ASUS N71JQ Owners Lounge

Well if you don't need the mobility then yes.

 

If you still have the original Seagate drives, which you probably do, go find the Seagate utility SeaTools for Windows. Might be able to fix some things.

 

Thanks, Az. Is that A Good Thing then? http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/

My hard drive has - knock on wood head - been behaving itself lately. Only once did I see my screen break up into a field of static. Everything's all backed up, though, just in case.

 

Uh oh...it just shut itself down for the second time...and then rebooted normally.

 

Anyone installed Windows 10 on this model yet? I got the notification from Microsoft last night saying that Win 10 is ready to be downloaded.

 

I don't want anything to do with W10. Like I said I want to get a new desktop, and a new tablet too, I'm going to look at Apple now, even tho I never had Apple before and don't even know how to work it and don't feel like learning either, but then I'd have to learn how to work W10 too, plus try to learn how to opt out of all its sneaky spying tricks, if that's even possible.

 

So ended up doing the upgrade. Rolled back pretty much straight away. Seems there are some driver issues with the videocam and usb 3 port....

 

What drivers did you try?

 

I actually didn't try to install any drivers, I just rolled back. Any suggestions?

 

Well searching for drivers from parts manufacturers is a good plan, making sure the latest chipset drivers are installed too.

However there is no rush, come back in 2 months time or a bit more and those drivers could well have been updated within windows update.

 

Strange that it's shutting down and rebooting. No viruses, huh? I would run that Seagate HDD utility and see what it comes up with. Especially if you have files on the drive you don't want to lose.

 

Knock on wood (head), Az, but it's been AOK lately so I'll leave well enough alone and see how long it can keep chugging along!

 

Finally found a suitable replacement battery. I was searching for the wrong number. There are numbers all over that battery. Taking a closer look at the battery listings on the ASUS eStore page I was able to match up one of the part numbers with a number on my original battery. It was an "Ah-HA" moment. The eStore lists the battery at $119 and they are out of stock unfortuately. I did a quick web search and found exactly what I was looking for at Amazon, of course. Shipped for $110 and change. And it's on the way. Instead of searching for A32-K72, look for 076016CQ1875. Hopefully when it gets here and I charge it up I won't have any more troubles.

 

New battery continues to work fine. No more strange battery charging light issues. I have cycled it down to 20% and recharged a couple of times now, working it up to maximum capacity. Then, out of nowhere, the computer starts to act up again. Freezing, rebooting, and no dump message to point to a problem. The type of crashes that normally occur due to hardware problems. I was hoping it wasn't the battery. Just as an experiment, I removed a peripheral I have been using since purchase. A Logitech V470 Bluetooth wireless mouse. No more crashes for three days now. Hmm. I have read online that Logitech software is, how should I say, a source of problems. I really like this mouse, so I will continue to experiment. When I unloaded the Logitech software, the Touchpad quit working. Probably something got hosed in the driver. Unloaded and reloaded that, and am working on my touchpad skills now while I confirm that the crashes have stopped.

 

An update on my N71. Worked the trackpad for a couple of months, and then just turned the bluetooth mouse on one day and paired it. Wouldn't work with all the bells and whistles but functioned as a mouse. Didn't load the SetPoint software which I think was the problem. What was most annoying about that arrangement was the trackpad continued to function because there was no way to disable it. And it's in the right spot to get the occasional swipe of a finger while typing and mess things up. So a couple days ago I unloaded the trackpad software and deleted my bluetooth mouse device. Rebooted several times and ran a boot CHKDSK to clear out the cobwebs. Then I reinstalled the trackpad and installed the one-off version of SetPoint (not the most current version) Got my fully functional bluetooth mouse back, able to disable the trackpad while the mouse is in use, everything working good for now. Will monitor and comment if anything happens. And, since I'm posting, our N71 thread will bounce back up to the first page. Woot.

 

The drivers must have a weird conflict somewhere, did you make a note of which exact versions you used?

 

Yes, I did. The trackpad driver is the latest update from the Asus site, ETDWare 7.0.5.10 dated from 2010. The latest Logitech SetPoint software update is version 6.67.83 which is the one that causes problems. I'm currently using 6.67.82 which after a couple of weeks now continues to work just fine.

 

Well thanks for sharing, I doubt many people will run into it but it's good to be out there in case they do

 

The hoped-for stability was short lived. Well, a couple of weeks of bliss anyway. The system is back to freezing up randomly. And it works fine, and for hours, when I don't use the bluetooth mouse. So that must be the problem. There were at least 12 chronologically arranged versions of the Logitech SetPoint software from which to choose on the website. I think I'll go back in time to the next version and see how that works. It's not like there are any security threats to worry about. I'll get this figured out eventually. I wonder what other N71 owners are using for a pointing device. Pretty lonely being almost the only commenter in the N71 forum. I've thought about giving bluetooth a rest and getting something wired. Or wireless but not bluetooth. The trackpad, although feature rich, is just too twitchy for me.

 

In the week or so since I last posted, Logitech has taken down the links to those previous versions of SetPoint. It's funny, sometimes when I log into the Logitech site it shows my BT mouse as a current product and other times it shows no products. Seems like it was one of those times when my mouse was showing that the extra software versions were also there. All they have now is the current and one-off versions and both of these crash. I had an older version from years ago in my archives, version 6.65.62, which I am now running and so far without any problems. Other than mouse problems, my N71 is working great. I posted quite awhile ago now about replacement of the thermal paste on the CPU and graphics chip to correct an overheating problem. That seemed to fix it quite nicely. I can run DVD/Blu Ray movies and streaming video content all day long with no hitches. Even the noise that the cooling fan was making on start-up has gone away now. If I was going to complain about something, it would be that the paint on my letter "S" key is wearing off. I guess that is a good indicator of when it might be time to start thinking about an upgrade. Wonder how many millions of key strokes that took. The world may never know.

 

At the moment my N71 is going well. Am still debating whether to upgrade to Win 10 or not. I'm using a Microsoft BT mouse and that connects and works fine.

 

In my last post I commented on how close to wits end I was getting with my, until recently, faithful Logitech BT mouse. Well, the crashing and rebooting began in earnest about a week later. So I have acquired a replacement, a Microsoft BT mouse. And contingent with that upgrade I felt it was time once again to refresh the OS on this machine. That was a mistake. The restore went OK, as it usually does, but the Windows update utility is broke. Not sure when that happened as my patch Tuesday has been working fine. It's when you try and reinstall all 255 updates that you run into trouble. The symptom is a Windows update page that is constantly looking for updates and never receiving any. There are some posts in forums with things to try, which I did. Found the magic combination of fix actions finally, but it took almost 3 days. I wonder if this is coincidental with my election NOT to upgrade to Windows 10. Back to this Microsoft mouse, I really like the feel and function. It's the Sculpt Comfort model. Connects quickly, doesn't time out or sleep as fast as the Logitech, and when I turn off the mouse the trackpad function returns which the Logitech software never re-enabled. Hopefully this will be the end of the crashing and rebooting. We will see.

 

You know, I might just have to quit posting my story line here. Bad luck ensues. No more than an hour after posting the above message I got a blue screen and now the new mouse won't sync up. I have not looked into what caused the BSOD yet, like I would actually be able to find out. I had just installed Google Earth and had opened one of my My Place.kml files. Blink. I'm going to give the machine some time off before I try solving this latest issue. I can hear the siren song of a new laptop ...

 

Everyone likes a story with a happy ending. And it pleases me to be able to report some good news for a change. After the previous failure I put the machine away and thought about things for a day or so. I reconsidered every chapter in the story leading up to this point. Then I noticed something possibly important. If you visit the ASUS site and check for updates for your N71JQ, you might notice that there are two driver updates for the Bluetooth feature. One is non-descript for manufacturer but the other clearly says Azurwave. The Bluetooth radio in my machine is a Broadcom BT-270. I have refreshed my OS probably a half dozen times in the years I've been using this machine, and every time I go through and install the ASUS updates. This Bluetooth update has always said "No Bluetooth radio detected" and failed to update, leaving me with the original software application. Even the update file appears to not be the right one, with the letters BT30 in the file name. I've always been resistant to acquiring updates from a source other than ASUS since I know that their updates have been bench tested to work favorably with each other. So it was with great hesitation that I visited the Broadcom site looking for a driver. They have a very nice application here https://www.broadcom.com/support/bluetooth that you can download and launch, and it will identify your Broadcom radio, check the software and drivers for updates, and then download and install the updates. And magically, all was well after that. The mouse synced right up and has done so for almost a week now. No issues with the mouse at all. No system hangs or crashes. System even appears to run smoother now with less drive activity. Even the sound system sounds better, which might just be my imagination. So there you have it. A darn good reason to find and install updates if ever there was one. This box is seven years old now, so it is understandable that at some point ASUS will stop their support and encourage the purchase of a new machine. Barring any catastrophic hardware failure I plan on keeping it going for at least a couple more years.

 

A lot has happened in the almost two months since my last post. My Microsoft Sculpt mouse continues to work, although I do get the occasional unresponsive hang which I remedy by turning the mouse off and back on. System freezes were fixed for a while but reappeared. Not only the periodic freezes or reboots but a couple actual BSOD’s. I had been using an older version of an application called Who Crashed which was giving me clues about my system in addition to what I could find in the Microsoft Administrative Tools Event Viewer. I recently checked for and downloaded an updated version of Who Crashed which is still free and seems to do a much better job of identifying problems now. It was in one of those system scans that it identified a problem with the OS kernel, the ntoskrnl.exe file in particular. Hadn’t seen that before. A quick search of the internet and I’m on to a completely different path – RAM faults. I had considered this possibility long ago when these failures first began, but I thought it was very unlikely to be the problem. What could possibly cause RAM to suddenly go bad? Those sticks have been properly installed in my machine since day one, and the only time they were removed was for the disassembly to replace the heatsink thermal paste on the CPU and GPU. I carefully observed proper ESD methods at the time. It should also be noted that the computer was acting up well before that repair, and that particular repair was to treat yet another symptom of the overarching problem. So, back to the current problem, the recommendation from the web was to run a small Microsoft utility called memtest which is usually contained within the Windows Memory Diagnostic application present in each OS installation. For whatever reason, the N71 version of Windows 7 chose not to make that available. And that is probably why I had not checked the RAM years ago. OK, so a surf around the interwebs and I find the 34Kb memtest file, download and install, and fire it up. Within 10 seconds of scanning the first error is reported. This utility runs exceptionally slowly, maybe a tenth of a percent every 30 seconds or so. I let it run until it froze the machine at 36.9% checked and 212 errors reported. I would say we have a new suspect. I was even able to locate a suitable replacement, double the capacity at 8 Gb and for a very good price. They are 1600 MHz chips which are backward compatible to 1333 or 1066 which were the original RAM chip speeds. Had a little problem with installation though. There are several threads in the Notebook Review N71 Owners Lounge about upgrading RAM, but none of those come right out with the procedure I eventually discovered. So I carefully (ESD) remove the old RAM and replace with the new RAM. Snaps right in. Go to power on and the power button light flashes on and off and does nothing. Hmm. I read in the N71 manual that RAM detection is an automatic process, with nothing to set or detect in BIOS. Still, I try to boot to BIOS holding down F2. It stops the power button flashing to steady illumination, but still no progress to BIOS. Search the interwebs again for a solution. Several threads about upgrading RAM in N71 and N61, but no hint on the trick. So I figured it out myself. I removed both memory cards from the upper (assumed 0) and lower (assumed 1) slots, then placed one card in the lower slot and attempted to power on. Still get the steady power button light and nothing further. Removed from lower slot and placed in upper slot. Power on and BOOT ! Now we’re getting somewhere ! Let it boot and signed in to profile. Checked the computer properties page and it is reporting 4 Gb of RAM. Shut it down and insert the remaining stick. Power on, boot, sign-in, and properties now reports 8 Gb. Sweet. I suppose I should probably do another clean install of the OS just to make sure all the corruption is cleared. A pretty long story with hopefully a happy ending. Only time will tell. All I can do is use the machine daily and document any further problems here. Wish me luck.

 

So it seems something is wrong with my screen. All of a sudden yesterday the screen started displaying a green tint. I've already pugged it into a monitor and no green tint. Based on this I think there might be a loose connection somewhere between the video card and the screen. Has anyone seen a disassembly guide for the N71 (or even the N61) that I can use. Otherwise I will probably have to take it in for repair.

 

I have been a lurker and very, very occasional poster here since the beginning - have had my n71jq for almost 6 years now. It seems to be on its last legs. I tried to do a Windows 10 update, but that failed, and I cannot seem to figure out what the problem is. Tried several times direct from the web, and even burned a boot disk, but that would not work. These efforts seem to have screwed up the operating system quite a bit, though, and now my touchpad, video, and sound capabilities seem to be highly degraded. I thought about doing a complete system restore back to 2010, but it does not seem to be possible if the touchpad isn't working - you cannot make the selection from the menu to do the restore. Has anyone done this?

The alternative is to completely tear down the unit and see if there is a heat issue here. I live with two long-hair cats and am certain that they have probably made a contribution to a heat buildup.

I am writing this from a replacement Toshiba unit - could not take a chance on a complete failure without a backup. Data is all backed up, and I want to see if I can restore the N71jq.

 

Bummer. I would suspect something broken/shorting the wire bundle connecting the screen portion with the laptop base. Don't remember which hinge it is in. The disassembly procedure file is in this thread, search for N71VN Series Chapter 02-v1.0.pdf. I have the file and could probably post it yet again if this doesn't work.

 

Yeah, the Windows 10 upgrade was a mistake. I don't think anyone else with an N71 was successful. Not plug and play. Hopefully the attempted install didn't wipe your hidden partition on C: which contains your Windows 7 restore. If you still have your owners manual the procedure is described in there. Basically you hold down the F9 key during power on boot and select Windows Setup and go from there. With the correct drivers loaded your hardware issues should be fixed. As for your heat issues, search this thread for the N71VN Series Chapter 02-v1.0.pdf file which describes a systematic disassembly of a similar N71. I posted a description of a disassembly and replacement of heatsink compound where I fished quite a bit of fuzz out of the cooling fan. That fixed my heat problems. Good luck.

 

Thanks for that. So bit of an update. I was able to open up the laptop, this disassembly guide really helped:



I was also able the find the manual, however basically got stuck on trying to find the wire bundling and the hinging, this is where it gets complicated.

Took it into Asus today and they claim the LCD panel needs replacing and they suggested not to leave it with them. Basically they charge a HK$300 servicing fee and because they don't carry parts beyond 3 years, they won't be able to fix the LCD panel......

I presume if the wiring is broken, I would need someone to fix that, regardless of replacing the LCD panel?

 

Hmm, if ASUS says it's the LCD, then it probably is. Might be able to locate a new or used replacement on the web somewhere. How did it fail? Did you turn it on one day and it was toast?

 

Well basically when I took it into Asus the guy opened the laptop, saw the pink screen and said it would be a HK$300 labour fee. He then took down my details then turned round and said its probably a screen issue (i.e. he didn't do a deep assessment) and that they won't have the parts if its a screen issue. He then said its probably not worth paying the HK$300 labour fee and that it is probably best to try with a third party.

Everything was fine one day, then all of a sudden my screen went pink.

 

Strange, just seen the screen dump on my mobile and no pink.

 

It's been almost a month since I reported in post #2225 that I might have found the source of my N71 problems. Corrupt RAM was most certainly the problem. System has been 100% reliable, stable, and much faster since the upgrade. Still don't know what could have trashed the original RAM, but I sure am happy I have my reliable old friend back in working order.

 

So, just an update. Found a third party repair company. Originally they thought it was the the screen. Screen replaced, screen still pink. They then thought it was the wiring, changed that, screen still remains pink. They now think its the mainboard. grrr.

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Its the LVDS driver, he is sensible..

 

Got my laptop back yesterday, all good, screen problem dealt with. Cost US$150 parts and labour. said the mainboard needed changing.

One thing I noticed, when I was putting my hard drives back in, seems that they have put the wrong screws in the wrong places (cause the size of the screws all varied). That's a bit annoying, but everything works, which is the main thing.

 

Confirmed working with 16GB ram, similar to N61JQ forum. Corsair 16GB (2 x 8GB) PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 SODIMM RAM - 9-9-9-24 - Vengeance Series. Can't seem to upload screenshots.

 

I was successful with an 8Gb upgrade. I think as long as the chip speed is backward compatible to the 1066 MHz specification it should work. I'm seeing some favorable movement on the SSD horizon, just have to figure out how to mirror the C: (including the hidden restore partition) to one of those. I think the results would be amazing.

Oh, and the screenshot thing is a limitation placed on new registrants. Not sure how many posts are required before you can include attachments.

 

What's the voltage on this ram, 1.35 or 1.5?

Based on the ram I presently have (2 x 4GB), I'm presently running 1.35 volts. For 16GB, I presume I should also run at 1.35v.

Thanks in advance!

 

CPU-Z has it reporting 1.35V. I don't think the voltage can be altered in BIOS. Still running very nicely. Also added a a second hard drive board at the beginning of the year (lucky to find a person selling the whole motherboard on ebay, and was willing to sell me just the hdd chip - not originally included on my JQ, as many other people despair!). Solid state drive has given it a new lease of life. I see the laptop going for another several years (until the power connector breaks!)

 

1.35v version it is then! Basically when I went to buy the ram, I was asked whether I wanted the 1.35v or the 15v version.

Yeah, I'm hoping my unit will last several more years still, especially after fixing the screen problems.

 

If you want to avoid power connector troubles and extend the life of your laptop even further, I would suggest the following. Get yourself some dielectric grease. The easiest way to do this is visit an auto parts store and they will usually have some of those small quantity squeeze packages of stuff up near the checkout counter. Non-seize compound and brake anti-squeal, etc. Look for the spark plug boot lubricant. That is dielectric grease. Then with your laptop turned off take a toothpick and work a small quantity of the grease in and around the connector socket. Do the same to the adapter plug. Then plug and un-plug the connector several times, turning it around through its range of motion. Unplug and carefully wipe with a clean rag and check for any contaminants or evidence of corrosion that may have worked loose. If you see any, repeat the process until things come out clean. A final wipe-down to eliminate attracting dust and you should be good to go.

 

It's been 6.5 years now with this laptop and still working pretty much like new and I'm happy about that I haven't replaced or upgraded any of the hardware. Still on Windows 7. Had a few crashes, there's whining noise, but nothing mayor. Only a few days ago something scared me.

I installed Unity3D, a pretty big program and it took a long time to install. A reboot was required to finish the installation. After it restarted, and before I did anything, there was a beep and then some kind of grinding noise. The noise wasn't stopping so I turned of the computer. I turned the computer back on and no more noise since then.

I'm thinking maybe it was the hard drive. Or maybe it was the fan (or something else?), but for some reason I felt like the sound was more like something that the hard drive could make. Anyone experienced something like this before?

Another reason I thought about the hard drive is because after the install my C drive got the fullest it's ever been. I mostly only have the OS there and the programs (including Unity3D) I installed on another partition but which is on the same disk. The C partition is 74.5GB and varies from 6 to 10 GB of free space. After installing Unity3D, even though it was installed on the other partition, the C drive was left with less than 5GB of free space. I have since cleaned up and recovered more space.

Could this have been a sign that the hard drive is dying? Or what else could have caused such a noise?

 

Hmm, might have been the hard drive. The BD/DVD optical drive makes noises sometimes too. When you bring up the drives in Windows Explorer is the used space on C: still colored blue? It turns red when free space is critical. Also might be drive issues. Get yourself SeaTools for Windows and run some utilities. This is assuming you still have the Seagate hard drives installed.

 

Knock on wood (head) still going strong!

 

One-month-later-update:

It has since made the noise two more times.

The C drive in Windows Explorer has been getting red for a while now. Sometimes it went back to blue for some time and then back to red. I just deleted something very big the other day, so I think it will never get red again for the life of the computer.

I did SeaTools and DiskCheck and both came out ok.

Just in case, I wanted to prepare for the worst and decided to create a bootable Ubuntu disk and usb. At least I could have internet and do some basic things while getting a new hard drive. I discovered two problems in the process of preparing Ubuntu.

First the br/dvd/cd drive wouldn't read the discs. Luckily turned out that the lens had just collected some dust, and some air blowing fixed that. Hadn't use it for I don't even know how long

Second thing, I found out that it's not possible to boot from the USB3 drive. That's a shame since I bought a USB3 thumb drive specifically to be able to run a persistent ubuntu usb at a faster speed. The other USB ports can be booted from. And the USB3 port does work once in Windows. Apparently its drivers are only loaded once in Windows.

 

My cooling fan was making a whining noise when I first turned on the computer. It would stop after it warmed up a bit. This was after I had taken the case apart to replace the thermal compound on both the CPU and GPU. I did a really good cleaning of dust and fuzz that was lodged downstream of the fan at the front of the heat exchanger. If use canned air to blow into the heat exchanger (on the left side of the computer) it just moves the dust back and forth. I had to get in there carefully with a forceps and tweezer to pull the filth out. I don't know why the fan started making noises after that. Maybe the increased airflow allowed the motor to spin a little faster, just fast enough for the bearing wear to oscillate. It stopped altogether a couple months later. If it was hard drive noise, and it was making it when the disk was nearly full, then it was probably the system attempting to page file or use hard disk space as temporary memory. That USB 3.0 socket was a first release add-on to this laptop, along with several other sockets that I rarely or never use. eSATA? The heck. Oh, maybe if you got an eSATA SSD you could boot from that?

 

It is a new year and I find myself in possession of a new laptop, an Asus of course. My N71 has ceased to function, partly my fault. It was a sort of suicide, or assisted suicide. Turned it on and placed it on some plastic table placemats and then left the room for a half hour or so. When it warmed up it sunk into the plastic to the point where the cooling intakes were closed off. Overheated. Not sure if the GPU or CPU were compromised, but it will not boot now. It will power on lights only. No POST. Hold power to turn off. Probably repairable, which I may consider doing myself. The new laptop is a ROG G752VM-RB71. A gaming machine. I'm not a gamer but I could become one. Very nice machine. I don't see the VM Owners Lounge yet, but there is a VS lounge and the various other G752 designations are closely related. The N71jq lounge is almost boarded up. I will still come back now and then to see what's happening.

 

Hi there, how is this laptop doing with win 8 / win 10?

I am running win 7 now, want to upgrade, but still thinking which OS.

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