* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

I don't believe that it supports the 5730 yet. I have been keeping an eye on the site.

To install it, you just download the installer from ATI's site.

 

Thanks for the quick reply LordDavon...

 

Did you verify that the hardware ID matches the one I posted here? There is a small chance that you have a different model camera and need a completely different driver (common with hard drives and optical drives).

To check, go into Device Manager => Imaging Devices => (your webcam) => Properties => Details => Hardware Ids. I posted the first one in the list.

 

The temps recorded while i was playing hawx(you can see the gpu on the sidebar) after a 4-5 hours gaming session(hawx,counter strike 1.6,shift and dirt2). The laptop was turned on all the day(11-12 hours).
http://tinypic.com/r/2akmfq9/5
As i said, the gpu never reached more than 68 degrees and processor reached 81 degrees just during intel burn test.
I remember you i'm not using a cooler

 

Which startup items in msconfig should I NOT disable? Thanks

 

As I posted earlier, everything in msconfig startup except your antivirus program is safe to disable. It's the windows system services ("services.msc" in start menu) that you have to be careful about.

 

How many features can you live without?

Personally, I disable only ATK Media (causes media keys to launch WMC), ATKOSD2 (3D effects for hotkey notifications), and BTTRAY.EXE (capslock, numlock, etc. notifications).

 

Thanks! I can live without all those.

 

Just popped an SSD in my N61. Completely recommend it.

 

does this laptop have an extra harddrive port?

i have store credit at newegg, but this laptop is sold out D:

 

Not necessarily. As I use my DVD drive once in a blue moon, I popped it in an external caddy and put a hard drive bay where my DVD drive goes. I knew i'd be going to get an SSD and that's not big enough for all my stuff so this works out very well for me.

 

I cleaned up a number of trolling posts in this thread; thanks for reporting them. The user in question was also a spammer so they were banned for that as well.

 

Thanks very much, this thread seems to attract a lot of trolls Hopefully this will be the last of them!

On topic, what fan speeds are you guys getting at idle? On mine it seems to be a constant 2400rpm, is this normal?

 

Hey Guys,

Long time reader, first time poster =D
I've had my n61jq for a couple months now (In Australia) and I've noticed a couple of times when I've plugged in my power lead, whilst the laptop is on with office programs running, the screen fills with artifacts and random pixels. It's not a hard fix, just right clicking on the power options and re-selecting my power profile seems to fix it but it's quite irritating.

Any thoughts on why this might happen? Or has any one else had this?
(I've noticed that my power profiles don't auto-swap on power plug in / out, related issue?)

=S

 

Thank you. That one was a bit strange. First post was extremely aggressive. It is almost like they had an agenda. I wouldn't be surprised if they had been here before.

 

Is it safe to come out now? I don't know why I let those silly little trolls suck me in. From now on I am going to employ The technique I use while driving a city bus and would encourage you all to use it to so we can be united on this. We have what are called the 2%ers while driving. 98% of our passengers are just trying to get from point A to point B. Then there are the 2% that are just miserable in their life and want you to be that way also. They will say just about anything to draw you into a confrontation with them. Once you respond to them they have got you! You are now on their miserable turf and you will never win an argument with them. So the minuite I spot one of them they literally are
" Dead to me". I will say nothing more to them no matter how hard they try to draw me in. This drives them crazy and eventually they slink away to look for their next victim. So I think all the regulars here can spot a troll pretty fast now. No matter how tempting it is to jump in and try to spank them just let it go. If no one responds they will slink away to the next forum.
I still think Donald @ PowerNotebooks put it best when he said " Don't feed the trolls!"

 

Adamal, Didn't you struggle with this issue. Maybe you could help this owner with this.

 

Sounds like the graphics card isn't getting enough juice or is being powered down too slow to properly handle graphics. Probably something gone wonky with the graphics drivers. I think your first step should be to uninstall your graphics drivers and install the latest catalyst 10.3 drivers off of the ATI site.

 

Hate to say it, but I'm guessing hardware. Glitchy graphics on the factory software definitely isn't in the norm around here.

 

I had lockups occur while using the computer during heavy hard drive activity. I've never had a problem putting my computer to sleep. The first thing I would try is update to the latest bios version and install the latest video drivers. If we could get more info from what the even log says about the error, it might point to where the problem is occurring.

Most problems with sleep/hibernate are usually with motherboard chipset drivers or bios bugs (At least in my experience).

 

That "unofficial" 207 bios seemed to get rid of the Squealing...
I guess someone missed it, because 208 brought it back...

Iv'e had a few bad deals rolling back bios...On a desktop I wouldn't care so much...

 

I already have the catalyst 10.3 drivers.

It happened again about 10minutes ago and I noticed it seems to occur when battery is low prior to plugging in power cable.
Disconnecting the cable then reconnecting it after the screen goes all artifacty restores it back to how it should be (the screen turns black for half a second then reverts back to normal).

So perhaps it is an issue caused by the graphics card fluctuating with the shift from low power to external?

Maybe I'll have to call tech support, eeek.

 

I guess it could also be a bad adapter (not generating a clean DC voltage).

 

Thank you so much for suggestions. I just updated the BIOS version to 208. So far no freezing problem occurs,. I'm very happy with it. I even try FN+Esc button, No freeze! I think bios 208 solved this problem. However, I just update it yesterday so who will know what might happen later...
I'll update u guys later.
People in this forum are really helpful..
Thank you all..

 

How'd you know the fan speed?

 

I am using everest to do that.

 

Great instructions stevedogg, I've finally found the courage to update the BIOS and it went like a dream, many thanks

 

Got it. But why does the gpu fan always shows 30%?

 

Probably because the program is expecting a desktop system with a separate graphics card with it's own fan.

 

Hi Risco, what software do you use to see the speeds? I have GPU Gadget that on idle gives me 30% fan speed. Which if it is equivalent to your idle speed that makes nearly 8000rpm at full speed, I can't believe that!*!

 

Ok, downloaded, thanks

 

I don't know what this 30% stands for there.

Basically, the GPU has no dedicated fan. The CPU and GPU use the same fan.

 

I've had my N61JQ about a month now. It's great but one more issue has arisen. When I connect to my HDTV and set the display to to 1920x1080, I'm getting what I think is overscan. I can't see all of the left/right sides of the display (especially the icons on the left). Any fixes I'm missing? My tech skill is somewhat low and you all have been very helpful. Thanks to all the non-trolls.

 

Catalyst Control Center should have plenty of options to tweak your display settings to compensate for overscan ad the like. Open it up, hop on over to the displays tab and play around till you get your HDTV just the way you like it.

 

Hands down a great computer for the money (under $1100 shipped). I scrubbed some of the pre-installed software but overall I didn't find it too bloated and even kept an app or two because they might be handy down the road.

What I like so far:

- Build quality is definitely better than others I've checkout out in the price range.
- Pretty quiet even when the fan kicks in.
- Doesn't seem to run hot, at least after watching a 1hr TV show on full screen.
- Video playback quality I thought was impressive.

What I don't like:
- The DVD drive is loud, but I don't use it enough to where that would trouble me.
- I'm used to a 1000+ vertical pixels, so it's low-res to what I'm accustom to. However, I knew this going in and was willing to trade that for the other positives this machine has.
- Haven't gotten a hang of the keyboard. My work computer is a fully loaded 17" Macbook Pro and it doesn't have a numeric pad so the keys on the Asus are just a bit off from where I expect them to be.

Intangible:
- The warranty on the A-model is definitely a nice to have. I know people have had issues with the warranty service, but that exists with every vendor. I like that Asus at least starts off w/ 2 yrs, 1 yr accidental, 1 month on the screen, and free shipping both ways.

Overall, 100% satisfied I made the right purchase and I'm actually surprised this laptop isn't more well known in the market.

 

Thanks for reminding me , I had completely forgotten and to think that I had opened it up to take a couple of photos .

 

Well here in Italy maybe because it's damn hard to find

 

I use Everest, works great.

I am beginning more and more to feel I have a faulty battery. The other day I checked it and it had gone to 1%. Not too worried, it then creeped up to 2%. So I did a battery calibration and it went up to 24%! Feeling miffed I just charged it normally. Next time, it went down to 0% lol.

Now it seems every few days the wear level will jump up again, for example today it has jumped up to 7%. I am very confused as to why wear level goes up and down.

Any suggestions, should I take the battery back to the shop?

Oh and designed capacity according to all apps is only 4300 MAH when it is supposed to be 4400?

 

HWMonitor shows design capacity of 47300 mWh.

Edit: SIW shows a design capacity of 47300 mWh and a design voltage of 12.425 V. So the capacity would be 47300/12.425 = 3808 mAh.

 

Mmm, thanks for quick reply and rep added. So what do people think, I have the day off tmoz and could pop up central london?

Also SIW shows design voltage of 11.981?

 

Mmm, as soon as I get home I'll have a look at what mine reads

 

Yeah, you see it through everest. Under the power section. Thanks for offering to look.

 

No problem at all "me old china"

 

If I am not mistaken than N71JQ has the same battery.
Here are the everest data from mine:

Device Name K72J-44
Designed Capacity 48400 mWh
Fully Charged Capacity 48037 mWh
Current Capacity 48037 mWh (100 %)
Voltage 12553 mV
Wear Level 0 %
Power State AC Line

 

I assume there are some sensors on the battery that report these things (like design charge and voltage). Maybe they test each battery at the manufacturer and program in the values? Here is the full report from SIW:

Property Value
GTO-400 (ASUSTeK Computer Inc. N61Jq)
Battery 1 Properties
Name M50--22
Unique ID ASUSTekM50--22
Designed Capacity 47300 mWh
Fully Charged Capacity 48653 mWh
Current Capacity 46750 mWh (96%)
Designed Voltage 12425 mV
Estimated Charge Remaining 96 %

If the laptop isn't holding a charge, you might be able to get an RMA for the battery only (ship the battery to ASUS). You could ask them to send you a new one and provide return shipping for the old battery (that way you aren't left without a battery).

 

Thanks guys, been really helpful. I bought mine in central london, so gonna give the guy there a call. I am hoping he will let me just pop up there and swap out. If not, I will go down the RMA route. It is holding a charge, just the wear levels are incredibly erractic. Does not make sense to me.

Turbo, your battery appears to be a different model with a slightly higher rating? How are you guys charging, I usuallly just let it get low til it warns me, then charge it back up? I read about the 20/80 theory, but that is just a stupid idea considering it does not have the best battery life as it is!

 

If the battery charge is being properly reported, the warn method should be fine (it should warn at around 10% charge I think, but you can adjust this in the Power Plan). The fact that your readings are jumping around sounds like there may be a problem with the sensors on the battery, which would jeopardize the "wait till warning" technique. It may also prevent Windows from properly shutting down when the charge gets very low (5%), leading to full battery discharge and permanent damage to the battery.

Personally, I don't really use my laptop unplugged.

 

Same here. I rarely use it without plug and the battery is always installed.

Yes the battery on N61JQ seems to be different than on N71JQ.

 

Well this is interesting, I let it charge all the way up to 100%. It says fully charged capacity is 43604, but the current charge is 47764! Yet it reports my wear level as 7% as Everest is not recalculating the right charge.

Seems like there is a software conflict of some kind or the sensors are indeed faulty.

Just rebooted and wear level is back to 0% lol.

 

If I were you, I'd call ASUS and request a new battery. Explain that the reported charge level is erratic. See if they can send you a new one before you ship yours back.