* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

I got a BSOD the first day I got this notebook. I was streaming video from Hulu to my 50" plasma. I think BSOD are more or less normal. I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread has gotten one or two by now.

 

I did get one while shutting down a couple days after I got the laptop. They're not normal though, especially when they occur regularly; I never get BSODs on my desktop or my old laptop.

 

perhaps a re-format and fresh install of windows would help ? I haven't yet because I dont get them very often.

 

Have you tried checking the RAM for errors?

http://www.memtest.org/

 

windows 7 is also an immature OS. BSOD will probably recede as more updates come out.

 

I would hope not. I've been running the Win7 beta for over a year now and have not had a BSOD yet. I'm running all kinds of apps from music to video (streaming and DVD), CAD, photoshop, tons of games; BSODs should certainly not be the rule.

I should be taking delivery of my A1 tomorrow. Multiple BSODs on a new machine would see me sending it back in for warranty.

 

I've gotten 2 since I bought this notebook about 3 weeks ago.

 

If enough people have issues, there might be a BIOS update for it. They might have the voltages off just a bit, causing random BSODs.

 

I haven't gotten any lately. Uninstalling all the bloatware may have something to do with it because I havent gotten any since I did that. I basically uninstalled everything in add/remove programs that had the word 'Asus' and 'Cyberlink' in front of it. I also uninstalled things I dont use like the utility that turns bluetooth on/off. And disabling startup programs I dont use by typing 'msconfig' in the start>text box menu.

 

Does anyone know when the next batch of A1's ship out from Powernotebooks? I'm curious cause I ordered mine 6 days ago and wanted to know if it will arrive saturday or monday!?

 

I have NEVER gotten a BSOD with Windows 7. You guys are now scaring me with this laptop.

 

I have only gotten 1 BSOD since I received my A1 (Feb. 6). Granted, it happened during in innocuous event (shutting down Windows) and after I had done a fresh Win 7 install with only a few ASUS utilities installed. But I haven't been watching videos or gaming with it, so YMMV. It's a new laptop; they should get these issues ironed out with updates.

 

No worries. I have been holding out for a laptop for a long time and I'm glad I got this one still. It is bad azz. You won't regret it.

 

Well, my m860tu graphics card has officially died, (as in cannot even boot anymore) and now I am awaiting this laptop from XoticPc. They should have their shipment in very soon.


I hope that those BSOD issues are just initial bugs that will be worked out with BIOS updates etc. because I cannot be in a business meeting and have a laptop BSOD on me. Especially with Windows 7 64bit.

I expect that crap on OS X Tiger and sometimes Snow Leopard.

 

Not for me. I haven't seen a single BSOD. I had lockup problems before I installed the AHCI drivers but I've been rock solid stable since I installed all my drivers and software.

 

Please send me an email, or call, for an update on your order.

 

I will give it a try.

I did restore my laptop to factory settings, but that did not help.

So far with the second driver update I haven't have any in the last 24 hours.

 

Question for the resellers: I've seen estimated ship dates popping up as 3/31 now, when they were at 3/12.

I'm curious if ASUS has pushed back the 3/12 shipment (which was originally 3/2)?

 

Here's a bunch more gameplay videos people requested on Youtube.

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NFvzteJ-vqQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NFvzteJ-vqQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='480' height="385"></embed></object>
Settings: http://mean2u.rfshq.com/images/dirt2_game 2010-03-06 15-53-45-46.jpg, http://mean2u.rfshq.com/images/dirt2_game 2010-03-06 15-54-27-07.jpg

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gnXyrE8A1V4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gnXyrE8A1V4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='480' height="385"></embed></object>
Settings: http://mean2u.rfshq.com/images/iw4mp 2010-03-06 16-27-48-94.jpg

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zf1fTbsiWAI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zf1fTbsiWAI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='480' height="385"></embed></object>
Settings: http://mean2u.rfshq.com/images/SC2 2010-03-07 17-56-52-95.jpg

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P3zu6W5_dpE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P3zu6W5_dpE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='480' height="385"></embed></object>
Settings: http://mean2u.rfshq.com/images/GTAIV 2010-03-10 19-12-09-48.jpg

 

so far got one BSOD only in two N61.

 

We are not ignoring your question. It makes no sense for everybody to post that they don't have this problem. So only 1 response to your question answers it.

 

Your RMA should be to return it for a new one. Once you ship it off for an exchange it doesn't matter what they find or don't find you will be getting a new one. I would not send it back for repair as it is so new and you should not have to put up with that. But if you keep putting off sending this back they might try to make you send it in for repair.

 

So by my count we have 8 people reporting BSOD, most reporting once or twice. I will add the newest 2 reports to the first page off this forum. But lets keep in mind we have over 90,000 hits and 1,900 posts and a lot of N61's sold to date. If people have more to report please let us know. And if we get enough of them we can start contacting ASUS in numbers to report this so they can start working on it.

 

5555;;;

The flex is moderate like the G60. The button was very stiff but it has loosened up on mine even though I hardly ever use it. Plus I don't know if all trackpads do this or if its part of the multi touch but you can just tap the pad instead of using the button for selecting.
I understand your dilema trying to choose the right laptop. I agonized over some of the models you are considering myself. But I would not enter keyboard flex or trackpad button with this model into your decision.

 

The shipment arrived at ASUS and has been shipped out to respected resellers. The next ETA is the end of March. This shipment was a small shipment. We have been under impression from ASUS that the shipment has been scheduled for this week for some time. There was a chance they could of arrived the end of last week but customs couldn't release the shipment.

 

I think the throttling is an i7 thing and not the Sony specifically. (If I am wrong, please someone correct me). I am seriously shopping for a laptop and have noticed a lot of discussion across brands that the i7 throttles down on battery to conserve power.

 

yeah, many i7 laptops got this problem.

 

Is it a problem or a purposeful design? My understanding is, on battery, it throttles down specifically to conserve power (battery life) but returns to full power when plugged in.

I would hope you could disable this feature, if you wanted to deal with the expected shortened battery usage (less time before discharged).

Again, I am in the research phase and have no hands-on experience with these procs; this is a synthesis of all I have read in the past month(s). I tend to do a lot of reading and thinking before buying a new computer.

 

Thanks for the clarification Justin... the N61JQ shipments feel like a slow, chinese-torture style drip.

 

this feature is purposeful design but it should not jump in when you don't want it happen. currently this issue seems to be from overheating or power adapter insufficient capacity.

 

Thanks for the replies- it is nice to know that the little things that are concerns are mostly just that- little things that in the end aren't really bad. OTOH, the heat and reliability of the Lenovo just hit me in the gut, and it is hard to justify spending more money for a non-quad processor and worse vid card, with those additional issues to boot.

 

I've had a few issues that happen every so often. The first is sometimes when I turn on the laptop to boot, the keyboard doesn't work. I then have to hard power it off and return it on for the keyboard to work, and hope it works the next time. Sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't.

The next is a lockup issue. It seems sometimes when I'm downloading my computer just hardlocks: No, BSOD, can't move the mouse. It's just frozen and again it needs a power off and turn it back on.

The next is an issue with games. When playing Call of Duty MW2 it just randomly starts getting REALLY slow frame rates when I move with aswd keys. To fix it I have to close the game and relaunch it. I have a similar issue with Crysis but it shows this weird chat box thing that is in Chinese(?).
Picture of Crysis problem. and when every I move again it slows down significantly the frame rate until I stop moving, and it types the keys I press into the chat box, but some keys are in Chinese.

 

Wow that almost sounds like you have a virus/keylogger installed on your laptop. A keylogger intercepts your keystrokes and sends them to a remote party so they can steal your passwords, etc. Have you run a virus scan recently?

 

is there a way to disable the zoom feature on the touchpad. I keep using it accidentally.

 

It does throttle on battery if you want to call it that. You can disable that if you want to deal with the decreased battery life.

 

nevermind i found it

 

I doubt it's a virus/keylogger since: It wouldn't cause my computer games to go slow, and it was like that from day one, unless asus ships computers with virus/keyloggers then okay.

Yes, I ran a virus scan and nothing showed up. I seriously doubt it's a virus.

 

Install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager to deal with the lockups.

Installing either the ATKACPI Driver, ATK Generic Function Service Utility, or ASUS ATKOSD2 Utility to fix the keyboard issue in game. I'm not sure which one. If this doesn't fix it you may have a loose connection between the keyboard and mb.

 

Just got my A1 from powernotebooks.com today.

I'm in the process of copying over my steam games and unintsalling the crap ware., but I"m loving it so far.

 

I had a problem like yours regarding the slow frame rate and Chinese - in one game the frame rate would decrease for no obvious reason and the console would show Chinese text. I think it's because I somehow kept accidentally pushing the key combination (I think it's Ctrl + Space or something) for activating the Chinese Input Method Editor (IME). Since removing it I haven't had the problem, so hopefully that was the cause of it.

Asus' Windows 7 installation seems to activate the Chinese IME by default, so if you're not going to type Chinese any time soon then there's no harm removing it (or at least change the key combos that could possibly conflict if you do need it). To remove it, just go to the Control Panel and click "Change keyboards or other input methods", click the Change Keyboards button, then remove all the CN entires under the General tab. Also make sure there are no Chinese entries under Advanced Key Settings tab.

 

Thanks luked that did the trick as far as the slow frame rates in games. Will have to look further into lockups and keyboard not working on startup.

 

Is your notebook or display set to sleep after a period of inactivity and does the isue crop up after resuming the computer or display from sleep? If so you might want to check your taskbar settings and dissable taskbar autohide. I was going crazy with lockup issues and this finally solved the problem.

 

hello! i just got my n61jq with blue ray today

how do i check the speed of my ram to be sure if its 1066 or 1333hz?

sorry im kinda noob in this

 

Nope, turned off all sleep/hibernate/turnoffdisk power settings. I installed the Intel Manager thing and I'll see how that does, but keyboard not working on start up seems to happen more often than my lock ups. Also it seems that my problem happens more often when i'm downloading something either via firefox or bittorenting.

 

ive had my n61jq about four weeks now . i must say its very nice plays dirt2 on full res so im happy . only thing that puzzles me is in system propeties its listed as n61jq on a sticker on the laptop it says x64j series . on the box it says x64jq so what is it ? im in the uk btw

 

Gets yourself CPU-Z, if it says 667mhz under memory tab then it us 1333!

 

Perhaps CPU-Z and this test is worth putting on the front page?

 

The x64 in x64jq reffers to the fact that the laptop uses a 64bit processor and comes installed with a 64bit version of windows. The N61 is the chasis model:

N means the laptop is part of the ASUS Entertainment series. G is the gaming series, K is the budget/buisness series, etc.

6 refers to the 16in screen size. N71 is 17in, N51 is 15in.

1 reffers to the model generation. ASUS announced the N63 (seems they skipped a generation) at CES this year. Don't worry your N61 isn't obsolete yet. ASUS didn't have a working model to show off or any specs which means they have probably only finished the case design.

Jq Refers to the internal specs. N61Jv (not available in the US) uses an Nvidia 325 GPU and the i3/i5 processors instead of N61Jq's ATI 5730 and i7.

X1 Configuration options. X1 comes with a 320gb HDD and 1 year warranty. A1 upgrades the HDD to 500gb and a 2 year warranty.

Hope that clears up the confusion.

 

kind of yeah lol thanks its actually has a 640 gb hdd and sold as a ASUS X64JQ-JX016V . i was wondering as its listed as that do i use the updates for that model or n61jq updates ? both are listed at asus . thanks

 

The difference is in the warranty, it is only one year so Dixons/Currys/Pc World can shaft you with their uber expensive extended warranty. I went up Tottenham Court road and bartered with the guy there to drop his price to internet prices ( got it for £1080 ) I paid more than you, but get a 2 year global collect and return which was worth the extra £80 imo.