laptop and keep it running, so basically I can't even use internet or it will shut down. I guess there is either loads of dust in my laptop, or something is wrong with the fan. I bought myself an air spray can to clean the laptop fan and the inside, but after some puzzling I still can't get the laptop open. It is the first time that I try to clean a laptop but after reading some tutorials I gave it a go.
The fan is well covered and the only way I can reach just a small part of the fan is by taking the keyboard out. This won't do I guess so can someone explain to me or show me pictures on how to completely remove the lid so I can reach all the components of my laptop?
Greetings,
Phugalu

 

Hotfile.com: One click file hosting: Disassemble N71VN Series Chapter 02-v1 0.pdf

 

Thanks a lot for the PDF file!

 

I cleaned the fan and now the temperature at startup is 56-70 degrees. So dust seemed to have been the problem. I noticed that a rubber that supports the laptop on the bottom has gone. The bad airflow must have had a part in this as well. I am thinking of getting a coolerpad to prevent further overheating problems. any suggestions?
The only thing that still bothers me is that something happened to my sound (even before the temperature problem).
For some reason only one side of my speakers is working. When I watch a movie the sound is very low. I never touched anything inside before so I doubt it is a cable problem. Could the speakers be broken (or one side at least)? Or did a setting change maybe? Software?

 

Nevermind the audo issues, i updated the driver of my soundcard and problem solved (I must have installed a wrong version before).

 

I found another interesting "fault". After a few weeks of playing the original win7 that came with my n71jq starts to crash at random times. No overheating, no failing drivers not even a note in the error log. I usually just reinstall all from backup, but still I'm wondering if anyone has the same issue?

 

Hi all,

I'm a happy owner until yesterday. For testing Windows 8 Portable Workspace, I took one hard drive off (A1 comes with 2) and put it into a usb 3.0 enclosure (asmedia controller). The Portable Workspace testing was a success but it also brought up one serious issue of this laptop.

My desktop is equipped with Asrock 870 Extreme which has onboard nec usb 3.0 controller. I also got a Sharkoon Duo that has lucidport controller in it. Out of curiosity, I started benchmarking (ATTO 2.46) every possible combinations. The Asrock motherboard, both lucidport and asmedia controllers are good performer when paired together. Usb 3.0 read/write both at 90~100MB/s, and usb 2.0 read/write both hit the 30MB/s ceiling.

However when either external controller + HDDs plugged into N71JQ, I get same old good read speed but SLOW write speed. Testing N71JQ usb 3.0 shows that HDDs normally read at 90~100 MB/s which is typical, the write speed of all HDDs dropped down to 50MB/s. Switched to usb 2.0 port of Intel HM55 showed similar results that the read speed hit 30MB/s ceiling yet write speed dropped down to 20MB/s.

I've upgraded N71JQ onboard nec driver/firmware to the latest (2.0.4.1/3027) to no avail. Upgraded bios from 204 to 208 no significant difference.

Wanna test yours and report back? Beware it's a can of worms you'd regret opening...

Good luck ~~~

It may come to a point that we users have to push Asus for a new bios to fix it. Thanks for reading!

p.s. Both running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit.

 

can someone help me out? i want to do a clean install of windows 7 on my laptop but i dont know how i should approach this. i know the n71jq doesnt come with a recovery cd, so how do i make/get one?

 

That is covered on the previous page.

 

Quick question.

Has anyone tried using Apple's Magic Mouse with the N71JQ?

 

ok i followed the legal windows thing and reinstalled what i think are all the necessary drivers.

i have one big issue though. my laptop doesn't run starcraft II as fast as it used to. i could run it on high graphic settings (there was only one more setting higher than this) with no lag *whatsoever*. but now it lags a little when im playing 1v1 and anything bigger than 1v1 (2v2, 3v3..) it lags and it tells me i should lower my graphics. wth?!?!

 

Go here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-reviews-owners-lounges/494250-asus-n61jq-driver-thread.html

For the latest drivers, and check your power settings. I think the default settings slow things down. That is in this thread somewhere.

 

ive already downloaded all the drivers from that page. my game still lags if it gets too intense. and i made sure all the drivers are updated im just as stumped as the next guy.

 

I understand there is a N71JQ diassembly guide, but do you really have to dissemble half the laptop to clean out the CPU fan? I'm not really a hardware expert and I don't want to risk damaging my laptop.

What's the best way to clean CPU fan without taking apart half of the damn thing?

My CPU is idling at 65-70c and gets up to 95 when heavy gaming.

 

disassembling your laptop actually isnt that hard i did it with a little hesitation but found it to be really simple. but if you really dont want to take it apart just get a compressed air can and blow the dust out from maybe the access panel (where the ram is) or that small vent opening where you can see some of the heat sink. there really isnt much you can do without taking it apart. just go for it you wont mess anything up i didnt after much deliberation

btw i resolved the graphics issue. i just reinstalled windows 7 again and installed the drivers and stuff. everything went smoothly this time my starcraft game actually ran smooth it was like a dream

 

As mentioned above disassembly is pretty easy and will yield the best result, but there was another guy on here that used a vacuum to suck the dirt/lint out of the side exahust vent. He said he was happy with the result.

Good work; It is a hassel to do it all over again, but it is usually worth it.

 

Thanks for the help guys, with the single-pixel-green-line problem. It ended up just disappearing on its own, one day, before I got around to trying to fix it. So I suppose it may just be a loose-ish cable.

 

Hey I've owned my N71JQ since April 2010 and I just recently noticed that the GREEN LIGHT is now OUT

When its charging, the orange light still shows. But when its charged and plugged in, there is just nothing there.

I thought that was kind of early for an LED to burn out. Has anyone else encountered this or did I just get a defective LED?

More curious than anything else.

 

It's great to see this forum is still active (wish there was a quick/easy way to search just the N71JQ thread, but can't find it yet)!

I'm in a unique predicament here. I got my N71JQ last June 2010. Last month, in April 2011 my laptop started freezing frequently after starting windows no matter the task (even when no programs open) and the only way to rectify the problem was to unplug and remove the battery for half hour or so. Then the laptop would work for a while, but then the freezing would return, until the power and battery was removed again. I also got a BSOD that said "machine check exception." So I called on 4/31/2011 and got an RMA # and sent the laptop in for warranty repair. Although Asus said nothing about it, in my understanding this was "JUST IN TIME" because although i bought the laptop from newegg in june 2010 with a 1 yr limited warranty, the Asus website implies the warranty is 1 yr from the date of manufacture, which when i look at the laptop is actually April 2010.

So they "repaired" it and returned it in the mail about half a week ago. The warranty repair tag said: "repair with new components / parts" "BSOD caused by USB error on IO board. Replaced IO board. Tested good". That's all it said.

Anyway, my predicament now is that the SOUND on the laptop is behaving similarly. FIRST - there has been no freezing, but the sound has inconsistently yet frequently stopped working several times- and no matter what i do to any settings or volume levels (software or buttons on laptop) the sound remains off (i also installed latest driver from asus website for the laptop model). This had never happened before.


So far the sound has only returned after 2 things:
one time the sound just "magically" started working again in the middle of a video i was playing soundless.
other than that, I've had to do the same thing as pre-RMA repair... i remove the battery and power plug for a half hour then replace and restart and the sound works normally.

I did some tests and found that:
when the sound ISN'T working, it both doesn't work for the speakers AND the earphone jack.
when the sound IS working, the speakers sound great, but the earphone jack's sound is all crackly and barely there as if it's a very very very low signal. This was tested with earphones as well as plugged in to a soundboard mixer with equal results.

Does anyone have any advice for me? It would be greatly appreciated:

Should I RMA this again?

Is there anything i can check to see if it's something in software?

i'm thinking i should RMA this again, but i don't want to if i don't have to and of course i'm running out of time to get it fixed under warranty.

 

Please excuse me for double-posting but:

With my N71JQ, I like to have it on a desk next to an external VGA monitor. I loved how when I wasn't using the monitor, I'd simply unplug it from the laptop, and the desktop would snap back to ONLY being on the primary, laptop display.

And then when I plugged the monitor in, it would SNAP back to being extended just where it was.

The ASUS or it's graphics card was obviously detecting the presence or absence of the VGA plug in order to this.

Well recently I restored ASUS using the recovery partition (i.e. reinstalled Windows and all the drivers) and now that plug in and plug out behavior is not working for the monitor!

I do NOT recall ever having to set some kind of option for me to be able to experience this behavior, and I sure wasn't able to find a setting.

This is frustrating because reinstalling Windows usually fixes things when things stop working, not make things that used to work stop working?

Anyone know whats up?

 

Heres what i usually do... right click the desktop, click "screen resolution" then click "detect" to detect the display you've attached. I hope that helps! I"m not sure what does or doesn't cause the laptop to remember to switch to/from a display as it had before... i've found that "remembering" behavior to be very inconsistent for me personally, so i almost always have to go click on "detect."

 

Thanks Schweb!

That behaves JUST like how it used to...with the exception of it not being automatic!

But yeah that's def easier than taking the time to think "okay extended...okay laptop only..." cuz I'm connecting it and disconnecting it many times a day.

I'm really surprised that there is no option on the same dialog for AutoDetect. I swear it used to work! So I know it can work!

But the funny thing is, I don't remember it working that way when I got the PC a year ago...it just kinda learned to start doing it. Must have been abnormal behavior in the first place. But man it was so darn convenient.

--------------------------------------------------------

This brings up a new problem though. In trying to fix this earlier today, I installed the latest drivers/CCC from AMD's website. And at first it had a horrible blue-screen filled installation. It worked the second-time but then my computer would LOCK-up completely when doing anything that was taxing on the video-card in the least.

Has anyone had problems with the latest drivers to their HD 5730 video card????

I System Restored back to my factory installed drivers. If its not broken, don't fix it I suppose.

 

SOLVED

Fixed my own problem of having the VGA port autodetect when something is plugged in and and unplugged. Behaves just like the Detect button on the Windows "Screen Resolution" configuration dialog.

What I did:

Simply updated my Radeon HD 5730 Driver and CCC to the latest FROM THE ASUS WEBSITE

Curiously, the latest drivers they offer are from January 22, of 2010.

I don't care because this driver works GREAT! Had problems with the newest one from AMD so I'm just gonna download everything I can from the ASUS website from now on. Seems as if there is a model specific problem with a driver that's offered from them, it wouldn't be too long before they found out about it.

Cool.

To clarify, My old driver was from October, 2009. Updated to Jan 22 2010 and all is well.

Thanks again.

 

The latest drivers are all in the N61 Drivers thread FYI: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-reviews-owners-lounges/494250-asus-n61jq-driver-thread.html

 

Hello everyone,

I have an ASUS N71JQ-X1 notebook which I bought a year ago. Lately it has been running rather hot with the fan on high speed even when I am not doing much. So I started looking for cleaning instructions and it lead me her. However seeing how this is such a great forum, I decided to ask some more questions. Anyway I digress, so here are my questions:
1) the only problem I have with it is that sometimes after some period of inactivity it freezes. usually it unfreezes after some time, but it can be quite long. first I thought it might be due to some power saving settings, where it turns off hard drive or whatever, and then it takes awhile to turn it back on. so i disabled all of this, but it still freezes. and it is not consistent either - sometimes it may freeze after I was 15 minutes away, sometimes it is fine after hours. any idea what is causing it and how to fix it?
2) how can I check the running temperatures, fan speeds, etc on my notebook? i couldnt find any utility (among already installed on it) which would seem to do it. did I miss it? or do I need to install something which would give access to this information?
3) how can I disable my webcam? i mean, just the webcam, but leave the mic working? is there a way to do it?
thank you beforehand!

 

Has anybody successfully upgraded the CPU in one of these? Any thoughts? Great machines, just thinking down the road a few years.