Asus N550JV - user review and owners lounge

Personally i really like it.
Wrote an article about the notebook on the keyboard to test it and i wasn't disappointed. Programming on it is fine as well.
Typing is fast and mostly without faults, the height of the keys is good because you don't slip from one to another(like it happened to me with the Chronos 770Z5E) and the stroke is ok.
Never used a Macbook or Thinkpad(this one only really short entering my name...;-) ) so i might have no comparison to that but i'm fine with it.


@djtamayo:
Thanks for hint, didn't know there was already another BIOS version

 

battery life is just awesome once you change a few things...i got 6-7 hours now. Crazy.

 

what did you change??

 

He changed the wifi card and replaced the HDD with a SSD. His model is also a bit more energy efficient since it has a HD screen, which has lower power consumption.

 

Anyone with windows 7 ? I cant properly install ethernet driver. It says "realtek network controller was not found". Wifi works good but i dont have ethernet adapter

 

remove realtek drivers. bios update to 206 won't help you

 

I returned an Ativ Book 8 yesterday because of several issues and have come back to looking at this. One question I have is, on the underside, are there any uneven points of wear? On the Ativ Book 8 (which has a plastic underside) I noticed after two weeks that there was a spot on the bottom where the paint was beginning to rub off. I checked the two in-store demo models they had, and they had the same issue.

I'm assuming not as this has an all aluminum chassis, but I want to be sure. I just do not want my laptop looking beat up after 1-2 months of use (I'll be bringing it to school, that makes it even a little worse), even if it's just at the bottom.

 

I'm using Windows 7 and 3 other devices without drivers
-Ethernet Controller
-Universal Serial Bus(USB) COntroller
-USB2.0-CRW
Any idea how to fix it ? I tried several realtek lan drivers and without success

 

The rubber feet should be enough to stop any surface rubbing on the casing.

 

Did you try the drivers available on the realtek website?
Realtek PCIe Gigabit Ethernet.

For the card reader, have you already tried the Windows 8 driver? It should work, as the card reader drivers are for everything betweem Win XP - Win 8.1.

 

Right now I installed that driver and it works! (It was stated in review but still thanks). Now my USB ports dont work, missing uSB controller idk why, yesterday it works fine. Maybe I installed some drivers which broke it up. Now i go google and try to fix it

 

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/De...rodId=3467&DwnldID=22824&keyword=usb&lang=eng this fixed my usb

 

Thanks for sharing, always worth grabbing the latest chipset drivers and such from intel directly anyway.

 

Any major changes in BIOS 206?

 

People sure do worry about strange things - have you ever heard of a laptop failing due to "uneven wear" on the bottom??

FWIW the bottom is a continuous flat piece of metal, so I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

I also have a Das mechanical - unfortunately this keyboard is so good is basically ruins other keyboards for you!

I would say the keyboard on the notebook is about average - not amazing, not terrible. It's a bit worse than the k/b on my similar Sony Vaio. I find the keys a bit 'slippery', and I wish they had more travel. However I have no problems typing on it.

 

IMHO you would be crazy to get the touch version - I looked at both and found the display almost unusable due to reflections. It would be unusable outside, and bad in any situation with backlighting, not to mention constantly having fingerprints on it.

The non-touch screen is beautiful...

 

I replaced the Atheros chipset wireless card with an intel card.

The physical process was easy, although the screws in the bottom are alarmingly poor quality and feel like they could be stripped very easily. I used a proper torx T5 and proceeded very carefully. Swapping the card was simple, unscrewing one screw, pulling of the aerial connectors, gently pulling the old card out and then reversing the process with the new one.

Windows 8 found drivers straight away, but they were not the most up to date - intel makes these available. Once I set my router to AES the performance was much, much, much better than the card that came with the laptop. The link is much more stable, the connection speed is higher, and the transfer rate is also higher.

A quick, easy and cheap upgrade... recommended.

 

None that I noticed.

 

No, but I've heard of laptops breaking in certain spots due to uneven wear. I will be toting the laptop around with me quite a bit. If I see wear on one particular spot a lot more than on any other spot, I am going to be concerned that the plastic piece at that particular point may break sooner rather than later (even if it doesn't though, it is still a blemish. Who wants a marked up laptop that is only 2 weeks old?). With that spot on the Ativ Book 8 being slightly off center on the bottom, that wouldn't speak well for the laptop lasting very much longer, especially as I was seeing it after just two weeks of it laying on my desk and in my lap and I saw it in the exact same spots on the two demo models.

 

I would be think long and hard about installing Windows 8.1. Not only does this install seems buggy as hell, requiring a restart almost every time the computer is waken from sleep to use an external mouse, but the Start icon only takes you to the same Windows 8 app menu that takes forever to navigate and find the program you want. It does nothing to bring Windows back to a familiar desktop. The kicker is that once you install 8.1, you will be forced to reload your OS when the release version is out. MS has stated you cannot migrate from the beta. I should have read more about this before installing, it would have saved me time and hassle. There's lots of stupid little bugs. I guess now at least if I am going to reinstall my OS, sure as hell will be putting Windows 7 on there instead of 8.

 

I am repeating myself but: StartIsBack! If you still don't like Windows 8 with it then i think you won't even like it if Microsoft would bring back the Startmenu themselves.
It's such a small and nice program that just gives you back what you are missing, nothing more and nothing less.
Also it looks like it was thought to be there, the icon and the design fit perfectly with Windows 8 and apart from that it's simply the Windows 7 Startmenu.

Though i don't know if the developer already released a Windows 8.1 capable version you'd have to reinstall Windows 8 first. (But yea, there is a 8.1 capable version, just looked it up)
I had a picture made here already -> http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-reviews-owners-lounges/725116-asus-n550jv-user-review-owners-lounge-45.html#post9344713
Also it's free for 30 days and after that you need to buy it for 3$(2 PC Licenses) or 5$(5 PC Licenses) but i think that's peanuts and a worthy investment.

 

One question i thought i've already seen the answer to but i can't find it anymore: Which size does the ODD have? 12.7mm or 9.5? As there some people that changed the ODD with a SSD there should be someone that can give me the size
I want to order a SSD and a bay today and already found a bay but now i'm not sure which size it has.

Thanks!

 

It's limited to 9.5mm.

 

I used my lap on battery a lot recently and battery life is so over my expectations. Damn, i watched two episodes of 90 minutes of Sherlock holmes, then two 45 minutes videos on youtube, a little websurfing etc...and still have some juice left. Crazy. With wifi on and 50% brightness. At idle, windows indicates 10 hours of battery life and according to my tests which are not in any ways accurate, i think i get around 7 hours of watching movies, websurfing etc...used my lap almost all day without pluggin it. Got 18% left, indicates me 1h54 min left.

I think it's mostly due to the intel N2230 wifi card that consumes 4-5W less than the Atheros stock card. I also have only one 8GB ddr3 stick that consumes 0,5W less compared to two sticks at idle. At full load with -100mv and one stick , i get 68W max vs 74W max with 2 sticks, so 6W less. In games it's 4-5W less too for basically exact same perfs. The ssd also helps a bit i think (I got a 128GB serie Q Toshiba). I use the 1TB HDD via usb 3 now.

I surf with Firefox and ad blockers plugins with cpu at 25, 25, 30, 30 multipliers and -100mV in xtu.

Watching a avi video consumes 13-14W, a mkv 16-17W, pretty much the same for a youtube video, web browsing almost never peaks over 20W for a few seconds then go back to 11W once the page is loaded etc...I'm so far from the 3h30-4h from the reviews.

I don't think my 768p screen consumes less than the full HD screen according to reviews numbers. Maybe a little. I think that the stock wifi card is the component to blame or its bad drivers i don't know. Then the HDD.

 

@coercitiv: Thanks.

@Kallogan:

Asking again as i didn't get an answer last time: How are you measuring your consumption?

 

I have a Wattmeter. So the numbers i gave are when i'm plugged at 80% brightness and wifi on. They should be a little lower when i'm on battery since the screen is only at 50% on battery mode (basically 1W less). The difference of power consumption between screen off and screen at 100% is around 3-4W. Screen brightness doesn't make that much of a difference.

I don't use Power4gear btw, it's totally useless.

 

Ah ok, thanks.

 

So to make it short, if your Asus came with Atheros wifi card, just swappin' it for a 2230N (I can't speak for other wifi modules) should give you a 5 hours solid battery life in theory. It's like the 2230N was made for the N550JV, the wifi link is rock stable and its power consumption is ridiculously low. I'd say it worth the shot for those who cares about battery life.

 

I find it strange that you are having issues. I must disagree too - it definitely does bring Windows 8 back to being a desktop centric experience if you want it to be. You need to find the various options required, especially -

- boot straight to desktop
- use the 'list of everything' version of the start menu, not the 'metro home' version or the 'list of just apps' version

The start menu now works pretty much the same as the Windows 7 one in terms of its most useful function, which is finding what you want when you type the first few letters of whatever it is you are after.

By making it boot to desktop, you never have to see the metro home screen again.

And I haven't experienced any issues with frequent reboots - it took a couple of reboots once installed, but has been fine since.

And I'm not sure what your source is, but I have read a statement from Microsoft that indicates that most systems should be able to migrate straight from 8.1 preview to 8.1 final.

I am as much of a fan of Windows 7 as anyone, and I think Windows 8 is a huge mistake by MS, but since installing 8.1 I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer worth the hassle of moving back to 7, especially given that Windows 8 has better power management, slightly better games performance, and is overall a more lightweight OS.

Still, each to his/her own...

 

Well, unless you are putting this machine on an uneven surface I don't think you'll have any problems. And based on my examination of its innards, everything is neatly packed away and fairly flat, and unlikely to be damaged by contact to the bottom of the machine.

 

@Kallogan: Another question i forgot to ask: Do you know if it is possible to launch XTU with a previously saved profile silently and minimized? I don't want a splash screen which needs me to wait so i can minimize the program every time, it's a bit annoying.

 

Which Intel card did you use?

 

Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235:

Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6235

Only cost me about $25ish from memory. Seems to be Intel's entry level low-power, wireless-n card.

 

Guys what do you think, is this a good deal and do you think that its a good and reliable laptop at all?
Asus N550JV DB72T 15 6" FullHD Touchscreen i7 4700HQ 16GB 250GB SSD 2GB 750M | eBay
And what about computer upgrade king reliablity?

 

Mine is definitely buggy, but the worst is my mouse almost never works after I resume from sleep. When I google the problem it seems to be a very common issue with no resolution as of yet. I was using Start8 and was quite happy with a real start menu and never seeing the metro home screen ever again. The app list in the start menu of 8.1 definitely is not a desktop centric menu. It takes way too long to scan for programs you want, does not have pinable lists, no links to control panel/computer/etc, and I don't think typing a name to find a program does anything other than add to the pain that is finding a program. I don't mind it for obscure system programs like services.msc and such, but not my every day used programs. It is definitely necessary to continue running 3rd party software just to have a decent desktop experience with 8.1.

To me Windows 8 seems to me like it is nothing more than just a huge push into getting people to become completely reliant on a Windows store and their apps so they can make additional revenue like Apple has been doing for awhile now, but this being even more intrusive than iTunes store since core desktop functions are built into their dumb little store.

 

That sounds strange - when I hit the Windows key and start typing I get instant results on my laptop.

I guess maybe we used the Win 7 start menu differently. I virtually never navigated through the (poorly organised) submenus, and almost always typed a few letters of what I wanted then hit enter. So for me, the 8.1 arrangement is functionally identical. Presumably you spent a lot of time organising your Windows 7 start menu programs etc, because without a lot of maintenance in my experience they just become a massive, jumbled list of random stuff anyway.

And you can group programs in the 8.1 start menu IIRC - and things like control panel and system settings definitely are there.

I'm not arguing that the interface is better than Windows 7 - it's not. But other aspects of the OS under the hood are superior, and IMHO the interface in 8.1 is close enough to how I used Windows 7 to be acceptable.

I might have a different view if I was having persistent problems with drivers, which it sounds like you are with your mouse.

 

Hello everybody. I am new to this forum. I just bought the Asus N550JV. I am having very odd performance issues with the PC so far. I have updated the graphics driver to the newest by Nvidia but even though I get a very low score of 1184 in 3DMark 11 compared to 2678 score made by notebookcheck in their review of the exact same model. Review Asus N550JV-CN201H Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews. Does anyone know what might be the problem? Is there something I am missing? Any help would be much appreciated Best regards, Frederik

 

Why start it minimized? Once you set something in XTU it will stick even after shutdown/reboot, unless the watchdog detects a system crash.

Make sure the benchmark is run on the Nvidia card.

 

Ehm ok, i always thought it would be a plain software solution which only has it's effects while running.
I didn't know it is really writing something to the hardware.

So if i put the -100mV and save it i don't need to load it the next time after reboot?

 

As far as i know, it is plain software, but it must have some persistent module which loads automatically. I didn't have the time to check how it works, but i did observe that once i had set a dynamic undervolt using XTU, it would stay like that after any shutdown/reboot, unless a system crash happened.

Long story short, if you set an undervolt and hit APPLY, it will stay like that after reboot. However, this setting will be brought back to default if a system crash happens.

 

Did you notice any improvement in battery life ?

As for xtu, the settings always stick after reboot and normal sleep. Only deep sleep or system crash will reset settings, but Windows 8 never crash for me. You can deactivate deep sleep (hibernate) in power settings or just delete hyberfil.sys via command prompt. I applied my xtu settings 2 weeks ago and they still stick, so i don't worry about it anymore.

 

Hi guys!!

what app did you put in your left button???

 

How are your screens holding up? Mine is already getting keyboard marks..

 

Thanks for the info!

 

I'm looking to replace the 1tb HDD with a 256gb SSD, and then putting the 1tb HDD into a HDD caddy for the optical drive bay. I've seen a lot of posts in this thread about people doing this, but no specifics about which particular caddy to use. I have no experience with customizing laptops, so I'd love some help.

Can anyone suggest / link me a caddy that works with this particular laptop? Thanks!

 

I am not really using the machine much off mains so not sure what it was like previously, unfortunately.

However a few days later I can confirm that the wireless is much better with the intel card.

 

Is there anyway to remap the media fn keys on the arrow keys to a program besides windows media player?

@notebook destroyer yeah i get those marks too but just keep wiping your screen and they wont build up.

 

Those are standard multimedia keys, any program that supports that will use them. For example i use them with Winamp, but i did have to enable them in Options > Global Hotkeys.

Or keep a piece of thin cloth over the keyboard. I still use the material that came with the unit.

However, i just did a quick test on my matte display version: i added tiny droplets of water on 10-12 of the most central keys on the keyboard to see if any of them touch the screen. I closed the lid twice and added light and moderate pressure on the lid to simulate some travel stress. None of the droplets left any mark on the screen.

 

Windows 8 doesn't seem to boot with Secure Boot off. Maybe I made some mistakes configuring the UEFI BIOS, i'm not sure. In any case, Windows in a Vritualbox or VMware VM works well under Fedora 19. PlayOnLinux and WINE run games good enough and I also have a Crossover WINE subscription for other Windows apps I want to run under Linux.

I haven't tried to turn secure boot on with grub-efi. It's on my list of things to try, but it's not that high up. The system works almost perfectly under F19 and when the 3.11 kernel RPMS come out, I won't need to custom compile the kernel for bumblebee.

I've done a short write-up of running Fedora 19 on the N550JV -

Nyblnet Labs: Running Linux on ASUS N550JV - Fedora 19