Asus N550JV - user review and owners lounge

I am not happy with the keyboard on this laptop. Is there a simple way to replace all of the keys with black ones from another Asus laptop or some other generic kit that would work?

 

You would need to find a keyboard with the same cap mechanism and size and the try not to snap anything as you take them off.

 

Hello everyone!
I'm really interested in this laptop (the jk version), there's one thing that I don't like about this laptop: the battery!
So I have some questions for the owners: How is the battery doing in this laptop? I think that the heat (specially while gaming) will damage the sealed-in battery...?
Can some one tell us his experience with this type of battery?
Thank you!

 

NEVER MIND everyone. This is normal. I had a chance to compare it to an identical model. **Relieved**!

 

I only have the JV version but apart from the GPU I do have the same parts in there right now (7260 WiFi card). My usual battery life while working, which includes browsing the web, running calculations, etc., is usually around 4 hours. One setting I did change was to allow the CPU to go down to minimum power level. By default it was using a minimum of 1.6 GHz or something like that. Letting it downclock to 0.8 GHz didn't appear to slow it down significantly.

 

For your information, the radiators and the battery are located on opposite sides of the chassis. Hot air will not reach the battery.

 

Does anyone know if the keyboard keys can be popped off like on a regular keyboard? Some keys don't work from time to time so I'm guessing there is some dirt beneath mine.

 

It can be popped off but it won't be good, since the clip can be broken therefore losing its grip.

 

Seriously I never owned a laptop with so many issues. This is what happened to me today. Any ideas?

 

Ummmm....I doubt that just "happened". Did you drop the laptop or drop something on it?

 

No, seriously, it just happened. There was a weird popping sound every time when opening a lid ever since I bought it but I never really give a ***, and one nice morning it just opened itself completely.
I strongly recommend not to buy this laptop to anyone, it almost feels like a prototype or something, so many things about it not thought out. Hopefully the revamped N56 don't have those issues.

 

I've had my unit for almost a year, and although it has it's faults it's still a very nice unit for the price. The only engineering mistake I think Assus made with this unit was the extra pressure on the keyboard cable which led to some people having problems with their keyboard. (some keys in particular, since probably only one pin in the cable got disconnected). The other major issue is the crash of the Nvidia driver, but I really doubt it is Asus' fault, since it's a common problem among notebooks from various manufacturers with Optimus tech.

Other than that, you are the first person with a separated screen. My unit has had a perfectly working hinge from day one. The rest of the owners on this forum did not complain about it either.

As I previously stated in a post on this thread, I would not recommend this unit as a workstation, but as a multimedia unit it is a nice offer. I really doubt similarly priced units from other OEMs are fault free.

 

I've also had my unit for almost a year now and i have no blemish on the laptop. Yours could be a defective unit which doesn't mean the laptop has a systemic problem.
And as coercitiv said, the keyboard unresponsiveness can be a problem at the times it occurs, which for me is rarely these days and for me personally, the rather small battery. The gpu problem has completely disappeared for me since the last bios update, 208 i think.

 

Hey!

I just got an Asus n550jv and I am having trouble getting all the performance out of the card. I have been looking at notebookcheck.com at the 750m card and I seem to be 20-30% lower than their numbers.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

Take Diablo 3 for example, I am getting around 40 fps instead of their 60 fps at 1920x1080 with all at max. When I track my GPU usage with Afterburner it is sitting around 65-70% though so I am using all my GPU, neither is my CPU with no single core going above 40%. I have set everything I can find to performance mode (Asus hybrid4Gear and in the nvidia control panel). Temps seem to be around 65-70 degrees for the GPU.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Dark keys would provide more contrast in a dark environment. That's what the keyboard lacks; contrast. In your example, the keys are silver and the laptop is silver. The problem is there is very little contrast between the silver keys and silver laptop. Then to make things even worse, the keys' lettering is silver when backlit as well as non-backlit. In many lighting conditions, the lettering doesn't even show up. Right now, I have my laptop at almost eye level on a rack. The lettering is absolutely invisible when looking from the side. I have to hold a flashlight 3" from the keyboard to read the lettering. Backlighting is even worse visually. Every laptop I have owned before that had backlighting had black keys with white letters. I always keep backlighting on at all times.

If Asus sold a replacement black keyboard they would make a mint. Other than the incredibly cheap drawer DVD drive, I love the laptop. The plastic bezel that sticks out and doesn't line up properly really spoils the beauty.

 

Recently bought this amazing laptop. Upgraded bios to 208. Downgraded to windows ultimate 7. Everything perfect so far.
But I need Linux on it .
I do not want to clean-install Debian or mess up my partition table but going with wubi installation 14.04 Ubuntu , and I can't , as after wubi downloads and firstboots to install I get an error of no root where to install it.

If anyone knows what I am talking about and has any tips for me please help.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hello everyone!

After reading through all pages (which solved the majority of the issues I had at first, like throttling) I decided to make my own (first) post here

I have been enjoying this beautiful laptop for a few weeks now, but one thing worries me a bit: the audio-in is a bit sensitive. I own Sennheiser HD518's, and sometimes when plugging it in it doesn't get recognized at first, so I have to slightly fiddle with the audio jack to get it recognized. I only have to fiddle around a tiny bit, but is this normal?

Thanks for reading!

EDIT:
So my Intel 7260-AC arrived today, but I can't seem to open the laptop. I bought a TX5 and TX6 screwdriver, but the TX5 seems to be too small, whereas the TX6 is too big. Any advice?

EDIT 2:
Never mind the part about the screws, the screwdriver just wasn't made very well

 

Has anyone managed to find replacement screws for the back panel?

 

I just got this computer yesterday and so far it's working great for me. However, I have the touch version as that is the only one I could find, and the glare is really annoying. Can anyone recommend a good matte screen protector for me? Thanks.

 

Hi!

So I have had my laptop for almost a year now, and everything is just perfect.

My only issue is that I am having trouble with audio in jack, it no longer detects any headphones/line in jacks. I have a DAC so I don't have a work around, but was wondering if anyone else has manages to solve this issue!

 

I have this laptop for over an year now, still I cannot fix one problem.

I play Company of Heroes 2 and there is frame drop every 30 secs or 1 min. Frames drop from like from smooth 80 fps to 5-10 fps with crackling sound and then after few seconds go back to normal and again frame drop. I am having this issue from day one on CoH2 but all other games run very smoothly.

I have tried every nVidia driver with almost every possible pc and game settings. Bios is also updated to 208.

During full load the CPU temp is around 65'C and GPU temp is around 68-71'C. I am using notebook fan control and targus lap chill mat.

If I play game with integrated graphics it plays with constant 22-25 fps with no frame drops.

CoH2 is the only game I play most and bought this laptop for that only. I someone can help me it would be really appreciated. Feel free to ask me any aditional info regarding this problem. Thank you.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EVW6G9W?pc_redir=1406938664&robot_redir=1

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I use this laptop for about 8 to 9 months now, it works really well but I got two minor problems:

The first one is about the keyboard, it shows some wear of the keys which I, apparantely, use the most:





Does anybody else experience this? Should I replace the keyboard for another one. I think the problem had something to do with the paint since the keys are not painted on the places were the "sign" is denoted.

The second problem is about the audio jack, since a month it is not working well anymore. Once I plug in the jack it will say, headphone detected for a second, and then it undetects the headphone and starts playing over the loudspeakers. If I plug the jack a little bit out, just before the part where it "lock" itself, the headphone will work. Anyone else exeperienced this?

Thanks,
Niek

 

1. Contact ASUS and see if you can send the system in to get the keyboard replaced under warranty.
2. You can test other jack with the same headphone, then assign the jack as audio output, see if it works.
Or you can try updating the audio driver to the latest version to verify the issue.
Realtek Audio driver

 

Battery is showing 6% wear, is this normal from straight out of the box?

The store I got it from said it was sealed unit and they only just cut the tag open while/before bringing out from the back store room to show me (pretty sure they are lying). I could see (once I got home) they had opened it a long time before yesterday and used if briefly as the power cords were not wrapped up and the twisty ties have been remove, also there was a little bit of dust around the screen with a couple of spit marks on the panel, dirt on the rubber feet. They can't of used it long, as could see from the sticker on the side of the box they got it in store on the 28th of May, although they may have had it out of the box over the last couple of months.

I am not to worried about being opened to much, there as no issues (like dead pixels or keyboard/trackpad problems) with anything from what I can see from one night usage, but wondering how much they cycled the battery, as if they have cycled this thing badly (e.g. flicking off the power at night and letting it run down with out shutting down) over the last 2.5 months I don't know if I want this unit. HWINFO will only tell me the wear level and not the cycle count. Is there anyway to find out the cycle count?

 

It's simply imperfection but doesn't mean it''s defective.
Many batteries are made with some percentage of wear instead of 0%.
Unfortunately, this is how most of Chinese-made batteries are.

 

1. I use the laptop for my study, so there is no possibility to send it back since that would atleast cost a couple of weeks.
2. Updated the driver, no difference. Other headphones show the same issue, it is definitely something inside the laptop.

Any other ideas?

 

Have you tried cleaning the audio jack ?

The keyboard wear is typical from regular use.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

The alternate way is to have them ship you a keyboard, but you may need to pay since it's an accessory order.
So call first, and find out what options you actually have.
Have you tried plugging the headphone into other jack? Such as Mic jack.

 

Ok thanks, I have brought ~10 laptop over the last 4 years, all of them were 0% and I think all were Li-ion, except for 2x MacBook Pro's both of which reported 0%. Just seemed unusual.

I notices the charging stops at 98% in windows. I was hoping to get to 100% then I could enter the BIOS and then let it drain down to 0% to calibrate it?

Do the polymer batteries need any calibration.

 

Don't do calibration if this is a new battery, the protection circuit is built-in to prevent overcharging therefore 95 - 100% isn't a charging state.

 

Thank heaps for the advice, someone else that is very well qualified recommended I do calibration, even though I did question it with the guy.

 

The reason I don't recommend it because you lose 1 life cycle out of 500 from doing that.
Not that we care about a single cycle, but because we don't see the real benefit behind calibration.

 

The laptop has only one 3.5mm jack, so I can't test that.

Will try to contact asus and see if they can send me a replacement keyboard.

 

I store I purchase it from said they opened the packaging seal as they were bring out the laptop to show me it before I purchased it, as they had none on display. They insisted that the unit was not used by anyone and they had only broken the seal in their store room 5 minutes before showing me. I know they were lying as when I got the power brick out when at home the cords had been undone, and they are dust around the frame of the screen.

You might understand why I want to do this. I might lose one single battery cycle, but the store may have cycled the battery many time over, I am guessing maybe up to 80 times, going on a sticker I found on the side of the box when it was added to their inventory definitely few months ago.

I have tried HWinfo and AIDA64, they only show wear level only. I need to find the cycle count, I don't like been lied to staying that is hasn't been used by anyone. Is there any way and accurate way to check cycle count?

 

It is possible but we've seen few new units doing this with brand new battery too.
There's no accurate way to check cycle count since it's more like a reasonable estimate as a minimum number.

 

Hey guys,
I have a N550JV-201H and I'm using Windows 7 on it. I have noe idea what I did, but every time I start the PC the Fan starts running with full speed. I've checked the CPU temps and they're way far from needing he fans (between 30 and 35 Celsius). After I installed Windows 7 the System was perfectly quiet.
Anyone has an idea what could be the problem?

 

When did it start happening? Was there anything strange around that time? Have you powered down the system without battery and AC? Have you tried reflashing the bios?

 

Which bios version are you using ? Are you using notebook fancontrol ? I had the same issue with it.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Guys, anyone know what a normal idle temperature is on this laptop? I've had it since January and it always felt hot above the keys F2 to F9, never thought that much about it, but i donwloaded Open Hardware Monitor today just to check what the temperature was like. Looks like my idle is between 65-69 Celcius



This isnt normal right? I'm not running any apps, only thing running in memory are dropbox and samsung magician. I never do any gaming, only use Chrome and uttorrent, although i did the temperature test with no running apps. I had opened the pc some month ago and could see both fans running, and they have always ran since i got the pc, on a steady idle-kind-of-speed, i rarly hear they go up in speed.

What is your idle temperatures? What can i do to cool it down? Does Bios update help with anything like this?

 

It should be around 50-60C, perhaps it's time to clean up the notebook internally.
Repaste it after if the temp is still high.

 

Thank u for your reply
I might open it up and take a look, but i fear the screws on the backplate doesnt survive another go, they are so fragile.
I always keep my laptop on a dedicaded laptopplate, so i'm pretty sure its (most likely) dustfree.

But when temperatures go over 60-70C degress, shouldnt the fans really kick in? They are always in this quite idle. Will a bios update do anything with the handling of fans? im on ver. 207, I see there is a 208 version available, with changelog "BIOS 208 Reset dgpu GC" I have no idea what that mean though.

I also read something about a fan control software, would that be any help for me?

edit:
I think i may fixed it, though im not sure how. I went to powercontrolls, and where the fanpolicy was, it was on aktive, i set it to passive and back to aktive, allthough that make no sence. Then i set the max cpu to 99% (read that in this thread in regards to cpu throttling (even though thats another issue)
The cpu load also down by alot, and also ram and power consumption gone down

 

I tried using FanControl but it didn't help and also couldn't quite work with the Notebook. I could read all temps but I wasn't able to change anything, so I uninstalled it. Bios is flashed with the current version availabla (I think it's the 209) but I didn't reflash it, because it always says that I can't flash because the Version from the Website is an older one than the one currently installed. But the Version Info and the Date is identical.
The notebook works without any problems, no strange behaviour. Just the fan running all the time. I powered down completely, no change. The fan keeps running wo matter whether I'm on AC or Battery.
When I reboot and enter the Bios the fan shuts down. But as soon Windows 7 is up and running, the fan ramps up again. But the temperature stays low. CPU load is also barely noticeable, so nothing is working on the CPU.
@d3p: How did you resolve this issue?

 

Mine was resolved when I uninstalled Notebook FanControl. Did you had same issue with Windows 8 ?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Your After temperatures are very normal. Under idle the cpu temp is between 35-45 and gpu is between 40-45. I am also using a Targus lap chill mat, that also help. Only use the fans in laptop cooler when I game and temp never went up than 70 for CPU and 75 for GPU.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

That looks awesome ironman666.

 

I used Windows 8 just for a few days. No problems there. But under Windows 7 for the first 3-4 months I didn't have any problems either. It has to be some issue from Windows 7 but I have no idea what controls the fans under Windows 7. I thought the fan is always controlled via Bios but there seems to be something overwriting this.

 

Did anyone experience any problems adding a second hdd (ssd on the main disk spot) through hdd caddy? Some problems with shutting down are mentioned.
+ Where did you buy a caddy, is the one from "http://hddcaddy.eu/" any different from those on ebay from china or US? Cause there is some price difference...

 

Has anyone else had problems with the webcam after Windows 8.1?

Mine used to flicker on and off and since I reinstalled the driver from the Device Manager it is just does not turn on. Does anyone else have a new driver or a solution? I've contacted ASUS support but there doesn't seem to be any new driver in their databases such as https://www.asustreiber.de/home/webcam. My webcams hardware id is USB\VID_13D3&PID_5188&REV_0814&MI_00