* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

When you say "it," you mean the battery alone right?

 

Yeah, just the battery.

 

10.4 Catalyst drivers are out!!

ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

 

Any idea on what updates this driver release has?

 

See here: http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_104_release_notes.pdf

Edit: apparently they haven't updated the download link yet, it's still pointing to 10.3

 

Hey guys,

Im having an issue with my disc reader....well reading...it wants to go...but it just doesnt....any advice?

 

Hello All,

I'm sorry for having to ask this, but how do I get the system to recognize my NVIDIA GT 325m GPU? Or switch to using it? Seems like any hardware inquiry reports I'm only using the Intel integrated graphics. I know there isn't a button that switches between it, but how do I disable one and enable the other? If someone could please clear this up, I'd appreciate it! I've searched and searched but can't seem to find the answer. Thanks!

 

OH Yeah! 10.4 drivers made my OC more stable and gave me 200+ points!
Thanks RISCO!

 

Hey bro, it seems that you are in the wrong thread. But try to help you out. Do you have two power buttons on your laptop. It is the one on the left which switches the graphic card. At least how it is done on my UL50Vt-A1.

 

I think TurboBoost is something that works automaticlly but is there a place you guys go to adjust these settings?

 

This is the N61J Q and not the N61J V thread!

 

Do you have the N61JV with Optimus technology? If so, the utilities may be reporting integrated video because there is no GPU load (Optimus automatically switches between integrated and discrete video depending on load).

Try running a benchmark like 3DMark06. According to this chart, the GT 325M should score around 5300 in 3DMark06. If it is significantly lower, you may have a graphics switching problem.

 

TurboBoost is part of the Power4Gear Hybrid and the latest version has desktop gadget for it!

 

HOLY CRAP!

It took me a few days after ordering to realize I actually had an N61JV and not an N61JQ . My apologies for being in the wrong thread, but THANK YOU King of Rapture for being kind enough to address my question. I'll go to the right place to ask about my laptop.

But now that you mention it, that sorta power button to the left switches between power schemes and not directly the graphics options, but I think I know what you mean. But even in the power schemes, I can't seem to find where it says "use NVIDIA GT 325m" or "use Intel Integrated Graphics". Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually. Thanks again though!

 

It is good to have you here. If you look on the right side of the task bar in the icon areas, there is a green icon looking like a boomerang. If it is double boomerang, then you are in the Nvidia display card, if it is a single boomerang and with another icon a tilted blue square then you are in the Intel display card.

Yes, the power schemes switches between the display card too. If you open Power4Gear Hybrid and pick the "High Performance" mode and then push the power button on the left it will switch the graphic card. Sometimes, it does and sometimes it doesn't. But if you click on the green boomerang in the icon area, a menu will come up to inform you to end the processes for certain program(s), once you ended those processes then it will switch to the Nvidia display card.

Hope this is helpful!

P.S. It takes a little while to switch the display cards, sometime more than 30 seconds.

 

Thanks very much for the great reply (and others). Yes i have read some of the reviews here, and on newegg, and know that this will be my future laptop. And i will look forward to hanging out here and seeing more of just how great this laptop really is. I could easily be owning it within the next few weeks, just gonna get a bit more amazon gift cards, i use their credit card to pay bills, etc, and have been acrueing a fair amount of reward points! Thanks again!

 

Cool THANKS!

 

Not true! Power4Gear Hybrid is an ASUS application that does nothing more than help you manage your Windows 7 Power Plans! There is no additional functionality that cannot be accessed using Win 7's built in Power Plans.

Turbo Boost is hardware technology in the Core i7 processor that increases the clock multiplier (processor frequency) when fewer than 4 cores are in use. For the case of 1 core under heavy load, the clock frequency will increase from 1.6 to 2.8 GHz. This occurs automatically when the processor is loaded. The accessible multipliers are determined by software (Win 7 Power Plan or, equivalently, Power4Gear Hybrid). If you set the processor maximum utilization to 100%, Turbo Boost will work automatically.

The desktop gadget simply shows the current clock frequency. It is authored by Intel and has nothing to do with ASUS besides being posted on their support website and included in the driver CD.

Edit: I do not have Power4Gear installed on my system, and Turbo Boost and Speed Step both work fine.

 

Steve you the man! Thanks for the detail explanation.

 

Here is an overview of Optimus technology: link

 

I can't get the drivers to install, anybody else having trouble with this?

 

You must be missing one of the steps. Where are you stuck?

 

Sweet... installed... Thanks...

 

Thanks for the update Risco. I posted it in the returns section. It will be good to get this taken care of once and for all. Hope you get it back sooner.
And thanks for the tip on the video driver, I installed that and posted it also. Seems to work pretty well. :yes:

 

I figured out my mistake, man I feel stupid. Thanks anyway Greg.

 

Just wondering about the ADW, does it have to be the original receipt? Has anyone sent them a photocopy?

 

I sent them a print copy because my 'original' receipt came from email from XoticPc and just today I got a confirmation that I am now covered by Asus 360 and one year ADW.

 

Photocopy is ok. Plus go ahead an register on this website in addition to your mailing. ASUS Accidental Damage Warranty

 

What kind of confirmation did you get Deathwinger?

 

I did the same and got my confirmation by email.

 

I will get my NQ61JQ on 4th May. Presently, I am using UL50VtA1, which has Power4Gear Hybrid installed, which does the following for me.

1. It manages the power plan for my battery to last from 4 to 8 hours.
2. It switches the display card for me as I have two display cards.
3. It has TurboBoost, which overclocks my processor SU7300 by 33%. My laptop came with v1.1.25. The most recent version is v1.1.34 and from version v1.1.27 onward, it has a desktop gadget for TurboBoost.
4. The desktop gadget has only two functions, a switch to either turn the TurboBoost on or off, thus overclocking the processor by 33%. Even it is named Asus Turbo 33.

And, BTW the bttray.exe has nothing to do with caps lock, number lock and so forth, which you have claimed in the past. It is the Bluepoint Tray Application Icon for the Bluetooth in your laptop.

Since you don't have the Power4Gear Hybrid installed on your system as you claim, so how you know what it does!

 

bttray.exe definitely controls the caps lock/num lock notifications. I had to turn bttray.exe off when playing the Just Cause demo because I sometimes pressed Caps Lock accidentally and the appearance of the notification would also make the taskbar overlap the game, which is a bit of a pain! You can also change a registry key to disable the notifications if you don't want to terminate the bttray process completely — HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Widcomm\BTConfig\General, set KeyIndication to 0.

And Power4Gear does handle the Turbo 33 function (as I understand) on the UL series, but the Intel Core i7/i5 processors' Turbo Boost function manage overclocking dynamically on their own based on what the OS requires — they don't need any additional software to control them. Turbo 33 is a completely different technology to Intel Turbo Boost. And the Intel desktop gadget just tells us what the processor is doing; it isn't necessary and can't control anything. The Intel Turbo Boost FAQ is quite helpful.

So Power4Gear on the N61JQ at least is an optional install IMO because it only controls power plans which Windows on its own can do quite well.

 

rss feed for the x64jq ASUSTek RSS [Notebook] [X64Jq] [en-us] creates an rss feed for new available updates and is a browser based substitute to asus update utility

 

Bttray.exe has to do with bluetooth and nothing to do with caps lock, number lock and so forth.

As the registry entry you posted it has to do with Widcomm bluetooth software.

bttray.exe - What is bttray.exe?

"bttray.exe is the traybar process for Widcomm Inc Bluetooth products. It gives you easy access to the configurations and settings for the Bluetooth products."

As the HKLM registry key you posted, it has to do with Widcomm bluetooth configuration.

Both the UL50Vt and N71Jq have overclocking in the BIOS, though surprising the N61Jq doesn't. Wonder why?

And, what is the difference between N71Jq and N61Jq?

 

Hello,

I am a new member today having purchased the N61JQ-A1. This is a great laptop but two questions persist:
1. Whats up with the Win7 score of 4.4 for Windows aero?
2. Has anybody successfully managed to install or improvise an illuminated keyboard option? - boy would that be a great help for me (with my disability) as I couldn't afford the G series options.

Thanks in advance

Harry

Whoops sorry... my model is the N61JV-X2. Directions to the proper forum... I guess the low Win 7 score may have something to do with that. But - the keyboard may be similar or exactly same - illuminated options anyone? lol

 

LordDavon, Donald from PowerNotebooks.com, and maybe someone I'm forgetting about are working on fitting an illuminated KB from the G series onto the N61.

IIRC, the design of the N71JQ allows for slightly better cooling, as the N61JQ pretty much as a lot of stuff crammed into all available space. That's what people are thinking as to why the N71JQ has the overclocking option in BIOS while the N61JQ doesn't.

 

As far as I know TurboBoost desktop gadget is from Intel. Power4Gear has nothing to do with TurboBoost as it is an Intel technology.

 

I just got the confirmation from Asus that the N61Jq can have the backlight keyboard.

You could be right, but the N61Jq does overclock and it has excellent cooling capacity!

 

I think there is a confusion here.
The Intel TurboBoost is different than the ASUS Turbo33 technology.
The ASUS Trubo 33 is an overclocking feature which is different than the intel TurboBoost function on the i-family of processors.

What the power4gear offers is this ASUS Turbo33 techonology on certain supporting devices.
The UL-series for example has this.

Here is a link about ASUS Turbo33 technology test on UL-series: http://event.asus.com/2009/nb/legal_disclaimer/

But this has nothing to do with intel TurboBoost on the N61JQ which has i7 processor.

 

LOL!

Thanks for clearing that up. And, you are right that ASUS Turbo33 is part of the Power4Gear!

Many thanks for clearing this confusion!

I will be getting my hands on the N61Jq on 4th May!

Desperately awaiting!

 

Good luck and congratulations for your new machine.
I hope you will enjoy working with it once you get it.

You will see that this ASUS Turbo33 is not included on the new machine.
Even the N71JQ does not support it, though N71JQ has an option in the bios which allows upto 5% overclocking on i720qm.

 

I can't speak to the functionality of Power4Gear Hybrid on other laptops; my post was specifically for the N61JQ. I originally had Power4Gear installed on my A1 and found that all of the options were present in Win 7 Power Plan advanced options (even the "presentation mode" option). Power4Gear simply creates additional Windows Power Plans (if you wanted, you could export/import them with powercfg and still use them after you uninstall Power4Gear). The only additional feature (that I could find) was that it enables the Power Plan switching hotkey (Fn + Spacebar).

Of course the N61JQ does not two display cards or that overclocking feature you mentioned, which may very well have software support through Power4Gear on your laptop.

Regarding bttray.exe, it controls the notifications for caps lock and numlock. Don't ask me why; it makes no sense that these should be tied to a Bluetooth tray application. Without that process running, I am still able to use my bluetooth mouse and use my laptop as a headset and speakers for my cell phone. There may be some hidden Bluetooth functionality that bttray.exe controls beyond the keyboard notifications, but I have not ran across it in my limited use of Bluetooth.

Finally, I'm no expert: just look at my rep level

 

Thanks and very true! No wonder it is called Power4Gear Hybrid.

Though, I was responding to someone who has the Hybrid laptop N61Jv like me and was in the wrong thread!

 

LOL, the first thing I might do is to uninstall the Power4Gear, but on the other hand I might won't, WHY?

The Power4Gear has to do with the most battery saving. It gives me twice the battery power. WHY?

The Windows power saving has three options:
1. Power Saver
2. Balanced
3. Power Saver

And, the above doesn't automatically switch the power, it has to be done manually.

Where as, the Power4Gear has four options and it switches automatically based on the power requirement and battery savings. The four power plans are:

1. Battery Saving
2. Quite Office
3. Entertainment
4. High Performance

On the battery saving mode, it turns off the Aero and other things. This gives me twice the battery power. No wonder it is called, "Hybrid". And, it does it automatically or whenever I change the power settings.

The archive Windows management doesn't even come close to it.

From the 4 hours battery, I get at least 8 hours, though the UL50Vt is listed for 12 hours.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

If you find it useful, by all means: use it. The hotkey is definitely nice to have if you switch power plans often; I use Windows+X (Windows Mobility Center) to change mine when needed. If all you want are the Power4Gear Power Plans (as you mentioned, there are 4 beyond the standard Win 7 Power Plans), you can do as I mentioned and export them to files using powercfg, uninstall Power4Gear, and import them back.

All in all, I can't see any harm in using the software; I don't think it consumes that many resources. Personally, I am a minimalist when it comes to startup processes etc.

Edit: I just checked, and the "presentation mode" option is not present in the default Windows 7 Power Plans. So, if you want your laptop to enter presentation mode when unplugged (as offered by the "Quiet Office" profile in Power4Gear), that is another reason to use Power4Gear.

 

Just got my RMA for the battery through. They want me to put the charger in there? So I will not be able to use my laptop!

Is that right?

 

It must be my british background that makes me appreciate good humour , ha, ha, ha.

 

I was under the impression that the N61JQ had an LED backlight.

Anandtech lists it as LED backlit: here.
This is the LCD used in most N61JQ models (including the one I have): here
A reseller of this particular display clearly states it is LED backlit: here.

Thoughts?

 

The same thing I did until my lovely and charming wife (just in case she reads this, ha, ha) made me a pile cloth sleeve for it. The only snack now is that I'm afraid of handling it because this new sleeve is so damn slippery, but don't tell my wife that . I hope it won't shoot out of my hands and land on Mars, I can just imagine trying to explain it to Asus for the ADW

 

If I remember correctly, the backlit keyboard from the G-series functions when connected but there is no place to connect the power for the backlit feature, so a working but non-backlit keyboard.

Essentially, they're both the same keyboard but the backlit has an extra connector and the N61/71 does not have a place for that connector (yet). That's what LordDavon and Donald are trying to find: a place where the power can be routed from.

Not trying to stir the hornet's nest but if the N61JQ is lacking the bios overclock feature that the N71JQ has, how can the N61JQ overclock other than using the i7's TurboBoost "overclocking" feature?