* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

Hi Greg,

you'll have to send it back to Asus to get them to sort out the SLIC table I believe, see Risco's post #6370.

Otherwise after you have got it validated do a backup of the system using for example Macrium Reflect free edition so when you want to restore use this saved partition and not the one on the hard disk done through F9.

Have fun everybody

 

Check my pm mate, the short answer is send it back to Asus. Pretty bad of them to send back bios without slic imo.

 

My N61JQ's HDD seems fried today without a clue, the HDD was WD Scorpio Blue manufactured back in April 2010 and i barely use the N61 so i thought the HDD should be pretty brand new, since it runs at low temp and no vibs at all. I ran my Dell with the same but much older HDD, abusively 24hrs for 7 days many times before taking an OS restart or shutdown and still working top notch.

Anyway i noticed the N61 hangs in the W7 today with HDD light on didn't even blink abit. When solved the hang i restart then on play game on it, somewhere an hour later game textures failed to stream then the game froze couple secs later. BSOD and rebooted itself then there's the dead HDD, N61 couldn't detect a bootable device. I checked HDD on other comp the MBT is corrupted as well making some weird sound, gone after shaking it.

I don't care about the HDD but i don't know if its the N61 ticked it. I'm running a MBR repair with partition recovery scan now but chance of saving the data looks dim.

EDIT: Verified, HDD is on a complete failure, unable to write or read data. Motor seems fine, no odd noises now, that's it. But i'm tire of running into the data-loss issue even with the new HDD again with N61.

 

i am sorry to hear this NEX SASIN, this begins to worry me too, i leave my laptop running almost 24x7. not much gaming the past few months, so the temps are at a steady 65C.

i hope you can send yours in under warranty, but the data loss is a misfortune.

 

Sorry if i scare you there, the dead drive was WD160GB that i got from a netbook, the reason i place it to my N61 because of the mentioned features; low temp, no vibrates and appear to be faster then the N61's OEM 640GB drive.

I just checked the dead drive warranty on WDC site appear as "Out-Of-Region" (wth?). N61's OEM HDD is still alive when verify with the WDC site says no end-user warranty but to contact the system manufacturer for replacement. (Because WD sold it to Asus.)

I lost about 3 months worth of data and some game savefiles, luckily i have backup of the main data, now i have to brainstorm a list of items i must retrieve back from the internet.

 

I'm playing starcraft 2 as well and wondering the exact same thing.

I've been using HWmonitor http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html and NB probe to check the temperatures.
NBprobe http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?model=NB_Probe

NB probe says fatal when the temp goes above 85C - 90C and it does this a lot with starcraft 2. There was some discussion back a few pages ago where people said 100C is ok. If anyone else has some ideas that would be great thanks

 

hi guys, i'm planning to upgrade my n61 but not too sure which to upgrade and which is more beneficial.

1) SSD - OCZ vertex II 120 GB or possibly 240 GB as primary seems to be a better option (cos my other laptop hdd crashed) but more costly than ram and hassle as i would have to clone the present drive before installing it as primary and for timebeing i'm waiting for a reply from newmodeus for the caddy to replace the dvd-rw with stock wd 640 GB hdd as secondary hdd.

2) Ram - i am on stock 4GB kingston 1333 mhz. what would be a good reliable ram for an upgrade to 8GB ? this is fairly simple and straight forward, cheaper option.

i am also looking for a backlit keyboard. any links would be appreciated.

might also consider to upgrade the thermal paste but atm, the laptop and temps are behaving with temps of 50'ish deg C with msn,aim, anti virus, surfing, and another 2-3 apps running in the background. havent had any opportunity to try out gaming yet.

not really a hardcore gamer but i just want a really fast and reliable notebook. i almost bought a g73 but settled for this cos i got a good price for n61jq locally with the following specs @ 1090 USD without having to pay for shipping, tax and credit card charges which would most likely cost me an extra USD 150-250.

i720 qm, 640 gb hdd, dvd-rw, ati hd 5730 1GB Vram, 2 year global warranty.

 

I know some people say 100C is ok for this laptop, but I still find it hard to believe. The processor itself might be fine running 100C, but it is too near to the top ceiling. What worries me even more is the fact that other components inside (especially those located near the processor) might not be designed to operate in such a hot chamber , which could easily reach 75-80 C around the processor. It might be fine for a while , but how long those components could survive such an continuous abuse. It will be a tragedy to see a dead N61JQ just several months after the 1-year warranty is over. I started to feel i7-620m is much more viable option since it is so much cooler with similar performance (if not faster in the several areas).

 

Use a better quality thermal compound it helps, and for me i have the bottom cover removed cooling with 200m/8inch system fan. Around 65C playing GTAIV as the game generates most heat on this laptop.

@e6x: After owning the N61 for a while i really find the bottleneck is the HDD. 4GB RAM for 64bit OS is enough if you don't run servers, games and among other workstation programs all together. I actually run all those on my 3GB RAM Dell laptop.

 

Thank's Risco, I called them and got an RMA for my local authorized service center.

Just a heads up to all. If you send your Laptop into ASUS and you think there is a chance they might change the Motherboard watch out for this as it seems to be a common problem. You might even include a note to make sure they don't overlook the SLIC.

 

I noticed while booted into BIOS for a while the laptop fan runs at high speed. I'm not sure if that's normal, i only noticed after my HDD died. I'm not sure if my N61 mobo is starting to have problems.

Could you guys can help me diagnose, boot your N61 to BIOS screen and leave it for 1 or 2 minutes see if your N61's fan ventilate at high speed.

Thanks very much

 

it only happened to me once right after updating my bios during boot up and now its back to normal which i think it's normal after a bios update.

 

Thanks e6x, but i updated my BIOS back in a few months so it shouldn't be happening by now. I need to wait for a week or two for a new HDD before i can do something about this strange incident.

I also noticed when boot into BIOS menu the blue screen sliding down bit slow before showing up the menu.

 

could anyone advise me on how best to use the hard drive partitions? eg what to store/install where?

 

I think that's completely normal, I have the boot-time password activated, and if I dont input any password for a minute or two, the fans kick on... same with BIOS menu.

Dont know the cause anyway... poorly implemented BIOS menu ? xD

 

I tested the method on my Dell, the fan kicks in for only a short while then off. Unlike my N61 like running a game in BIOS. My only theory is that the ACPI has been switched to max because i was playing a game at maximum performance and HDD crashed with the max setting in BIOS that only Win7 able to switch it back to normal.

My Dell has done a thorough check on bootup today, i don't know what changed in the internal data but that should only be happen when the RAM has been switched slot or installed new RAM module. Felts like all my hardwares are going haywire.

 

I have the N61JQ-B1 bought 2 months ago, and I'm facing problem with the camera. It's an Azurewave cam as far as I know and I've used drivers from ASUS's site but still whenever I try to use the camera it gives the error "The Camera is Used by another program". I tried re-installing drivers, restarting but still no luck so far.
What to do?

 

did anyone upgrade ram to 8gb ? and if so what brand is being used ?

i'm planning to upgrade ram and ssd at the same time. pls advise.

looking at 120 gb vertex 2 ssd

and

Crucial CT2KIT51264BC1067 8GB 204-PIN PC3-8500 SODIMM DDR3 (4GBx2)

thx in advance

 

Does anyone know how to find an authorized service center for this laptop? I want to get my thermal paste redone but do not want to void the warranty. Thanks!

 

google search sounds good to me

why do u wanna re-paste ?

 

ASUS Notebook Authorized Service Provider

Let us know if they charge you for it and how much, as I'm wondering if a re-paste would help my temps too.

 

I have the same problem. I even reinstalled Windows and it hasn't gone away. From what I can tell, my camera is broken.

 

Yeah, to make more money on new motherboards and ram (sometimes), in our case a new laptop...

It's quite a dodgy webcam, mine works sometimes and not others.
After reformatting to Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit however it barely happens now. I can check what driver i am using if someone tells me how
But i always webcam nowadays, hehe

 

Hi guys . . . I just placed an order for my N61JQ upgrade & can't really wait for them to arrive ASAP !

OCZ Technology 120 GB Vertex 2 Series SATA II as Primary Drive

New Mode US Drive Caddy
2nd Drive Caddy, ASUS N53, N61, N71, N81, N82 (2nd HDD or SSD) [OBHD-SATA12-SATA-BU] - $44.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

as Secondary Drive for either 1 of the HDD below :

Stock WD 640 GB 5400RPM

or

Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache Solid State Hybrid Drive (4GB)

either 1 of the HDD above will goto my MBP to replace the Fujitsu 200 GB HDD.

Crucial CT2KIT51264BC1067 8GB 204-PIN PC3-8500 SODIMM DDR3

2.5" Plus Super Speed USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Aluminum Enclosure for the Fujitsu 200 GB HDD from my MBP to utilize the power of USB 3.0 transfer rate !

at the moment i'm reading ALOT on how to upgrade SSD as primary Drive, tweaking Win 7, cloning drives, updating firmwares, etc. any tips will be greatly appreciated and many TIA.

Hope everything will go smooth as planned with the upgrades.

Wish me luck and stay posted. I will most likely snap some pix during the process to share *not to show off but to share with the community*

 

Hey all,

So after some searching I was unable to locate a solution to the "keyboard not working on startup" problem. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

This happened once before but corrected itself after one restart. Several days later and now the keyboard doesn't function at all. Just recently did a reformat... wondering if there is a keyboard driver that I'm missing here. It worked fine though up until now.

Thanks in advance! Very frustrating using the software keyboard lol

 

was having the same problem a few weeks ago.

but now the problem has disappeared

 

the keyboard thing happened to me once it was going all over the place funky stuff happened ie, like i was typing some "how are you" ho worked but when i hit w other stuff happened such as the w key initiated other function.

but then after i restarted lappy it was all ok again.

 

Ya the first time it happened to me a restart corrected it immediately. Must have restarted 20 times at this point and nothin. Grabbed a cheap USB keyboard and that works fine. Did some trouble shooting of my own. Uninstalled the device within manager. Changed the keyboard settings within control panel hoping to wake it up. Nothing worked.

I'll hold out for a possible solution.

YAY! ok fixed it.

Turns out after removing the battery and unplugging the AC then leaving the computer off for a few minutes fixed the issue right away.

Read this as a solution for HP laptops and figured I'd give it a shot.

 

World in Conflict overheats my laptop and it will shut itself down during some heavy firefights. I've tried multiple drivers. I have to have a fan blowing across the vent and then its ok. Note: during multiplayer I've never had a problem though.

 

gepett420: try blowing some compressed air back through the heating vents (while the machine is off) This helped my cooling situation considerably. No more shutdowns for me since then.

 

OK EVERYONE PLEASE LISTEN UP

If you are experiencing higher temps then you are comfortable with while using this laptop do what I did - it does NOT void your warranty and works VERY good. I suggest that you un-screw the big back plate of the laptop so the RAM, GPU, CPU are visible. Use the laptop with the cover removed. My temps went down 10C by doing this. Half the time my fan isn't even on because the laptop is loving the temps so much. If you need to take your laptop somewhere, just pop the cover back on - no need to screw it on. It'll hold just fine without the screws. Also, if you have a laptop cooling pad - you'll notice that it does nothing to help this laptop. However, if you take the back cover off, and THEN turn on the fans with the laptop cooling pad it cools this baby off GREAT.

TLDR: Take off the back cover of the laptop so the RAM,GPU,CPU are visible. Temps will drastically decrease by 10C. If you need to take your laptop somewhere - pop it back on. It will hold just find without screws.

 

good idea but by removing the cover to enhance the cooling effects it will also allow more dust to get into the laptop components directly !

maybe we can mod the cover (have to be sacrificed) by making more holes/vents and then use a thin sponge/mesh to prevent dust from being sucked in.

although it may not be as good as removing the cover entirely but it will prevent dust going into the components directly but i'm pretty sure that it will still improve cooling effects without taking the back cover out.

i was just looking around the exhaust vent and was wondering where the fan actually sucks the air from and was thinking to make some sort of inlet vent to aid cooling.

time to get my dremel kit and tools out and do some drawings ! wohooo. but will be having a look at this closely during my SSD upgrade + Caddy for secondary drive.

thanks for the idea & discovery

 

I was also thinking about drilling/modding the cover - but ASUS said that would void my warranty!! So.. The only solution I can think of is to leave it off. You just need to keep an eye out for dust. I don't think it will harm anything in the long run. I asked ASUS if there was a place I could buy a extra cover from - and they had no answer for me. The reason for the second cover would be if I needed to send in the laptop, I could put the un-modified cover back on the laptop so they don't see I've done anything. Let me know what you end up doing regarding the dremel tool!

 

Get some filter material from a PC mod shop like frozencpu.com and cover the opening.

 

I've been using my n16jq i7/4gb/5730 for a week or so now and its perfomance really did exceeded my expectations. Got it from canadadirect with $200 discount and I think its probably the best deal I've ever had in my life. xD
After a week of heavy usage - gaming, compiling, hd movies I started experiencing a random freeze. It first happend when I was playing ModernWarfare 2 and suddenly the screen froze and sound started to loop. Although it was a symptom of overheating the fan and the area was not *unusually* hot so I decided to do a reset and see whats the temps were. And thats when I got my first BSOD. The screen said "A Clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor within the
allocated time interval" -- ooohkay probably overheated.
Stopped using it for the day and powered it up in the next morning. Windows logo, welcome screen and again it froze. Rebooted -- now it gives me an error about IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL. Waited for coupla minutes. Turned on -- wow everything works fine. GPU and CPU both were ~ 57C.

Coupla days nothing and again it froze with looping audio. Only this time I was on my desktop with Skype firefox and Visual Studio running. The widgets read 61 for GPU and 65 for CPU. But no BSOD this time.

And time to time laptop would get very laggy (in terms of responsiveness of the menus, creating a new tab in ff, etc NOT gaming) this is very much bothering me. I strictly monitor the services and startup and I'v disabled pretty much everything that isnt a driver or required application.

I ordered a cooling pad just to be sure but Im having my doubts about the long term use of this laptop. Should I be worried?

PS:The only driver I installed was from ATi.
PSS: None of the BSODs generate a crashdump.
PSSS: I saw this post made by Adamal about a " matrix storage manager' but I didnt try it out as the nature of the problem was a bit different.

 

rajiteh, I would try doing a memtest as well as some sort of advanced hard drive health test. While your symptoms could be indicative of an overheating problem, they actually sound like they may very well be your memory or hard disk.

 

Thanks for the reply. Okay will do as you instructed. I think I had memtest86+ somewhere but what should I use to check my hard drive? :/ Sorry for being such a nub

 

Hello to all

Can someone please recommend a ram upgrade? Mine shipped 1333 but specs only show 1066. If 1333 can I get the fastest? or would this motherboard even take up to 1600?

Thanks for the help!

 

Hi. I am sorry for asking this. I know this issue has been a topic in this thread, however I didn't know the right english terms and what to search for. I've been resting my palms on the notebook while typing (of course) and now I noticed that at the edge of the left corner, some of this rubberlike layer has disappeared. Did you guys send your notebooks in for service? What was the result? How long did it take to get it back? Thanks.

 

bmaya,
could you pls post a pic up ?

racanas,
how did you see that your ram is 1066 ? are you using everest ?
i just bought this ram Crucial CT2KIT51264BC1067 8GB 204-PIN PC3-8500 SODIMM DDR3. it should be here next couple of days, i'll post up some review and pix.

 

Here is a photo of it:

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/8379/asusn61jqlayerleftcorne.png

edit: And now I see that there is a disgusting amount of dust in the USB3 port. Please dont look there.

 

OMG! Why did I not think of or do this before? I guess I am an idiot. I do this all the time to my desktop. Anyways my heat sink was almost completely blocked with dust. Now that is all cleared out im seeing 65C as the highest temps compared to 100C. I haven't gamed much, but its running much cooler!

I have another question. About every other time my computer returns from sleep (or hibernation, not sure which it does.) my battery fails to show up. And also my wireless is turned off. This started in the last two weeks. Anyone have similar problems?

 

Hey guys, long time since I've been around, but glad to see this thread is still going strong and people are happy with their N61s.

EDIT: Had a question here but never mind, I just saw the drivers thread.

 

The OS does that to save power. There is a checkbox somewhere in the wireless driver properties that says allow Windows to turn off this device. Clear that checkbox and it will stay on.

Dave

 

brochiller, It's good to hear from one of the founders! How is your N61 running? Don't be such a stranger or I will have your access revoked!

 

Oh bloody joy, I decided to downgrade the bios to 210 as I hate the fan going crazy when starting up etc. Well guess what it deleted the SLIC table, AGAIN.
I am raving mad at Asus, they clearly only band aid the original issue leaving me with a system I cannot update or downgrade at will.

Looks like another email and RMA.

 

i suggest you get the matrix storage manager installed, i had a few BSODs without this installed, but now its running fine

 

It's been fantastic really! I guess if I were having problems with it you'd hear from me more often. Has yours been running as smoothly as mine?

 

You sir, are absolutely right! There seems to be serious bug in the windows version of the driver. I installed this intel matrix storage manager, now called "The rapid storage technology driver" and the BSODs just vanished.

Just for further information my hdd is a Seagate model. Does it have anything to do with this problem? I mean this doesnt seem to happen to every n61jq out there :/

Btw apart from BSODs has anyone experienced random sudden lockups? It occurs only when my CPU temp is around 70 and the fan starts blazing at epic speeds. If I leave it there like that for a minute or so I could feel the whole processor area heat up to very high levels(despite the fan).

I ran memtest86+ twice for 6 hours repeatedly and it reported no errors. I still have the 30 day return/replacement policy from the store what would you guys say :/ thanks

 

ATI Catalyst 11.1 are now released!