* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

Ok, thanks!

But could you still please PM me a pic of the GPU? I likey likey to watch the insides of a laptop

 

So I'm concerned that the GPU on this unit is finally going. I've had the unit just over a year, and the GPU temps have always been really high (94C with clean heatsink and elevated vents, 104 C to shut down playing BFBC2 a few times with the lid closed) Lately the attached screen has been blowing out whites to a cyan. The attached photo shows this, external screen left, attached screen right, and you can see the window that crosses the two has cyan where the white should be. Funny thing, is GPU temp is relatively low when this happens (84C).

When I rip movies, CPU usage goes to 100, and the temp is fine (85C). As soon as I run graphics instensive stuff, I see high temps.Is there a program I can run to stress test the GPU?

What do you think, is this a warranty issue, if so I'd like to send it in while I'm off traveling next month.

 

@Atook that could be the LCD or LVDS cable that connects it to the mobo. EDIT: oops wait that looks like an external monitor?

You can give a linux livecd/liveusb like ubuntu a try to see if it does it as well. That would give you a better idea of whether it's a hardware problem or a driver problem.

To stress test the gpu you can use furmark, for the CPU you can use prime95.

You aren't really supposed to game with the lid closed, but if it's shutting itself off while gaming with the lid open you might want to RMA it and have the thermal paste/pads redone.

 

Try opening it up, and try taking the screen cable out, you should be able to tell which one it is.. and replug it. That might fix your problem.. Otherwise RMA it...

Sure, i'll get around to it later. Kinda busy atm

 

Yeah, you will need to RMA it, like I did

@Matt Thanks!

 

Guys i need help.
It happened that a dummy mmc card from lenovo y560 got stuck in my mmc card reader. It is a bit shorter and wider at the end, so when trying to get it out it got stuck.
Is there a way to get to mmc reader without voiding warranty?
http://www.gentechpc.com/Asus/N61JQ/N61VN%20Series%20Chapter%2002-v1.0.pdf

As seen here i believe it is a bit too much if service gets to know i had to open it so in depth.

PS: keep laptops away from children

Thank you for your help

 

@mohimm try using tweezers perhaps.

 

@ALLurGroceris
Did try, it is shaped so weirdly I can not get a grip of it...

Card looks like that, but it is sunk quite deep in card reader, and I cannot push or pull it out, since it is wider than the card, hence blocking all side room.
Urrgh, i hate when things are welded to motherboard

 

Yeah you won't be able to get the reader off of the motherboard without totally breaking it. If tweezers won't work, maybe some sort of metal pick like the kind you'd use for cooking or a small flathead screwdriver or nail remover would fit. Or maybe small snub nosed pliers. I'm not exactly sure.

 

try cutting a straight edge off of a Popsicle stick, put a small amount of super glue on the cut end, press against the part that is stuck until glue bonds, then pull it out.

 

TeeHee, i did it
In the end I looked around and saw a compass near my desk, with pointy end I kinda stretched plastic around the hole, and slowly it began moving out, so I repeatedly poked it on all sides, and slowly it moved out
I can not believe how dumb the solution to a dumb problem is

Thank you all very much.

 

It's safe to say, i can't get a picture of the GPU without disassembling the fans/heat pipes as they're all in the way.. Sorry :/
I tried taking a photo of the GPU after taking the keyboard out. Still can't really see it much..
The dissasembly guide shows it breifly.. Other then that all i can say is that it has a 3 pin bracket on it..

 

Don't worry, I just need an overview, no need to take out the heatsink.

A spot on pic is enough

 

just wish to say hi and let everyone know that my N61JQ is functioning brilliantly, and i would like to thank stevedogg for his great work, and Greg, and many others who have contributed to this forum,

no, this is not a farewell, but just happy with the laptop
7000+ posts and still going....

 

Cool!

Enjoy your mini-beast!

While mine comes from RMA...

 

Yup. I've still got mine. May upgrade soon though. PowerNotebooks.com has a nice Sandy Bridge machine with a Nvidia 540 that I am eyeballing.

 

Guys! I emailed to Asus and requested a replacement battery for my laptop. It was showing a wear level of 76% and life is diminished to less than 30 minutes. They have set up an RMA for me and asked me to send my notebook along with the battery and charger to them. Can't they just only ask for the battery? I have lost the original box and don't know how to pack it. Any ideas?

 

You don't need to send the original box. A simple, comfy box is enough. Just make sure you have the laptop, charger and battery in the box.

 

@3DXtreme if you call back and ask to talk to a supervisor you may be able to just send the battery in, or even have them cross-ship a new battery.

 

Nice, I'm thinking of going with a macbook pro.

 

Does anyone know if the internal card reader is fast enough for Readyboost ?

 

I poked around a bit and found that atikmdag.sys is causing problems with my PC where (ordered from most often to least often):
1. While in Sleep mode (almost occurs 100% of the time, but I have only started recently trying out Sleep), the laptop will intermittently experience a BSOD and restart, therefore hanging at Windows 7 startup screen or shutting off completely.
2. While in use (regardless of heavy or light use, the screen will show colored artifacts and noise across the screen, freeze everything (including audio) except for the mouse cursor, turn black, and recover to normality.
3. The similar effects as #2, but will BSOD immediately after.
4. While in use, it will randomly display the screen as pure white or black until restarting. I've only accounted for this twice during gaming

No overclocking was done when these problems come up, so all stock speeds. For an estimate in the last 4 months of use (out of the 6 months of the laptop's life), #1 was found very often when the laptop was put to sleep for a period of time, #2 was experienced about 20+ times, #3 was experienced 5 times, and #4 was experienced twice. I have not found #3 after updating to 11.1 and beyond, and I believe that #2 completely replaced #3--although the one-minute problem is still an unprofessional inconvenience. #4 seems to have gone as well, but #1 continues to persist.

Looking at the dump files, it appears that atikmdag.sys is or is part of the problem. I'm thinking about completely clearing the ATI drivers and installing a stable version. Which version of the driver would be the best? I remember when I first received the laptop, for the first two months I had none of these problems and for the first two months, I didn't bother updating drivers. So at the moment, I'm going to install the driver that I am going to guess came with the laptop such as 10.10 (because I lost my drivers disk and the ASUS website lists a rather recent driver). However, I wish to use a more recent or the newest ATI driver, so if there is a later stable driver or if someone has found a fix, please tell me!

 

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support-

ATI V8.760.0.0

i have this as a stable version provided by ASUS. i had a similar issue a few months ago, but then i have been updating with the latest ATI Catalyst 11.2

but i suggest you get ATI V8.760.0.0 form the link i provided you. try it out.

if your problem persists then make sure you update all your drivers from stevedogg's page.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...250-asus-n61jq-driver-thread.html#post6388295

i had trouble with the latest Atheros V9.2.0.310, avoid that, but yes you wifi card has nothing to do with the BSOD, but get everything else updated
especially everything under the Hard Drive section

 

Thanks sonofcrake. I uninstalled all I could using Add/Remove Programs and CCleaner. Then I used Driver Cleaner Pro 1.5 to get rid of the installed drivers and registry contents and finished everything off by clearing the last of the ATI installations with Windows Install Clean Up.

Hopefully I cleared everything I needed to and I installed 8.670. Everything appears to be going fine for the past hour of use and five or six 5-15min sleep cycles. The sleeping should be fine now, but because the other problems tend to be spontaneous (as far as I can tell), it will be difficult to properly test for them.

Yesterday, I went through and reinstalled most of the drivers from the N61JQ page, so I should be fine there.

 

Sounds like a happy camper

 

glad to help,

hope your system is stable now, let me know if things start crashing again.
i believe i have one more solution, but this requires a bit more time.

 

Thanks man. Especially for dedicating it to me. Strange, though. I thought there would be more stuff that would required to be cleaned seeing that it had to be opened up. I mean, couldn't you just have cleaned that vent from the outside without opening up the case? That would just leave the fan to be cleaned and that just sounds quite little for the casing needing to be opened up... are you sure there isn't anything else inside that couldn't be cleaned without voiding the warranty?

About the BIOS, would this guide work fine: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/174395-bios-update-guide-asus-notebooks.html ?

And is there anything else that is not mentioned in that guide that could possibly "brick" my laptop?

Finally, I should put the update files on my USB? And is it FAT, FAT32 or exFAT that it should be formatted?

On the off and very unfortunate chance that my computer does get bricked, is it possible to know the cause and is it possible to reverse the damage in certain cases so I don't have to run all the way to the ASUS offices to ask for a new mobo?

 

@sidg666 FAT32 is fine. Just don't do a quick format.

There's no way to recover from a BIOS flash unless there is bootblock recovery, which most ASUS models (except Eee PCs) don't seem to have. You'd have to send it in to ASUS.

 

Hi everybody! I have not checked in here for awhile but I need some advice. As usual my battery died 2 weeks after my warranty expired. I need to know if anyone has ordered from one of the many Chinese companies selling batteries on ebay. The prices are $40 to $90 mostly with free shipping, which would be better than the $119 from Asus. Also my stock battery is 4400 mAh 10.8V. But I also see 4800 11.1V recommended on ebay for this model. Would the 4800 mAh model give more battery life and do you think it would be safe to use, or should I just be safe and stick with the 4400 mAh model ?

Mines working well also except for the battery Sonofcrake.

David, What model are you looking at ? I find I am just using this thing for surfing and email. Do you think the ipad 2 would work well for that? I just don't want something to slow at loading web pages but this thing is so bulky for the couch.
How are you doing and how is the back?

 

I have an iPad 1 and web pages load fairly well for a mobile device. I had to use it quite a bit when I was waiting around for Jury duty. The gmail mobile page is pretty good on this device. But it really shines for Netflix. I put it on my treadmill and watch movies while I run.

Does anyone know if they've made any 9-cells yet for this laptop?

 

hi guys,

something weird happened to my lappy. i shut it down normally went out and did my things got home and booted it up then it said CCC.exe has stopped working. I have been using ati 11.1 without any problems and no overclock.

also 2 of my gadgets went missing, network monitor & system monitor downloaded from windows site. both of them were working fine all this while.

when i right clicked on desktop and select gadget, nothing will happen.

uninstalled ati driver, installed with the latest 11.2 same results. then uninstalled 11.2 and updated from asus site and installed 881000, same results.

used ccleaner to clean things up also same results.

here is the msg i got when i click on Catalyst Control Center saying the program has stopped working (this msg will also pop up during a startup) :

Description:
Stopped working

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: ccc.exe
Problem Signature 02: 3.5.0.0
Problem Signature 03: 4ca242ed
Problem Signature 04: mscorlib
Problem Signature 05: 2.0.0.0
Problem Signature 06: 4ca2b851
Problem Signature 07: 20c8
Problem Signature 08: 143
Problem Signature 09: N3CTRYE2KN3C34SGL4ZQYRBFTE4M13NB
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033


many thx in advance

 

I'd recommended rolling back (using windows system restore) to a couple days ago, when it was working and pay attention to any updates or software you re-install that might cause the problem.

Good luck!

 

Many thx for the quick reply.

I've tried that but unfortunately the system protection wasn't turned on until this issue started where i had to turn it on manually by myself ARGHHHH !

also another note, the lappy is working atm but I cant launch CCC, change my desktop background but themes can be changed & also the sounds and add gadgets but i could remove them. I am running now on ati ver 11.2 but same problem still exist.

 

Have you thought about using the recovery partition to restore it to the original state. I know this can be a pain in the depending on all that you have loaded onto your system. But I have had to use it a few times, it works well, and its kind of refreshing to start over sometimes. I find the laptops original state even with no driver updates is pretty snappy. Usually after using the partition I don't update the drivers for a little while because it works so well.

 

Hi guys. My laptop currently has a sometimes-fatal glitch that I'm hoping some of you guys can fix.

Basically, my screen graphics will sometimes randomly mix up into a huge pixelated mess, where I can just barely make out where my taskbar and other windows are, but it's so messed up that there's something clearly wrong with it.

If I'm able to recover from this, mostly through patience and some ctrl+alt+del-ing, my Windows 7 taskbar will notify me that there has been some kind of display driver error, and everything will proceed as normal.
If I'm unable to recover, I'll reset my laptop and it will boot as normal until it begins to load the startup processes or programs, at which point it will usually freeze up before everything has loaded.

I have run anti-virus and anti-spyware and haven't been able to come up with anything definitive. I've played around with HijackThis at the recommendation of my friends, but I'm unable to figure out where the error is.

Through a lot of poking around and several occurrences of this glitch, I've noticed that it may be related to something I do when browsing. Every time this has happened I've either been browsing on Chrome or on Firefox 4. However, that's not to say that it'll occur whenever I run Chrome or FF4.

I have tried reinstalling Chrome with no degree of success, and I've stopped playing around with FF4 altogether.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this? Please tell me that this is not a hardware-related issue...

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to mention that I've tried updating to the most recent ATI gfx drivers, but this has happened a couple of times since then. Before my graphics driver update, I was running whichever version the laptop came with, and the glitch occurred with that driver as well.

 

it is already under consideration. pain but .....

thx for the tip

 

I''ve actual just encountered the same problem as Anty. It's only happened a couple times so far. I actually had to RMA my laptop a couple weeks ago (disapointment) and got it back last week. It was a problem with the power source or MoBo. Anyways, I updated my graphics driver last week to the latest one (February's release) and didn't have any issues. Come the weekend my wife was on the computer for an extended period (few hours) when the screen got all screwed up and she got a driver error message. Well, I rolled back to my previous graphics driver and had the same problem a couple hourse later... I believe she was using FireFox at the time, but it could have been IE8. It seems to go away for a bit if we let the computer rest for a while (cool down). I'll be watching temps over the next several days to see if that had something to do with it... But any help would be appreciated!
Cheers!

Also looking for a quick suggestion... When I got my RMA back, I now have a notice that I should replace my battery.... Any suggestions? Think I can get Asus to replace this one when it was fine when I sent it in? FYI, it's less than a year old and I use the power cord 90% of the time.

 

You are under warranty they have to replace the battery if you request it.

 

Question regarding Firefox 4 RC1 and fonts

Does anyone else have this blurry font issue in Firefox? It's only like this when Hardware Acceleration is enabled. Happens on IE9, and FF4, but not Chrome (no HA). Can some of you please tell me if you also have this problem? (If you want to check if you have Hardware Acceleration enabled, and you're running FF4 RC1 then click on the Firefox drop down menu, click options, click advanced, and make sure "Use hardware acceleration when available" is checked. Thanks!

I think this has something to do with the ATi drivers. Works fine on other computers.

http://i51.tinypic.com/wv49iq.png

I appreciate any input.

 

that happens to me when i use IE9 too. though sometimes when you click compatibility mode (near the address bar on the right), the font issue goes away.

but ya, not sure what the fix is..

 

I appreciate the input. I'm using Chrome right now and I love how it renders the text, and it's good too!

 

You need to open it, because if it's filled with dust.. The Dust will go inside the laptop.. Which is worse.
Also opening it doesn't void the warranty!

I don't belive they ever will.. Because of the design, and they wouldn't make it for an old product now..

Yeah, its IE9 having problems with older pages (made for older browsers) i believe. I Sometimes get this, on other computers (and at school) sometimes, clicking "Compatibility mode" fixes it i think.

 

Greg, I am looking at the Sager NP5160. Fully spec'ed, it is just over a grand. I was talking to Donald the other day about it. It is a pretty sweet machine.

The iPad2 would work pretty well for you, if you want to just relax and surf but, remember that it doesn't have Flash. I have an iPad and used it daily until I got me Nook Color. Once the Nook was hacked (CM7), I haven't picked up the iPad all that much. Having a 7" device is just more comfortable to me and it had Flash. Not to mention, it overclocks to 1.1Ghz pretty nicely. ;-)

As for the back, it is getting better. I am starting Physical Therapy soon and the spine is healing nicely. You can't really tell that I had surgery.

 

Sorry if I sound a little urgent, but does anyone have any idea how I could go about solving the issue I mentioned a little earlier? Even suggestions would be greatly appreciated, because I need the laptop for work and it currently can't even boot into safe mode!

Edit: Am currently running chkdsk for lack of better options

Edit 2: CHKDSK enabled me to boot my computer normally again, but unfortunately I think the graphics problem still exists.

 

No idea sorry..

also, whilst looking at a battery for a friend i found
This? It says in the name that it works on N61's and looks different.. Not sure.. Need someone else's advice

 

Mtt-Matt, I would not buy that battery. Yes in the name it says n61 but that is just the hook to get you on your search result. Scroll down and look at the models it lists working for and you will not see N61. I'm sure that is the 9 cell battery that sticks out the back and wont allow us to open our screen all the way. I don't belive the picture they are showing. You are not going to have the same size battery as ours and magicaly make it a 9 cell. The odds are that there will never be a 9 cell for this model. Our only chance was if they kept using this hinge design on future models. Then the would have to build a 9 cell that extends down. I have not kept up with the new models to see if they kept this hinge but I thought I saw one.

We have had some bad graphics cards that needed an RMA before. Personally if it were me I would send it back while it is still on warranty.

Thank's David, Everytime I start leaning towards Apple I forget about Flash. Is Jobs ever going to give in on this? I guess I know the answer to that. So much for option # 2- Macbook Pro.

 

Yeah i didnt think so, and i know a 9 cell will ALWAYS be physically bigger, thought it was just a thing for a search hook. Just wanted to see what you guys thought..

 

I finally got my N61Jq back!!!

ASUS Portugal is VERY good. They got my laptop back in 2 weeks, instead of 30 days! And they fixed my problem! Before I had 95c in furmark, now I barely hit 71c!!!

Way to go ASUS!

 

glad to hear!

 

Asus! please please issue a new bios.