ASUS U500vz/UX51vz Owners' Lounge!

Hi,

I plan on clean installing Windows 10 on my laptop in the month.
However, when I bought this device I reinstalled Windows 7 as soon as possible.

I now have the "problem" that I don't remember which Windows 8 version was originally on this device?
Is it Professional?
Googling it seems to not give a definitive answer...

Or can I find this in the files on the Recovery ( D: ) partition (which I still have and are a remnant of the original Win 8 installation)?

 

@Asgaro Windows 8 Pro was installed on mine - but I may have paid extra for the pro option - I can't remember.

 

That happens to me too. It's disconcerting but never seems to cause any real problems.

Have you found a solution since you posted?

 

Anyone upgraded to Windows 10 yet and care to share your experience?

Do the Win 8.x drivers all still work?

 

I'm upgrading tonight. Expecting the process to go smoothly. Did the upgrade on my G501 yesterday and have no issues so far.

 

Windows 8 Pro was installed on mine as well. I actually upgraded to Windows 10 last night. So far so good. The main thing that I had to do was uninstall/reinstall the Asus Smartgesture touchpad driver. The touchpad worked, but I couldn't do the two finger scroll or two finger right click tap.

 

I upgraded my UX51VZ to Windows 10 Pro yesterday and the process has been remarkably smooth. There was some frustration at first because the update via Windows Update kept failing, so I just used the Windows Media Installation tool to upgrade from a USB thumbdrive and everything went fine. I haven't needed to reinstall any drivers so far.

I was hoping that the touchpad would support edge swipes for the multi-tasking (left) and Action Centre (right) but it doesn't. Other than that I'm very impressed with the level of polish they've managed to resolve in a few months. I've been running the Insider Preview on my Dell tablet for a while and it got worrying at times, but Microsoft seems to have come through. Very stable so far except the start menu can freeze up sometimes, though that's easily fixed by closing and opening it again. Note that Cortana requires all language settings for region, display and speech to be in line with each other before working.

 

I went with the download tool too rather than messing around with the update (I was still stuck in the queue). Interesting about Cortana there.

 

I have not found a solution, but then again, it hasn't done it lately either. Just when I think it will never do that again, it does, but always starts up fine after being powered off. Just a quirk of the machine I guess.

 

I updated to 10 on Wednesday night with very few problems. I had the issue with the touchpad driver not working too, but just removed it in Control Panel/Programs and reinstalled from the Asus UX51VZ site. I have been going through and removing some of the "bloat" over the last couple of days. I also had an issue where my company VPN connection wouldn't work any longer, but resolved that too. It seems something called SonicWall for VPN was native to Windows 8.1, but removed from 10. I had to get SonicWall from the Windows Store, then I could get in at work fine. I was thinking of downloading the ISO and now doing a clean install of Windows 10, but everything is now running perfectly, fast and smooth, so I'm thinking why go through the trouble and days of setting everything up when it works great now?

One other thing I do notice is that the NVIDIA control panel doesn't work the same as it used to. I have installed the new drivers (353.62 version). It doesn't have all the features it used to. For example, to change the screen resolution I have to go to the graphics properties for the built in Intel graphics. The NVIDIA control panel no longer has that option.

 

You won't believe this....As I said before, Windows 10 upgraded and I needed to reinstall the Asus Smart Gesture drivers. So I'm working away today and Windows pops up and says "We're quietly updating your touchpad drivers in the background. Do not restart your computer." About thirty seconds later, Windows notified me that the update was complete, and yep.....none of my Smart Gesture touchpad functions worked anymore. I had to stop what I was doing, uninstall the Smart Gesture driver, restart, reinstall the driver, restart....then back to work. Thanks Windows!

 

Same thing happened to me. I rarely use the touchpad, so I use the feature to "disable touchpad when mouse is detected." Well, the new version 4. something that got installed doesn't work. Even with disable with mouse checked the pad is not disabled. I had to uninstall and install the old 2.13 driver from the Asus UX51VZ site.

 

Duplicate post in error.

 

Does anyone have any problems with their camera after Windows 10? Not really a big issue, but when I click the camera app to open the camera, about one out of every 5 times it doesn't open and flashes a message that says "Something has happened" and refers to the fact the camera may have been disconnected or another app is using it. I've tried many settings about letting apps access the camera, but it seems to make no difference.

 

@Davidoo My Camera app says the same thing - but the camera seems to work just fine in Skype.

 

Yes, mine works fine in Skype too. I think it is just the camera app misbehaving. I sent feedback to Microsoft about the problem to see if they can update the app.

 

Hello everyone,

My notebook's mainboard and IO board failed. I'm not sure why. It is out of warranty of course. The problem is that (being the idiot I am I did not make any backups...) I cannot access my data anymore, now. Countless pieces of personal music, art, important documents - gone. I was told that the only way to get it back was to connect the SSD to an exact duplicate motherboard that worked.

However, the price of this undertaking is nearing 1000$. I have checked in China already where the part is about 170$, but it did not fit my exact model.

Can anyone give me new ideas here on how to handle this? Are there any re-sellers I should know about or would data recovery even be possible?

I believe my version had the SSD's linked in RAID mode, 500+GB.

Any comments appreciated. Really, really appreciated, because this is a bit devastating...

 

This idea is totally just an idea, and I have never done it before.

You can remove your HDD's and use a SATA adapter to then read them through external means. Here's an adapter.....
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-ADATA-XM...TF8&qid=1439564123&sr=8-3&keywords=adata+xm11

Find a way to then connect both drives externally to a different machine and find a raid recovery software....Here's one:
http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm

good luck!

 

When dealing with Asus in the past I came to find out that the embedded key was Windows 8, but the sticker says Windows 8 Pro. After enough badgering I figured out that they screwed up somewhere and sent out the wrong embedded keys for the DH71 model. By the way which model do you have? If you have the UX51VZ-DH71 and you still have your recovery partition could you make an image of it for me to use in resetting my device to the OEM status?

 

Hi guys,
I have an ux51vza. Something i didnt get with the upgrade to windows 10. If I install the smart gesture program for windows 10 after the update, does the scrolling and the other multitouch functions work or not?
Cheers

 

Scrolling and multi touch functions will work after you install smart gesture.

 

Yep, they work for me too after Windows 10. I actually got the latest smart gesture version 4.05 through Windows Update shortly after the Win 10 update.

 

Hey everyone, this is a long shot...but here goes.

I have a damaged motherboard for my Asus ux51vz ....silly story, but it doesn't power up. The model of the motherboard is Asus PN:60-NWOMB1A01-B08(B08)

I have located the burned out component and I have an acquaintance that is capable of replacing said component.

The problem is that we cannot identify the surface mounted component because it has no markings and we have no schematics.

Would anyone have any shot at identifying the burned out component in the three images I have linked below (each image is a slightly closer view)? Or does anyone know where I can get a schematic with this info? Asus says I have to send it in.

thanks for any help you might have!

Mark

Wide Shot

Closer Shot

Super Close-UP

 

Looks like a surface mount inductor, but you wont find that detailed level of schematic around as that gets into confidential territory.

 

When I succeeded in destroying the same board (also a silly thing ... don't solder electronics without a grounded solder tip) I just bought a new one and replaced that. That is probably a better choice for you too as the visibly damaged component is most likely not the only damaged thing on the board, there could even be burned traces inside the PCB.

Edit: oops didn't look close enough - that's the motherboard and not the I/O connector. The same problems apply though even if finding a motherboard is a "bit" harder.

 

It is also more expensive, but the same rules still apply.

 

UX51VZ-XB71, Windows 10 Pro (in place upgraded from 8 to 8.1 to 10)
So I completed my update to Windows 10. The biggest issue I have is with the ASUS Smart Gesture. If I use version 2.1.3, it runs OK with some limited issues. When I update to 4.x: When I use certain applications like Excel and Outlook 2013/365.. I will click on a blank and start typing but it wont recognize I am typing until I click again on that same blank.. it could be the body of an e-mail, could be entering a name on the "to:" line it could be a cell on an Excel spreadsheet, etc.. I also get limited movement... its almost like the driver doesn't recognize my 2880 x 1620 screen..more like it thinks its 1920 x 1200 or something like that.. very short movements on the pad compared to the 2.1.3 driver. And I have played with the mouse setting for Motion Speed and Enhanced precision on and off. Windows keeps wanting to update the driver to version 4.x and failing but occasionally it successfully does this and I have to uninstall 4.x and go back to 2.x

 

Hi guys,

I upgraded my UX51VZ to Windows 10. Everything is fine but my audio issue (a little bit buzzy) remains It was the same with Windows 8. I have troubles too with credit card via HDMI. The screen size on second one is not perfectly fitting and if I start a video with Itunes I cannot see anything but sounds. Anybody can help me? Thanks in advance.

 

Have a look at the scaling options in the Intel control panel for your second display.

 

Hey guys was thinking about buying a used U500vz and was wondering how have yours held up over the years/with windows 10?

Bought one before but unfortunately the dedicated GPU didn't want to work

Also, does anybody know any newer laptops with near identical specs ?

 

I got mine back in June, 2013 and it continues to perform nicely with Windows 10. It even got dropped from about 3 feet onto a concrete floor recently and came through with a couple of scratches on the bottom of the case, but no screen or other damage.

 

It can depend a lot on where the impact is on drops, you either get away with a scratch or something seriously busts.

 

So, it sounds like there are two problems that people have after upgrade to windows 10:
1) the touchpad smart gesture software may not work. A re-installation appears to fix this for almost everyone.
2) the webcam app reports an error, but the camera seems to work fine regardless.

Anyone encountered any other issues? I'd like to upgrade, but want to be sure as best I can that it is stable and I won't run into unexpected problems.

 

I have also done this fix with my computer because one of the SSDs began to fail just out of warranty (of course). It has worked great for me. I ended up going with a 500GB Samsung EVO m.2 and not using RAID to avoid the associated issues. My understanding (and experience) is that the RAID 0 does not really give much real-world advantage for most users.
As it says in the posted how-to, there is some minor interference with the bottom case with no obvious way it could be avoided entirely. Nonetheless, my computer has worked perfectly since the repair.

 

I have also encountered this issue almost always when trying to resume after sleep mode. I don't know the cause and I *do* have the latest BIOS, but at least there seems to no damage or further problems caused by shutting down and restarting.

 

Yes, those were my only two issues with #1 being fixed. I still occasionally get the "Something went wrong" message with the camera, but as mentioned, the camera works fine with apps such as Skype.

 

I have had mine since the summer of 2013 and it is still running strong without any flaws whatsoever. I have also replaced the factory thermal paste with AS5 just to make sure the temps are kept down.

 

The successor of the UX51 is the ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501.

 

I had this issue too. Sometimes I have to reboot many times to start the machine. And now it's completely dead at that black screen. I sent it to a local laptop repair shop. They replaced the graphic chip and could only boot for once and then black screen again. I think this is the end of this laptop.

Also since it's using a non-standard SSD, it took me nearly two weeks to buy adapters and setup virtual raid 0 environment to export the data.

 

Hello, I am in the exact same situation. My Asus U500VZ has crashed and I want to retrieve data from the unharmed SSDs. What adapters did you buy and how did you retrieve the data? I have been i contact with nearly all repair shops here in Sweden and they all tell me "We do not have the adapters for these SSDs". I am thinking how hard can it be to retrieve data from unharmed drives? Well, apparently it is nearly impossible here without handing them in to an expert repair shop and pay thousands of dollars.

If you could reply or PM me I would be truly grateful because I really want back my data from the SSDs.

 

Use key words like 'ux31 SSD to sata adapter' to search either in ebay or amazon, then you can get many results.
like:
ebay
amazon
I bought it on Ebay, around $10 each.

After you get the adapters and installed the ssd on them, you can plug them into desktop and setup virtual RAID 0 environment. I'm using DiskGenius to setup the environment. But there should be other tools can also do the job. There are two things that I found during the setup. First, you need to try add SSD1 first and then SSD2, or add SSD2 first then SSD1 to see which order works. Second, in one setting, dont remember the name of it, you need to change the default 64k to 128k. After that, you can export your data.

 

Thank you for the information!

I have now received my adapters and they seem to work. However, I have had some problems trying to retrieve my data.

1. When I look in my device manager it states that one of the disks is called "Intel raid 0 volume" and the other one "SanDisk128gb.........". Basically one is found as a regular disk with the correct name (the SanDisk one) and the other one will be recognized as something else. What is the Intel Raid 0 Volume? Is it correct?

2. Could you please elaborate on what you did to retrieve the data using the software? Did you use the free version of DiskGenius of the paid one? I've tried several different free softwares and almost all of them will find my "SanDisk..."-disk but have problems finding the other one.

3. I am starting to think if there is some kind of mechanical problem either with my connections (I connected them both with the SATA express on my motherboard) or with the actual disks.

Do you have any thought on what I might be doing wrong and was your disks also recognized by different names?

One last thing. When I do a regular recovery on my SanDisk-disk I find all the data on it (no raid setup) but when I try to do the same on the other disk the scan gets stuck at about 25% and it sort of stays that way until I close the program (the program shows that, up until those 25%, it has found a lot of RAW files with .mkv ending and those are the files I need!! but I cant save/extract them since they are RAW and not NTFS). Is that an indication that ther might be something wrong with the disk or is it an indication on that I need to setup a Raid environment?

When I try to setup a Raid 0 environment and get to the stage where I need to add the disks I can only manage to find (and add) the SanDisk-disk. Once again, an indication that there is something wrong with the disk?

All help is appreciated!! Thanks in advance

 

1. It should be fine, as long as computer can recognize these two ssd.

2. I used the Pro version, because i have been using it for long time. As i mentioned in my last post, when you were creating virtual raid, you should try adding these two ssd in different order to see adding which one in the first will work.

tools=>construc virtual raid=>add disk(adding two ssds)=> set Block size to 128kb=>OK and done!

If the software having problem finding the 2nd ssd, i think you may try insert it to another sata port on the MB, or switch the adapter with another ssd. Or if you have hard drive enclosure, you can connect it through usb.

Even you recovery data without raid 0, you can't get your data back. It may shows some file but not all of them.

 

Thank you for the answer. However I managed to solve all of this simply by uninstalling "Intel Rapid Storage Technology". Once I did that the second disk got recognized as a normal disk and after that it was easy to recover the data.

Thank you for your help, without it I wouldn't have found out about the specific adapters in the first place.

 

Hey friends,
I am parting out my UX51VZ. If anyone wants to purchase a spare part, let me know and I'll tell you if I have it. Right now, I have the screen, back cover, keyboard, touchpad, speaker. My motherboard is damaged, but I still have it and I also have the IO Board with all the connections. Email me directly at markhay29@gmail (.com) , and I'll let you know if I have what you need.
thanks!
Mark

 

Hello,

I have a UX51VZ updated to Win 10 and want to burn a set of recovery DVDs as 2x128GB SSDs are both getting old and insufficent for my files. My recovery partition is intact. How can I make factory recovery DVDs? Thanks.

 

I've upgrade my 2x Sandisk 128GB SSD's to 2x Samsung M.2 850 EVO's (SATA 6G). I used two of these adapters: http://www.ebay.nl/itm/321843326589?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT and they fit perfectly!

Before ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/img_20160805_193932-jpg.137545/):

After ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/img_20160805_193932-jpg.137547/):

 

Can somebody tell me what the fix for the idle fan noise was, without having to search through all the pages?

Thanks in advance.

 

Sure
You have to use the following software https://www.computerbase.de/forum/showthread.php?t=1070494 .

 

Hi, blowing life in this thread, i'm from Sweden i'm looking for a motherboard fro my Asus U500Zv 15,6 full hd ips.
I think i might have blown a something when i changed out the DC Jack in on the board.
Any ideas of were to find these?

Any help i nice.
MVh Seb