* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

I got the same problem the first time I intalled the 6200 card.
What worked for me at that time was that I uninstalled the WLAN drivers from Device Manager using the option "Delete the driver software for this device".
After that I download from intel website a previous released version of the driver.
I installed it and then rebooted and then the card worked.
After that I installed the latest version of intel driver and the card still worked.

Check in the Device Manager under Network adapters to see if you have this device Microsoft Virtual Wifi Miniport Adapter.

For me the reason why the card did not detect any networks was that when I installed this intel card the first time, this Microsoft Virtual Wifi Miniport Adapter for some reason did not install.

After I did the above steps the Virtual Miniport was there and the wifi worked.

Two weeks ago, I got the same problem again after I updated to the latest nonofficial driver Intel PROSet v13.2.0.30, but this time the above method did not resolve the problem. This time again the problem was caused because this Microsoft Virtual Wifi Miniport Adapter disappeared.
I tried lot of different things, but nothing worked. I had to restore windows from an image I made at start of April.

 

If you can't fix it, go into Device Manager and uninstall the driver manually. When asked, check the box to delete the driver files. Afterward, update the driver to the latest version 13.2.0.30 here. I like to update my wireless driver manually through Device Manager (keep telling it to let you choose the location, and track down the folder containing the Win7 64-bit INF file).

 

I've spent a lot of time manually cleaning up the device list for WIFI adapters after upgrading my card. Windows tends to leave old adapters there, even if you no longer have them installed. It will also create extra copies of software adapters such as the Virtual Miniport and the ISATAP adapters (whatever those are). What I did was just delete them all using the following method (taken from somewhere online):

-----
To remove all old adapters (even those that do not show up when you
select show hidden), do the following:

1) Open elevated CMD prompt
2) "SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1"
3) "START DEVMGMT.MSC"
4) Select "Show hidden devices"
5) Delete!
-----

I just deleted the adapter (Atheros) and all the miniport and ISATAP stuff. Windows keeps track of the numbering of such devices in the registry, which you can also reset:

-----
Load regedit and go here

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Network\{big long hex
number}\Descriptions

There will be a few hex numbers after \Network\ but it'll be the one
with the "Descriptions" branch. Under this branch you'll see all the
numbering strings. Juts delete the ones you want to reset.

Then go back to Device Manger and select "Scan for Hardware Changes"
-----

After you scan, all the devices that are missing (that you actually need) will show up, with Windows drivers automatically installed. Then you can update the driver manually, reboot, maybe have to do the right-click => troubleshoot trick, and hopefully have working WIFI.

 

Thanks I'll try it if I get similar problem in the future.

 

Sorry I didn't respond immediately but I just found a page that confirms what I thought. You CAN fix your BIOS. There is no need to open up your laptop either. Anyone who has a bad BIOS flash should try this fix before they attempt anything else as it could save your laptop a trip to RMA land. I have used a similar method to un-brick my old laptop after flashing a bad BIOS.

How it works: It is a little known fact that almost every computer BIOS includes an emergency boot block. This section of the BIOS is not erased or written during BIOS upgrades and is therefore 'safe' from bad flashes unless you intentionally mess with it. All emergency boot blocks contain at least 2 sections of code, a floppy disk driver and a simple BIOS flash tool. Most don't even have a simple display driver so chances are you will be working blind this is to keep the space used by the emergency block to a bare minimum. Luckily this simple boot block and a floppy disk are all you need to bring a brick back from the dead.

Steps:
1. Get a USB Floppy drive. AFAIK only a USB floppy drive will work. You can try a USB thumb drive (if it does work please let me know) but they are not supposed to work as most emergency boot blocks don't have the necessary drivers to read a thumb drive.
2. Copy the BIOS file to a floppy disk and name it 'AMIBOOT.ROM'. The floppy does not need to be bootable and should not have any other files on it.
3. Turn on your notebook with the floppy drive and disk plugged in. hold down 'CTRL+Home' to force your notebook to begin the flash process with the BIOS on the disk.
4. Wait patiently. After 4 beeps, it is safe to reboot the laptop.

Recover or Undo Corrupt AMI BIOS Flash Update My Digital Life

 

Wow; that's really cool. I guess it depends on how bricked the laptop is. Tyresmoke's was so badly bricked that he couldn't even turn it on (no response to power button, no lights, etc.).

 

I bloody hope not!

Tried it but no luck, the Microsoft Virtual Wifi Miniport Adapter was not present before and niether now.

So far no luck, I started doing my backups at this stage so that I can go ahead and do a clean restore with the 6200 wifi card in place. I'll fiddle alittle bit more with the REG while they're going.

The silly thing is that even installing the software suite of Intel PRO/Set Wireless it did not install the utility to toggle on/off the Wi-Fi radio which is the main thing that is not working. Even using the physical switch it continues saying that it is off.

If I use the diagnostic Intel utility it says that there is a problem with the driver and the rest of the checks it cannot do.

So or I have a very messed up registry or the wi-fi card is really strange.

In any case many thanks to you all, after this weekend's work shifts I'll be disappearing for a week and going where there is no internet so that I can recharge my batteries

You all take care

 

Dear,

I recently bought an ASUS N61ja. I'm very happy with this notebook. But this morning I updated the bios from "BIOS 206" to "BIOS 209" due the hope that my webcam would be fixed.

The problem is that the bios update seems to went fine, but now my notebook won't power on anymore .

I doesn't show even a led when I hook up the power and/or battery. Is someone with a similar problem? I can't search trough this thread, so I didn't read all the 400+ pages, if this is asked before, I'm sorry in advance.

- Tuner12

 

Thanks for the tip "2MNY", however my laptop is bricked completely, it wont even power on, no lights come on, nothing! So this trick wont help. I will be opening it up today and try to remove CMOS battery to see if I get lucky. It seems "tuner12" had the same issue as me so there could be something up with this 209 version of the BIOS. To all reading this: DON'T FLASH TO 209!!! @tuner12: did you use the BIOS flash utility or winflash?

 

Seems there is a "void warranty" sticker to go through to get this computer open. Does anybody know the chances that removing the CMOS battery might have to fix this. I'd hate to loose warranty over nothing. Worst part is since I am in Brazil, the closest ASUS service center is in the USA... so getting it fixed by them will take a lot of money in shipping! Why ASUS has absolutely nothing in Latin America is beyond me.

 

Did you flash with the BIOS for the N61JQ instead of the JA? This is not necessarily the same version!

 

Hi guys, I'm not at home right now but I wanted to share the following with you all:

After installing the system from the hidden partition the card was not recognised

I installed the latest drivers manually (thanks stevedogg ) and the card was installed properly.

Finally the wi-fi toggle through the Wireless Console worked

At last, but it’s bloody ridiculous to go through so much pain for such a simple operation.

Cheers to you all.

 

Does it connect @300mbps and if so which router? Glad ya got it working.

 

I gave it a quick look before leaving home but unfortunately NO it was connected to the 5Ghz band but at 150mbps.

I have a Linksys WRT610N router.

 

Thanks, seems there may be a compatibility issue. Did you notice that the card has very poor range? Also that it drops a bar of signal strength randomly?


I have just requested an RMA for my laptop. I am getting buzzing noise from the touchpad while on battery. Also there is dust under the screen as well, which is not acceptable. Finally there is a loud cpu whine when using applications such as Itunes.

Let's see what they say.

 

To those of you with bricked laptops, it can't hurt to try something like this. I think Risco posted a similar procedure earlier in the thread. There's no reason this should work on our laptops, but it can't hurt to try.

 

hello,

i have bought my n61jq a couple of days ago, i have a couple of questions... sorry if that was already spoken...

1st. is there an wifi with bluetooth upgrade? my laptop doesnt have bluetooth .
2nd. is there a way of replacing the image of asus with an image made by myself? i mean the recovery image... anyway im using the acronis true image, but i think that the notebook recovery is more powerfull...
3rd. how can i know if the memory that i would buy will work?


thanks

 

I'm afraid Risco that I didn't have enough time to notice how well or poorly the card works and for the next week or so I'll be isolated in the countryside but when I get back I let you know how my card behaves.

As for the buzzing noise so far it has not happened to mine and neither is there any dust under the screen. You also have a loud CPU whine, that's really strange, how can you tell it's from the CPU?

I hope they treat you well with the RMA and not like they treated Tony, remember place an idiot's note between the screen and keyboard to remind the techs what the problems are .

All the best.

 

Ok I've got the reply:

"Gentile cliente

in merito alla sua richiesta, la informiamo che abbiamo inviato a casa madre una segnalazione in modo da inserire la descrizione per ciascuna versione del bios.

Distinti Saluti

Help Desk Asus"

which basically means "up yours" , no I'm kidding, they have informed the main office of my request. Let's hope that quite a few of us pester them so that they get their act together and write the changelogs for the bios .

 

Same with my old laptop. No response plugging it in and hitting the power button. No lights, no fans, nothing. Just trust me and try it.

 

Same thing happened to me the day after the notebook arrived. Called Asus, they took me through steps and then said that a RMA needed to ne created and that I needed to send it in (2 week turnaround and I'm guessing a refurbed motherboard).

I called the vendor from whom I purchased and explained the situation. They sent out a brand new replacement the next day and emailed me a ups return label within an hour. Needless to say, I won't be upgrading to 2.09 on this one. I've upgrade the bios on my eee1000 HE 5 times without issue, not sure what the deal is here.

 

I was really hoping it would work but no, still nothing. The laptop is completely powerless. I dont have a floppy to try, but with a USB drive it doesnt work, I even tried all 3 USB ports. 209 is the devil!!!!!

 

I'm very sorry to hear about the problems with bios version 209. Hopefully you can all get this resolved. I'm a little embarrased to admit that I have never updated a bios for fear of this happening. I am taking down the driver update section on the first page of the lounge. I was never comfortable adding it as I don't want to take a chance of contributing to something like this happening to someones laptop. Also I don't have the time to keep this section updated. It is a good service that some of our diehard driver update Dorks give us heads up here on updates. But I Don't think it adds much to list these on one page as they change so often. Also if you can't find driver updates maybe you should not be doing them.

I am starting a major remodel of my house. That along with my 60 hours a week at work will prevent me from updating the first page for a while.It has been very rewarding communicating with all of you here. I have learned alot about laptops from all of you. As LordDavon(David) said hopefully when we move onto the next laptop we will pick the same model as we make a good team.
A special thanks from me to the leaders here.
LordDavon(David), tbrocato (Tony), paladin44 (Donald), Adamal, Risco, stevedogg, Turbogear, 2MNY, Deathwinger and many others who make this a very unique and resourcefull owners lounge.
David keep hacking away at that keyoard. Tony I hope you finally get one that works Bro. And finally to wishy washy Wishmaster, pull the dam trigger on one of these before they become obsolete.

Peace out!:wink:
Greg (Don't call me Allyw!)

 

A very BIG thank-you to you Greg for having done such a complete first page.

Good luck on your house works and if you need any help in unbricking it do not hesitate to ask us.

 

Did you read step 1 of his post?
Edit: some of the comments in the article he linked state that the AMIBOOT.ROM file can be burned onto a CD if no floppy drive is available.

209 is running fine on my A1 :shrug:

 

Yes, I followed instructions exactly. But the computer doesn't turn on so how would it read the drive anyways? I can't open the CD drive because there is no power either, so using a CD is out. @stevedogg: Glad to hear you got lucky with it! Did you use winflash or a different method to update the BIOS?

 

Greg,

Thanks for all the work you've done in the lounge and good luck with your remodel. I'm sure you will pop in from time to time and don't work yourself too hard.

 

If it doesn't pose a security risk (like you're living in the White House or something ) please take some pictures of the remodel and post it up here. In fact, before and after shots are cool.

I want this for two reasons:
1) We want to see how well you are at remodeling

2) Proper calibration of our screens as YOU know what colour objects should be in your house.

Best of luck and long life to you, your loved ones, and your notebook.

 

I updated mine to 209 and everything is fine. Except for the fn+esc fix, nothing was changed.

 

I used EZFLASH in BIOS, with a very slow USB flash drive plugged into one of the 2.0 ports.

It's a shame they didn't include a BIOS reset button on the bottom like some of their other models.

 

It is a real shame. This switch is also missing on N71JQ.
It was very handy in the day when I had M50Vm.

 

Yeah the reset pinhole was missing since I think was the N50 or N51 series, don't know why they do that. I remember one time I was on the phone with a customer for half hour looking for that switch found out it wasn't there.

 

does anyone know if i could add the bluetooth module without disassembling all the machine?
in the disassembling manual i have seeing the bluetooth module but after disassembling all the machine... its not accessible like the wifi pci-e card.

 

I don't think you could reach the bluetooth connector without removing the top side of the notebook case.
It's not very hard to disassemble the top side. I disassembled my N71JQ already twice and N61JQ seems to very similar. It takes me only about 15minutes to do it.

The hardest part is to keep all the screws in the safe place. Last time I misplaced one and it took me some time to find it again.

I have my N71JQ now on IC Diamond 7, which I applied myself.
The temps on GPU and CPU are about 4°C lower under full load compared to the stock compound.

 

Anyone know what is the best USB 3 drivers for this unit, I have the last 1.0.20 and its scrap all my stuff disk and shutdown randomly... (may be the enclosure USB3 is defective but I have to be sure...)

 

I'm using 1.0.19.0. The 1.0.20.0 version was only available from one random site, so I opted not to use it. The only USB 3.0 device I have is a hard drive, but it works well.

 

What about the warranty sticker? Did you have to remove it?

 

Wow, seems like my issues are getting worse. I suddenly have 30% wear on my battery. Only just had it replaced, combined with the CPU whine there has to be an issue with the charging system as it keeps frying my batteries!

 

in that case i think i will use a usb dongle for a while...


thanks!

 

Maybe you need to RMA that system. Ever since I sent mine back after the GPU died, its been working very well, no sound, battery life is good, etc.

Hopefully you'll have the same luck.

 

Unfortunately, it sounds like you're going to have to do it Risco

If you do, consider imaging your hard drive (Macrium Reflect, Acronis, etc.) so you can pick up right where you left off with the new system.

 

Yup put a request in, trouble is battery was fine the other day and had not mentioned about that. I put a complaint about dust under screen, buzzing touchpad and cpu whine. I guess I will just have to add a note about the battery as well.

Something is defo wrong with it, should not be killing batteries so quickly.

 

Hello from Czech Republic, I am new owner of N61JQ-JX014X (i7 720QM, ATI 5730, WD HDD 640 GB 5400 RPM) and I have maybe problems with temperature of CPU. It is normal situation, that CPU temp is in normal office work between 50-62 °C (fan runs at 2900 RPM) and in stress 80-90 °C ? And also one of four cores has temperature about 1-5 °C degrees higher than all other (on pic core#2).

Temperature of CPU in office work:



Temperature of CPU in stress:



And I have also other questions:

b) How I can downgrade bios from 209 to 208. In Winflash utility is it not possible.

c) In notebook is HDD WDC WD6400BEVT-80A0RT0 (640 GB, 5400 RPM) and it seems that has problem with parking headers (Load/Unload Cycle Count in S.M.A.R.T diagnostics). It is not steady situation, but sometimes parked a few times in minute. I solve it with QuietHDD program, but it would be better without it .

d) And last question, could you recommended me any laptop cooler. I'm thinking between ZALMAN NC-1000, ZALMAN NC-2000 and CoolerMaster Infinite Notebook Cooler YR9-NBC-BWUA-GP- Or something else?

Thank you for reply.

Otherwise it's a pretty good machine, some new games run fine .

 

Hello everyone, thanks again for your answers and advice.
Three more questions, I'm rather new to new laptops, and I'm still learning about the best way to optimize it, and I'dlike to ask how are you using your Asus.

1 - How do you personally use your drive partitions? There is much more space in drive D: DATA, what do you use it for, what do you install on it? I wonder if I can use D: to install most of my software and as a RAM scratch disk for stuff such as video processing or 3d, because it has much more space than C:


2- Which power mode do you generally use your laptop on, I wonder if i should switch to power saver ofter to lower temperatres if that will increase my laptop life?

3 - Is it really better to leave the laptop battery to discharge itself completely before recharging it,or do most of you leave it plugged all the time, is it better for it to use battery life or to have it plugged most of the time?

thanks!

 

Your trouble with N61JQ seems not to end.
First you had the battey wear problem and now all this.

 

1- I've created folders on D: called Documents, desktop, Music, etc. Then I rightclicked on the user folders on C:, went to properties, and set the location to the corresponding folder on D:. This way if I have to re-install windows or format C:, I still have all my data.

2- I use mine on high performance most of the time because it's plugged in. When I run it on battery I use the quiet office setting.

3- As far as battery life goes, I think you're best discharging to below 70% every now and again. It's not a good idea to let the battery drain completely, I try to keep mine above 20%.

 

Yeah, getting a bit annoyed to say the least. Just did another calibration and it has settled to 0% wear. However I know that as soon as I plug in the charger it will get messed up and either come up @ 29% again or something inbetween.

Coupled with the fact I am having stuttering issues with GTAIV that nobody else seems to have, I think there is a charging system / motherboard / cpu issue in there somewhere.

 

Greg, I feel your pain. I am working about 55-60 hours a week, am a single parent, have way too many hobbies and obligations, and started a new relationship with a very wonderful woman. As a matter of fact, since Nichol is 9 years younger then me, she is keeping me on my toes. HA!

Anyway, glad you are still going to be stopping in, even if it is going to slow down to the frequency that mine has. You've got my email in case you need to get in touch with me. You know I'm there if you need me, Bro.

 

Some time ago I told you guys that Intel PROSet Wireless WiFi Software v13.2.0.30 download from station-drivers messed up my intel 6200 to the point it could not detect any network.

I downloaded the same version v13.2.030 from ASUS website but installed it this time over the Device Manager.
Now it works fine.

I don't know why it did not work the first time I installed it.
I did not compare too see if there is any difference between the ASUS version and the version from station-drivers.

The v13.2.030 fixed a problem that was really annoying me under v13.1.1.1.
I had this problem before that if the WLAN switch was turned OFF at system boot up then I could not make my 6200 detect a network when I turn ON this switch after system is completed booted.
Intel PROSet Diagnostic tool used to say Radio is OFF.
In the Wireless Console the WiFi used to be OFF by default. I could make it ON by left clicking on the WLAN image in Wireless Console, but I was not able to turn Radio ON.
I had to turn this switch ON before I booted windows for WLAN to work correctly.

Now this problem seem to be fixed with v13.2.030.

 

Greg, good luck with your house project.
We will miss you. :confused2: