* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

Great news, have a good and tranquil recovery !

 

Holy Crap!
As i said before, i was having heating problems...
Well today i purchased some "Dust Off" for my laptop and other things (xboxes etc).
First thing i did was my N61, idle temps have dropped from about 65 to 52ish..
I got a nozzle and put it on the can and shoved that against the left side vent and dust went everywhere! It was amazing!
I reckon a can of compressed air would do that too, but anti dusting is possibly better for the internal fans etc. But a can of compressed air is alot cheaper..

For anyone debating on whether to get non-stock thermal paste, it's not much get the best you can! The OEM stuff is crap and WILL dry out after a few months to a year of use!

P.S Should i still consider new thermal paste?

 

Stock paste here and I run this thing on an external monitor and do a lot of encoding. So I can see my CPU and GPU demolishing that thermal paste.

Can it be applied without voiding the warranty?

 

Deathwiger, How's the film coming along? Do we still get to see the trailer?

 

David,
Glad to hear that the surgery went well. Have a speedy recovery & take care.

 

Sadly nope, unless you go to an Asus Service center and get them to apply it..

 

To be honset I have never really time it, but I'm guessing I'm getting between 2.5 - 3 hours under normal usage. These laptops are not know for their battery longivity.

 

Matt-Matt, I'd skip the paste, it sounds like the airways were clogged.

On my old HEL80 I used to remove the fan every few months and clean the heatsinks from the inside, it was amazing how much lint/stuff get's stuck in there. It seems like compressed air might be the way to go, but I went for the fan removal route on this machine as well out of habit. Following the disassembly guide, I removed the two screws and the cable, and pulled on the fan with as much force as I dared before giving up. I quit, worried I'd break something. Anyone have any luck pulling the fan out?

nehcrow, battery life on this thing is pretty bad, mine is running 8 months old, and I'm getting right around an hour, in power saving mode, just surfing the net and that sort of thing. The machine is a workhorse, not really meant for all day mobile computing.

And gramps50, I hate to say it, but battery time seems even worse under Ubuntu.

 

hi guys
m really confused betwn asus n61jq-b1 & asus g51jx-x1(newegg.com).
I want the laptop to play gta 4 on high settings.
Also what are the max gpu temps of n61jq.
Guys please help me decide betwn n61jq & g51jx-x1.
Thanx.

 

For gaming the G51 is slightly better
(6GB ram, and a slighlty better VGA)
Only loss is Direct x 11, but you get a better card, and 2gb more ram.
Oh and a backlit keyboard!

Edit:
Oh apparently it has 4x ram slots!
Grab it and hold onto it forever dude!

 

Hey guys,

just got this off Amazon, really happy with the deal - No tax, free shipping, and no CA recycling fee - flat out for $849! Will get it in a few days

I know the battery life's gonna be poor, but I was wondering if I can get a 9-cell or a 12-cell for it.
I also wanted to know if I need to take special care to cool it down - I plan on using it for moderate gaming, photoshop, lightroom, matlab and compiling large codes and sometimes many files at once, so I do expect it to heat up a bit, but I'd like to keep it below 65C at max load.

Thanks a lot, and looking forward to hanging out here more often
Arvind

 

65C at max under gaming seems pretty low... Mine sits at about 60 idle so...

But i dont think temps <85-90 are of any concern at all so just have fun

 

Sorry no extended life battery yet and maybe never because of the screen hinge design. Coolers don't have enough effect to make it worthwile unless you already have one. And welcome to the Lounge.

 

Thank you everyone. I have a pretty large healing time but, it is nice to have my right leg back in use.

Greg, it really is nice knowing what was going on. When the doctors take you off of meds because there "is no reason they should be working" and then you find out why they were working, it makes you feel less crazy.

Turbo, my nephew is going to get the N71JQ and is doing the backlight mod. I plugged your name in case he has any questions. Obviously, I am going to help him out but, I think it will be good experience for him and he will have fun in the lounge.

Thanks again everyone.

 

guys what are the max gpu temps under full load playing intense games.

 

I am sure your nephew will enjoy his new N71JQ. If he has any questions concerning the backlight mode he can always ask me.

 

+1 turbogear to the rescue

 

Don't forget it has a 1920x1080 screen. One of the biggest shortcomings of the N61JQ is the low resolution.

 

@Garry and Greg: Thanks for your replies! I don't have a cooler at present, but was planning to buy one just for this laptop. I'll just use it for a few days and then make a decision. The battery is definitely a bummer though!

 

All,

I've had my N61JQ for about 8 months and have two problems:

1) Buttons below mouse pad do not work
2) Two front USB ports (left and right) work intermittently

I'm deployed for another 4 months so I can't afford to do an RMA and go without my laptop. Do you know a way to fix either of these problems?

Thanks,
Casey

 

You will not see a noticeable difference using a cooler because of the cooling design of this laptop. As an i7 this thing is just going to run hotter than you are used to. But in my opinion the temps are within specs and I don't even pay attention to them. Many thermal dorks here will wring their hands and have sleepless nights over this. Some will talk of past fried models and proclaim this one will not hold up under these temps. We'll see, we have not lost one yet though. And please don't tell me it won't last 3 years because I'll be joining David with a new toy way before then!
We all share your concerns on the battery life. But you knew what you were getting if you ordered an i7. I find this thing not very portable anyway. I suspect like others I mainly use this at home(on the couch ) plugged in. So the battery life is not very important to me. My next laptop will be smaller with a better battery.

 

Yeah that's true!
But for gaming you don't really need the 1920x1080 screen as for the size/peformance gain/loss.

 

I sometimes have an issue with the usb 3.0 port with my system. Sometimes it just stops working, I noticed this when I have a usb adapter plugged in for my wireless mouse and keyboard. However, no issues with hard drives though. Anyone know what could be up with this?

 

Any news on extended battery? Anybody find 9 cell or 12 cells, which fits?

 

No extended life battery will fit this model because of the sunken screen hinge design. Whether there will ever be one is pure speculation, but the concensus is no their will not.

 

Hey, thanks for the reply! My laptop arrived today - and it simply tore into whatever I threw at it. Heating is not an issue at all - My laptop didn't even touch 70C playing Call of Duty: Black Ops at full settings, native res! (Was using a cheap chinese make cooler though)!
I primarily use this at home or college - and there's always a port nearby - so I guess the battery life wont bother me much, and I've got what I wanted

 

Yeah, battery life isnt that bad..
Someone i know has a DV8 and that barely gets an hour which has an 8 cell battery!
Anyway, yeah it's quite a decent laptop, my only problem is the temps! :O

 

I can vouch for that on the DV8, I returned a DV8 for this model. You can't have everything. If you want an i7 and its performance than you must accept less battery life. If battery life is important to your situation than don't buy an i7. Having said all that my guess is the battery life of the N61 is above average for an i7 and more than twice the 55 min. I was getting on the DV8.

 

That's not a battery! That's a glorified UPS.

 

N61 rules! i got mine with the 640GB! will upgrade the RAM to 8GB soon.

 

Hey guys I got a question:

Everytime I the play/pause button on the top of the keyboard (the grey bar type button) it goes to a Windows Media thing, is there any way to stop that/ reprogram it to another function?
Also, how many expansions slots for RAM does this comp have?

 

I just got mine N61 yesterday, so far I am liking it. I am having one issue with the "i" key, if I don't hit it hard, it doesn't work. That is the only key having an issue. Anyone one else having any issues with their keyboard? If you do an easy tap on it, it will not work, you have to make sure you press it completely down

 

Yeah, I am a bit bothered by this too. I thought that the Play/Pause button would be automatically configured to toggle the playing of Windows Media Player (along with the Fn+Directional Arrows), but it just seems to only work with Windows Media Center.

Also, there are 2 RAM slots, the laptop comes with 2 2GB sticks, so both slots are filled, which is kind of annoying to me.

And dolgila, where are you planning to buy 8GB of RAM? I am considering to do so as well (since I am surprised that Windows 7 consumes a consistent 1+GB of RAM unlike XP) and I want to see if there are any good deals that aren't ripoffs.

 

iluvfuz, there's a shopping mall dedicated to the latest IT products from where I come from.and you can even negotiate the price there, even though one have to really open up their eyes for ripoffs though. Might be getting it from there..The market price here is about SGD$180++ for a 4GB and SGD$400++ for an 8GB.
Anyway, is it true that the most RAM N61 can handle is only 8GB? The thought of getting 2 8GB sticks is so tempting..hahah!

 

Yeah on the Asus site it says max of 8gb!
What do you even really need more then 8gb? Most people can live with 4 for now

 

Hey, question when I'm playing games such as StarCraft 2 and L4D2 it goes to 98-100 degrees celsius.. is this bad? Cause it is really hot, and sometimes my comp just shut downs... even in battery saving mode, doing nothing gets me to 70 degrees celsius... Help.. what should I do? Call ASUS?

 

Don't Call Asus.
I had similar temps, if you have had your laptop for a few months or longer and know your way around the laptop, get a can of compressed air or similar (i used anti dusting agent) and spray it all inside the left side air vents, and on the internal fan after youve opened it up!
Btw, if your doing this open the bottom first and sit it upside down and put something over the components (such as a piece of paper or similar) to keep the dust that comes out off the components!

My max temp dropped from around 95 to 75ish
Idle went from high 60's to low 60ishes

 

Matt-Matt, what kind of temperatures do you get after cleaning out the vents and fan? Idling on Quiet Office (5-50% processor, moderate battery saving for GPU), I receive measurements of about 54-59°C and 49-54°C for the GPU. This seems rather high, but being unfamilar with ideal computer processor temperatures (especially specific temps for this laptop) I can't really tell.

I don't think I'm going to replace the paste any time soon because I don't want to lose my warranty. But if I can bring down the power consumption and heat from this computer, I wouldn't mind getting a can of compressed air.

 

Are you sure that will fix the problem matt? Anyone else have this problem? Im gonna go today and buy an air compressioner thing.

 

It's not a permanent fix, But if you buy a cheap can of compressed air and do it every few months it should be fine
Using your laptop on a bed, etc will not help either.
Try and not use it on a bed especially because the air intake is below the laptop therefore it will suck up all the fuzz etc on the bed and get clogged up..
Hope that helps

It depends how long youve had it for, and where etc.
However those temps don't sound bad at all..

 

I can not get the webcam to work right way. Whatever driver I install (currently 5.8.54000.207) , I get low quality video, and in skype it says that the video is low quality, and video from webcam is slow, with lot of ghost image. Changing light conditions does not help. I can not believe that 2mpix camera works this way. So slow.
Only once, i don't know how, it happened by itself, after I have first booted to express gate, and started skype from there) camera worked good, with fluent video, but after that one time, everything is back, bad video, ghost image. No matter what connection I use (i have DSL 16 megs), and what video conferencing software I use. So after that one time, i know that camera CAN work as it should, but it does not! I also see that lot of people have same problem, and I can not believe ASUS does not have any solution for that.
Does ANYBODY have any workaround or solution, please help!

Thanks in advance.

 

twicefoled: It seems the camera is one of a couple weak points on this machine. If you really need pristine video for web conferencing, you might want to look into an external camera.

 

Which resolution do you set up when you use the camera twicefold? When I use mine I usually cant go any higher than 640*480 or the imagecapture will get slow aswell. Maybe give that a try.

Edit: I just wanted to add, that I wasn't implying a slow internet connection (since you have 16MBit). I suggested to lower the resolution because even when I use my camera offline the imagecapturing is slower in higher resolutions.

 

Same for me, in the offline mode, it stutters. No matter if I am on the internet or which resolution I use. But as I said, it happened once and I don't know how, that webcam started working flawlessly, and only that one time, after the next restart, it started to stutter. And I am not newbie with the computers (but I am not an big expert either) and all I can think of is, that there might be internal USB problem, between camera module and rest of computer...so the data from cmos sensor has some kind of bottleneck in the system, so when you lower resolution, you get somewhat better results...but the problem remains. Thats the best I can think of...

I mean, what's the use of internal camera if I have to use another, external


I am sure, a LOT of people would be happier if this problem is solved somehow.

 

I just installed Skype to talk to the kids and Skype says that it can't activate my camera. I would look it up but, I need a reason to chat with my buds again!

 

I haven't been able to figure this one out, but whenever I log into expressgate and then boot to windows, the camera works fine. Otherwise, it's no good.

 

my left button below mouse pad works intermittently, haven't figured it out yet

 

Hey guys. I sent my laptop in for repair on the 28th of November. I took the hard drive out before doing so. Is there anything I should know about putting it back in and starting up the computer.? Thanks.

 

jsenior, you should just be able to put it back in, and boot back up to where you were when you sent it off.

David, Skype is able to activate my webcam, but has issues keeping it running, especially on a lower end connection. This wasn't a problem a few months ago, I suspect it's an issue with the latest version of Skype.

 

Well I have had no real problems with the N61JQ until yesterday. I have been unable to resolve this on my own. I seem to be having a similar issue to Adamal: keyboard stops responding and needs a hard reset. My screen also has green dots or lines all over, sometimes flickering. Once in a while ATI Catalyst will tell me the display device has stopped responding but has recovered.
Important info: just started using an LG 22" monitor @1920x1080. I did have MSE installed but after reading Adamals post I removed it and downloaded the Intel Matrix drivers. This didn't resolve my issue. Also I reinstalled windows recently (but that was a week ago, no problems till the new monitor)
My theory for what it is worth is my GPU is failing, but I am hoping one of you experts might know something. Thanks

Update: When I duplicate the displays @1366x768 the problem disappears. Screen is flickering, then switch to 'duplicate screens' and flickering stops.