N56vz review and owners lounge - Techno Art

I recently got the N56VZ-RH1 model, and it has the Atheros wifi card which of course does not support WiDi. 3 questions:

1) Is it possible to get WiDi by replacing the wifi card with an Intel?
2) If yes, is the wifi card easily replaceable? Has anyone done it and/or are steps available for this?
3) Any recommendations on the Intel wifi card?

Thanks!

 

Very interesting, I wonder if all new N56VZ has LG-Philips display.

 

How do you know what display you have?

 

Aida64! It's free for 30 days

 

Nope, only a few of them do.

 

Hi,

I have read all the posts, thanks very much for all the info, very useful.
I can share that my N56VM with i5 was bought in UK in Sept '12 and I can confirm that my panel is LG Philips.:thumbsup:

 

anyone know of a way to get an extra HD caddy (not for CD drive) to replace the original?

 

Hi guys,

I pressed +reply to thread button instead post quiick reply button when I was writing and I dont know where the message went

So once again I got my n56vz w windows 8 yday and what concerns me are the idle temps. They are at 48 C when idle and I read in one of the forums here that it should be below 35 C. Also CPU temp while running Prime95 is 88 degrees C. Are these results normal or too high?

Could the reason for it be that I didnt clean install windows? I uninstalled some asus bloatware but I feel this laptop needs a clean install but I am worried about formating the recovery partion if I ever want to restore the laptop to factory settings. I used windows 8s own 'create a recovery drive' to backup the recovery drive. Im wondering if this is enough if I ever want to reset the laptop to factory settings?

Update:
Forgot about abother thing. I dont have the elantech touchpad options when I go into mousepad settings. Is this only on the windows 8 computers. The weird thing is I have some stuff like when I from the right edge side of the touchpad swipe it the charmbar or whetevr is called opens up but the other edges dont do anything but they are still not responding to mouse movements when I try to start a mouse movement from there...meaning that they probably must be assigned to a funcion..but I dont have a program to give them one . Nipsen you also wrote that the edges have this area at the edges that is less sensetive or something like that and u can increase or decrese this area. But with what program is this?

 

A couple questions:

1) Wireless speeds - I am getting only about 72 Mbps connection in wireless settings, where my other computers are all at 130 Mbps. I tried changing the router settings to only allow N connection, but that didn't help either. What speeds are folks seeing here? Are there any settings that can be tweaked to get higher speed?

2) Factory Image Restore - I made recovery disk on a 16 GB USB drive and the creation went fine (took a while to copy all the stuff). But now when I try to boot from it (either using Esc or F9 on startup), it doesn't find any system image and cannot do a restore. I have also been unable to figure how to do a restore using the recovery partition already installed in the notebook hard drive. What am I missing? I see options for "Refresh" and "Reset" - what are these and what do they do? Do they use the factory recovery partition? I just want to make sure that the image I created on USB drive can be used later on to reimage if required, so I can then safely delete the partition from my main hard drive.

 

@prophet: That was the elantech drivers asus provided up until 1.5.10 something. They're still there in the daftabase, if you search for "asus drivers touchpad", something like that, on google. After that Asus supplied their "Clevergesture" program, which really is just a wrapper for the elantech driver with the options turned off.

There are other places on the net with newer repackaged versions of the later elantech drivers as well. Should work just fine - just be careful about checking for viruses (and laptop manufacturer bloatware) first.

I don't know if any of these programs will install on win8, though... I'd bet good money that half the "Smart" software won't boot on win8.

@sarge_in: Wireless speeds - wireless n is disabled by default on the normal driver, so you should be able to get 54Mbps, or maybe something extra with "super g", or whatever. I haven't tested wifi-n too much, but it seems to work.. Not really sure how fast, though - I don't normally have 100+Mbps networks to test on

The factory restore thing: what you're missing is that Asus support are made up exclusively of retards. They allow you to back up the iso-images, or the disc-compilations to an external hdd - so you can then burn the cds later, and save some space. That most people will be able to copy those iso-images themselves if they wanted to back them up - on another unbootable disc - didn't seem probable to Asus. Booting from them as well -- they've basically prevented that by not allowing you to stripe the hidden partition over to an usb-disk/key very easily.

But if you have the recovery partitions/setup on a disc-set - then you can delete those partitions afterwards, yes. You could also follow the guide down in the right hand corner. It's not as complicated to install a fresh windows boot as it seems. And the shorter you wait, the less data and settings get lost.

 

Thanks nipsen - your several threads here have been immensely helpful!

I guess I am still unclear -
Wireless - How do I enable n in the driver? My driver is 10.0.0.77, and it seems to be the latest. What speed do you see for the card in the Network & Sharing Center?

Recovery - My plan is to do a clean install using your guide, but first I want to make sure I can recover to factory partition if required, and so far I am not sure how to do it. Are you saying the USB drive cannot be used, and I HAVE to create disks for that? When I look in the USB drive, there are no ISO images. If I need DVD disks to recover, how will I be able to create them using my USB drive?

Thanks!

 

I want to know this too. Did u use asus own program to do the back up. I dont know if u have windows 7 or 8 version but mine didnt have that program so I used windows own program and now I have a USB drive with the recovery partition and I have no idea hot to boot from it. I wanna make sure it works too before i format the recovery partition.

Oh and Nipsen...I downloaded a windows 8 ISO and made a bootable usb drive from it to do the clean install. However I dont know how to start it. Whatever I do and whatever settings I change in Bios it just wont boot from the usb drive. Do you know what I have to do to make sure bios loads the usb drive first? Also I just updated to bios 216..dont know if that messed things up. I tried to downgrade it to test again but that seemes more complicated to do that n upgrade so im stuck on 216.

 

Oh yeah...sorry NIpsen for bothering u with all these question but could u say if those temps I posted are 'normal'':

''cpu is at at 48 C when idle and I read in one of the forums here that it should be below 35 C. Also CPU temp while running Prime95 is 88 degrees C. Are these results normal or too high?''

Oh and Gpu when running 3dmark 11 is at max 69. and when running prime with 3dmark the gpu goes to like 75 and cpu 95

 

I haven't tried installing Win8, so I don't really know how it works. And I don't know how the license is going to be resolved, that sort of thing. Maybe resolved through the bios and efi boot, if present? Not sure... But if you have an unpacked win8 install with all the right boot tracks and so on, it should be possible to run the install, at least. Same as if you burn that iso to a dvd-drive. Just hit esc at bootup, and pick the right device. I doubt that function is gone from the 216 bios.

Temps are normal. You can install throttlestop and get the processor down a bit lower while idling. And it should end up a bit lower. But you're going to hit the trip-points when running synthetic runs like prime95 and so on.

That the processor/cooling array actually stays stable at the passive trip-point is pretty good, though. See, you won't actually hit that on a normal run. So most cooling solutions on laptops just assume you're not going to push the laptop very much.. So this is actually a bit above average, like I said earlier up there..

 

Awsome thx. I will install throttlestop as soon as I got this new windows installed.

So I wont need the product key. I figured alll stuff like that out from other forums so that is not the problem. The problem right now is to get my usb drive with windows on it to work...And to boot a usb drive should be same in windows 7 and 8 i supposed. Even the bios is the same but the problem is I insert the usb and press esc and the only thing showing is the hitachi harddrive and no udb drive with windows on it. When you did it with windows what did u have to change in the bios? Becasue there isnt much to change there as I can see!

 

@sarge_in: Sorry about that. The setting is somewhere under the properties sheet for the wireless device. You can find it in the network tab if you open enough links. Or you can double-click on the wireless card in the device-manager. Should be a sheet there with a pull-down menu. One of them says N (enable/disable).

It's not that you can't make an usb bootable, but you need you set up a bootloader on the usb disk to make it work directly. There are a few programs that do this for you out there. That basically unpacks the iso to an usb stick, creates a win7 bootmanager, that then launch the right files and so on. There's an "official" MS tool for it as well, I think..

Then when that usb stick is bootable, is marked that way, etc., then it should show up in the boot entries when you hit esc.

 

I'm glad you got this sorted out!
I haven't had a chance to test mine yet, but since day 1, operation and temperature seems great (from the outside).

I should remember to run a check when I get the chance!

Do you have any experience with the latest BIOS drivers? Version 216 recently got released, and wondering whether we should upgrade.

It says "Updated Nvidia vBios", but they don't go into much detail. Anybody else have any experience with this or willing to test the latest BIOS updates out?

 

Hi there! I have no clue on the new bios If anyone gives it a try, please let the community know

Actually, i'm wondering if the new vBios can improve the gpu's performance or not...what do you think?

 

My first two weeks after purchasing the N56VZ ... it's a fine machine.

Problems so far.
1. Keyboard backlight did not appear in Windows (only flashing at boot up) after updating BIOS, not big deal for me, waiting for a fix
2. Atheros wifi card sucks, but it will be replaced

The next few days I will order ....

1. Samsung 840 Pro SSD 256 as sys drive, put the HHD drive in the DVD drive bay.
2. wifi/widi card Intel Centrino Advanced 6235
3. 16 GB RAM, either the GSkill last mentioned in the 16 GB thread or Kingston HyperX, i will see.

 

Ok, so I was able to upgrade the Win 8 to Win 8 Pro using the upgrade ISO I had from upgrading another computer. Had to add a .cfg file to the USB to make it work. Went through a complete clean install of WIn 8 Pro and then updated all drivers. Honestly I don't see much of a difference from the factory image - ASUS did have some bloatware but most of it seems useful. Maybe skipped 3-4 things. There are still a couple things I have been unable to figure so far:

1) On Screen Display - It works for most of the keys, but does not work for keyboard lighting. The keyboard lighting itself works fine and goes through 3 levels, but doesn't show the levels on the screen like it used to before. Did anyone else doing a clean install see this too? Same with the F9 button to disable the touchpadAny ideas how to fix it? ON some research I saw a utility asusosd2.exe, but not sure if it is compatible with Win 8 and if this was installed in the factory image?

2) There was a Tutor application in the factory install that showed various keyboard shortcuts - I didn't find it on the ASUS disc or online. Any idea where I can get it?

Also, for wireless, I dug all around the drivers and settings etc, but didn't find an option to enable / disable N. The N is on - as wireless works when I set the router to be N only, but it always shows lower speeds (72.2 mbps) instead of the higher speeds I see with other laptops (144 mbps). There is a setting for ad hoc networks with N to be on/off but that is not what I am looking for. I have purchased an Intel wifi card for replacement - will update once I have had a chance to try it out. Seems the wifi card has a plastic covering it - has anyone been able to still replace the card without opening any other screws?

 

I have recently just purchased this laptop and I am wondering if faint diagonal lines on the screen is normal?

 

Does anyone know where I could get USB 3.0 drivers for this laptop? The reason I ask is because I am trying to use my Black Magic Intensity Shuttle with this laptop and I cannot boot into my system without a "Watchdog" BSOD.

 

Figured this one out from another post on the forum - Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\ASUS\ATK Package\ATKOSD2 and run ATKOSDMgr.exe and enable the single option available there. I now get the OSD for keyboard lighting brightness and touchpad enable/disable.

 

FWIW, I don't have them on mine.

 

Might take it back then and get a replacement. I can see them against any light backgrounds. Very faint diagonal lines in patches.

 

Oh, I see. I thought it was turned off. I guess this is where the "bad reception" thing comes from Never had a place I would get that high tx anyway, so I didn't know.

 

PCWorld were reluctant to give me an exchange, had to challenge them on it as they were going to send 40 miles away to get a replacement but eventually got it sorted and my faulty laptop should be picked up tomorrow and my new one shipped after that.

 

Hi all... Not sure if this is the right place to post but thought it quite important that I give you my little input on my experience with the ASUS N56vz S4242. I did my research and found this model to be good value for money with decent specs too. I ordered it from Pc world and when I got home and unveiled the sexy body (not mine, the Laptops) I was hooked, it was in love at first sight. I turned it on :tongue: all booted up Then disaster, the screen failed to show up. Took it back waited a few days, replacement sent to store and I collected it. Followed the same routine but this time success, the screen lit up. I then clicked on the first desktop Icon called ASUS PRODUCT DEMO and the first thing I noticed was the bang and Olufsen sound was anything but BANG more like fizzle or crackle or distortion if you like and this was at a very low listening level. It gets worse.....not much..but the next thing was the glitchy graphics. the video is shot in black and white and was juddering and the dark and light shades where blurring before my eyes. That went back to the store today and they even tried a different video from a disc and it did the same thing. A full refund was given as I couldn't face buying another one and end up going back with a Terd..... I mean third. That said despite all this I still want one. Perhaps If I had spoken to Asus technical a new bios update, graphics driver, soundcard driver may have resolved this but why should I pay all that money only to get it home and have to revamp it. Asus get your act together because I want a working model. I am still without a laptop and It's so frustrating. Hope this helps in some way..

 

Well, that was lucky. >_< Would be interesting to know if all of those that fail on the hardware level right from the start comes from a particular factory, or something like that.. I know Asus has different places they do the assembly. Because it's weird - people who don't have problems initially don't seem to have contacts falling off, or the mainboard dislocating and breaking contact points later on. Few screens going bad in the same way - that's something that usually does happen to at least some of the laptops of a model. Same with the cooling - I looked inside the chassis a little bit. Usual upside down design, meant to take a beating without moving.

Seems the most likely thing to move and break is the plastic on the back between the hinges and the battery. There's a small air-pocket under the plastic there, so you might be able to crack it if you're unlucky.

 

This is the 3rd time on this board alone that I have read about a fault with the s4242 version of this model. If my replacement model as any faults on it then I will get a full refund and buy another laptop altogether.

 

I have never owned an Asus and I was convinced this was the laptop for me. It ticked all the right boxes. I am hoping to speak to Asus U.K. this week just to give them feed back on the two notebooks I received. Providing I can speak to somebody with half a brain cell I will let you know what they say. it would seem on reading other blogs there are similar failures. I forgot to mention the sound on the replacement Asus would crackle or hum via the subwoofer when I scrolled the side bar to move the page up and down. This happened on the metro UI of Windows 8 as well. The scrolling live tiles would give the subwoofer a static like signal as they refreshed. Before I purchased this model I was aware that in the reviews the Chiclet keyboard was backlit, mine wasn't

 

The UK model sadly does not come with a chiclet keyboard. Mcafee inernet security is linked to the sound issues I have read. Most owners have success by uninstalling it. I am supposed to receive my replacement model tomorrow so I will update on the screen issue and sound on this model.

 

A Power Saving Tip I discovered with my N56VZ: I can get about an extra hour / hour and a half on battery when switching the monitor refresh rate from 60Hz to 40Hz. I'd use this if I was typing a simple document or any other time where screen refresh rate or movement is not that important. The battery life estimate jumps from 4:30 Hours to 6:00 Hours.

It can be changed in the Intel Graphics Settings (also in the Nvidia Graphic Settings when you're using the card, though if you're using the card you probably want max refresh rate anyway).

Not sure if that tip has been mentioned before, but it was new to me. Hope it gets you some extra juice out of the battery on this amazing machine!

 

Uk models come with a Chiclet keyboard but only the odd one that slips through the net will be backlit. I chose not to have Mcafee start when I first turned the machine on but it still went into action, its crap in my opinion. The Asus promotional demo vid was the nail in the coffin for me when the graphics couldn't play smoothly. Hopefully when you receive your new machine it will work out of the box, fingers crossed.

Yesterday I spoke with Asus technical, I couldn't give them any serial numbers as I explained I no longer had the two machines, but fired a few questions at them anyway. They were very helpful but gave nothing away regards the faulty laptops. The gentleman couldn't explain why the two laptops I received would be faulty and he wasn't aware that these faults were common to the NV56VZ 4242. Yet the Asus website highlights the possibility of sound problems with this model. The graphics card problem and the dead display could not be explained other than I was unlucky. He did say the machines are manufactured in one place, not sure that's correct although that would be more plausible given the two faulty machines. I am still looking for a decent machine for video editing and photo work. I'm still unsure what to purchase.
Over the years I've put up with microsofts varied/experimental operating systems on laptops and desktop machines and they have all had teething problems relating to software/drivers hardware issues. it drives me nuts that I spend more time configuring the machines to work than I do use them. The recent Asus hiccup has not inspired me at all. I get more and more fond of Apple everyday.

 

Oh, sweet! Thanks. That's going to help a lot. Have a few things that should be part of a script when switching to battery now. Bluetooth profiles, cpu-throttling with unlocked lower states/unpromotion for c-states, and screen refresh. Hopefully this will make it's way into a linux spin some time soon.

 

Thanks for that info. My problem is when I go to the Intel Graphics settings there is only 60Hz as refrashe rate available.

 

Sweet indeed
Do you have such script already? care to share it?

 

no, sorry. I'll try to write something up and have it submitted to some fuduntu package. Fewt is working on something to replace Jupiter, so it might be possible to get it in here. I'm.. guessing that c-states, intel gma frquency states, and so on is going to be the next hurdle here. And screen-refresh + bluetooth is a different set of modules, so it will have to be a user-level program -- meaning it might be an idea to incorporate it on the high level in a program of some sort..

Anyway, updated the first post. Thanks again, Zaphod. You know... I think the lcd draws less power when you reduce the refresh. But I'm not completely sure if that's really what reduced the drain the most. Math doesn't add up. It could have been that the intel graphics are updating slower, so the traffic on the memory bus is less frequent.. I mean, if that actually is the case - no wonder Intel is talking about freezing the buffer on the screen to save power. Because that would idle the entire chip when nothing happens on the screen. As opposed to having a pretty expensive burst every 60th of a second.. Tsch. Technology makes strides, my .

 

Hmm... my Intel gfx dialog doesn't show anything other than 60Hz... Could it be related to panel model/manufacturer?

 

Yes and no. It's related to the monitor driver along with the version of the hd drivers. I know that the version asus supplies greys out the 40hz option on my panel. But it was visible on the nvidia panel. So if you have the lg panel, it should work that way.

..is it really possible that a panel will only support 60hz, by the way? That it doesn't have another mode? I suspect that it's really purely driver based (and that the output is the only thing different - that the lcd has the same response and refresh as before). And that it looks reasonably good in windows because of the indirect rendering context/composite manager since win7..

 

Well, I got the latest intel and nvidia drivers (9.17.10.2932 and 310.90, respectively, downloaded from intel/nvidia).

The intel gfx panel only shows 60hz, and it's checked - no 40hz grayed out. If I choose to add a custom resolution with any frequency other than 60hz (regardless of resolution or bit depth), i get a message "The custom resolution exceeds the maximum bandwidth capacity" (even for 640x480, 8bit, 30hz/40hz/59hz/etc).

the nvidia control panel (at display -> change resolution) shows several preset resolutions, but other than changing bit depth to 16, i can't change anything. the refresh dropdown shows only 60, and the "customize" button is always grayed out.

The monitor shows at device manager as "Generic PnP monitor", but HWinfo shows it's "SAMSUNG 156HT01-201" with monitor HW ID "Monitor\SEC314C".

What's my next step then?

 

I have exactly the same monitor. I also can't select any other frequencies than 60Hz.

 

ok then... I tried again, was able to screw the metal piece correctly, it's firmly attached (the lower screw holds it firmly). Still it's not detected by the computer.

I bought a "SATA Male 22pin 7+15 Pin to SATA 7+6 Pin 13pin Female Slim adapter" and tested it using an USB enclosure I have. IT WORKED.

So now I have a working Caddy with a working SSD which is not detected when I plug it in. And it seems to be well plugged in.

Sad.

Any ideas????

nachokb

 

Hi guys, I just received my new N56vz with win8 already preinstalled. I've searched but couldn't find an answer on how to do a clean install as it didn't come with a wind8 cd. If someone could point me in the right direction that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

That would be very interesting if true! These were my thoughts when trying to rationalise the jump in power savings as well. So we've got some monitor power saving going on, and then some video processor power saving going on and also information transfer which is decreased. So from 60Hz to 40Hz, that's about a 33% decrease in activity - is that a correct way of looking at it?

 

So I have had my replacement model for a few days, the screen is a lot better on this one BUT the build quality is not, the touch pad at the right corner seems to be not attached to the bottom correctly and the left side only works from the middle to the half way point. My fan seems to be going at full speed constantly and the optical drive is far louder than my previous model. The touch pad is my biggest concern as I don't think it will last for how long I am hoping to keep this laptop for but I had to wait a week for this model and I am already behind with my work due to having no notebook.

 

not every time this happens,... or there is not a thing the the CPU will burst out of it ... but yes the risk of getting the disk damage is there so some softwares should be used to recover the data.... like the remo photo recovery

 

Hello everyone, i'm new and I have been looking to buy this laptop for a while. The main spec I want is the 1920x1080 resolution and there are not many laptops around this price with a full HD screen.

I can only find the VM and VJ models here in the UK. The one I'm looking at is the N56VM-S4034V. Price is £770 and specs seem good - i7 3610, 16gb ram, nvidia GT630m and 750gb hdd (will be replacing with ssd at some point). Is this a good deal? I haven't been a gamer since the days of the gtx8800 cards but if I wanted to buy a new game would the GT630m card be able to handle it at 1080p? Would the 16gb ram help? I know 16gb is not really neccessary, but I see it as a bit more future proof than the 8gb version.

Reading some of problems (and solutions) listed here I have thought about reconsidering, maybe samsung 7 series or lenovo but this really is the best laptop out there at the moment, and I don't like apple. I just hope I don't get a 'faulty' subwoofer, although I have read that this is software related..?

I found this reliability report, sorry if I am posting something everyone already knows, or if it is forbidden to post links, but I think it is an interesting read (if true)

http://www.simplyasus.com/squaretrade_laptop_reliability.pdf


Thanks!

 

Hi guys,
Just wanna thank everyone for this awsome thread. Helped me alot in choicing this laptop. I had the laptop for about 1 month now and im very happy with it.

I overclocked the GPU like Nipsen said (a 100+ on both core clock and memory clock with MSI afterburner). I have a 3dmark 11 result of 2600 which I think is pretty decent (As I have seen on some sites that is pretty much the same as 660m). The temps during the 3dmark 11 benchamark were 85 C for the cpu and 70 for the gpu. I did many benchmarks after eachother as I was overclocking in small steps but the temps never got higher than that. I dont know much but I assume these temps are good. When I surf the temps are around 50-51 degrees on cpu and when idle (doing absolutly nothing and leaving it for a few minutes) the temps are around 45-46. Do these numbers sound decent or are they way too high? Any input on this or maybe I should do something more than just 3dmark 11 benchmark to check temps?

Just posting here so ppl can compare because I had to look around alot to try to find temps for this laptop so maybe this will help anybody looking for idle temps or to compare when overclocking!

Also I read on a forum that a laptop cooler doesnt work with this laptop which I find weird. That cant be right can it? I mean the laptop has vents on the bottom front side if I am seeing correctly and if I have a cooler that blows air on the bottom of the laptop wouldnt that help? Just asking as then I would buy a cooler to decrease the temps a few degrees more!

update:
Ok so I read on a few places that the 'vent' seen on the bottom is actually just for show and that the laptop has no vents but works with some sort of vacuum??? Is this true? Does this mean I can safely use the laptop on my lap without being worried that I am blocking the vents? I mean I know they say that you shouldn't use your laptop on you lap specially during heavy usage as it might block the airflow through the vents on the bottom and increase temps...but with this laptop it wouldn't matter then? If this is correct then a laptop cooler really wouldnt help....Does anybody have any info on this?

 

Hello Everyone!
I'm pondering buying this laptop. My last decisive factor remained this: I'm quite short sighted, so I can see less than average people. Could you please test for me what the screened images, texts look like setting a 1366*768 or 1600*900 resolution. Does the OS interface and MS Word look blurry or not?
And do you have any experience using the laptop outside? Can the screen be seen well under sunlight? Your answer is appreciated!