N56vz review and owners lounge - Techno Art

@nipsen..

you pointed to a post regarding setting the referesh rate to 40hz.. but i cant find it on my notebook in both intel and nvdia control panel..
though i am having the n56vz's cousion.. n56VJ.. does it really matter that i have n56vj?

and by the way i have not installed all the drivers that the asus provides.. but i have intel and nvdia installed.. and i have installed a clean windows 8.
so can you point a mandatory driver or utility that might get me that option?
thanks..

 

Hi

I am thinking of buying an ASUS N56VZ-S4207V from Curry's in the UK (currently £829). I was originally considering getting the cheaper N56VJ from here, but it looks like this model of the N56VZ (which is no longer listed on Asus's website) has the same 3630QM chip but the slightly better 650m graphics card (as opposed to 635m).

What I want to confirm (if anyone knows) is whether this model of the N56VZ is also upgradeable to 16 GB of memory like the N56VJ, because the Currys website doesn't specify this, and I also can't find a definitive statement on ASUS's website. If the memory max is indeed 16 GB, it seems like a no-brainer to get the N56VZ instead but I want to make sure before ordering online.

In any case, it looks like Asus is discontinuing the VZ here in the UK, and Curry is already out of stock in most of its stores for it, so I will have to be fast!

 

I'm not sure. You could have a screen that doesn't have a 40hz option. But you seem to need the updated intel drivers, together with a 3.00+ nvidia driver.. before it turns up. Just go to intel's support pages and find the hd4000 driver for panther point mainboards.

@reksteen: It has two dimm-slots, and max is 16Gb. The problem is that the timing settings are forced. So if you upgrade, you need to buy ram that has the same or better timing than the original ones. The problem turns up when ram with tighter timing tends to support only higher latency timing, that isn't listed, and which any normal bios would allow the system to auto-detect.

But since Asus don't think the service hatch should be opened up, or something like that, they've changed all their manuals, all their support pages, and angrily rejected complaints from any amount of people trying to upgrade their laptops - by stating that 8Gb is the max. Because upgrading the laptop is just dumb, and just not very Apple-like, at all.

 

I seem to remember reading something about the touchpad being jittery for some people, but can't find the post anymore (maybe I am misremembering?).
Anyway, I have a small problem with the touchpad that begun recently. Whenever I use the touchpad the mouse cursor jumps around on the screen a couple of pixels. It can also double-tap spontaneously just when holding down a finger on the touchpad.
Anyone else with a problem like that, or something similar?

 

Does this happen when you move it to a different place? You can get interference from the environment.

 

@reksteen,@nipsen

I am having N56VJ with 16GB RAM. i upgraded with crucial ones that they say are guaranteed to work.. and it really did. see this link
BUT i want to emphasize that a month or so back the N56VZ was reported to only support 8GB RAM MAX on the crucial website(the reason why i chose VJ).but now surprisingly they say it to support 16GB! see this

So i feel there is a high probability of the ram they are providing could be guaranteed to be compatible with N56VZ, i say so because i am using crucial RAM but for N56VJ.

Hope this helps someone.. and if it does pls report back.

Thanks all.

 

Not any more, after I stopped installing Asus' new touchpad-driver suite.. The clevergesture thing.

You can go here:
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download Touchpad
And pick the driver before the smartgesture package was included. Elantech pack. Then add the options you need, use the "smart-area" to lower the response outside the middle of the pad, that sort of thing.

(That's what I've done, at least. May be the later drivers work better. Another thing - don't install a driver you don't know will work (synaptics driver for elantech pad, that sort of thing) without having a mouse handy..)

 

Hi, I have the i5 3210m 1366x768 version. I am going to try to replace it with AUO 95% gamut 1920x1080 panel + lvds cable for FHD in local shop tomorrow. Hopefully everything goes well.

 

I can't find any patterns. Tried with an without battery on different places and different wall outlets.

I'm using the 11.13.0.2 drivers from here: ELANTECH Drivers
Gonna try with one of the drivers you linked to see if it works better.

EDIT: Tried out several of the drivers listed on Asus site. I couldn't find any that didn't include their idiotic "Smart Gesture" interface, so I'm back to the 11.13.0.02 from the site I linked to. Mainly because I haven't been able to find any other version of the driver that allowed you to specify what one-, two-, and three-finger taps does.

 

Good luck, let us know how it goes

 

hello all i am in deep trouble..

my usb 3 drives were being detected as usb2 devices.. so i searched and found a solution from intel about enabling xHCI option.. so after enabling the "preboot xHCI" option in the bios settings, i cant boot my notebook,.. there is no asus logo, no display so i cant even access the bios now..

so is there a way to hard reset the bios settings?

Please help me. shall i open a new thread for this.

Thanks.

 

Yay. Another way to kill the laptop. Interesting..

Um, try disconnecting all usb drives and the memory card, turn the laptop off. Then when you turn it on again from cold start, it should run a check on the present devices again. Should be able to hit esc to get the devices, or to get to the bios with f2 then. If not -- difficult to say. Could be that the efi-boot on the first disc is detected and launched, but then fails. So might be worth a try to disconnect the hdd and try the bootup then.

 

I tried using a more recent one, but lost the settings panel somehow. Probably allows hooks elsewhere.. So I went back to 1.05.10.. something. It works.

 

Hello nipsen thanks for the inputs... i have done all this already.. and i had turned off uefi.. was using os installed with MBR... so nothing like the efi-boot thing... i believe that the problem is at a point well before the notebook can think of booting.. as the display is just OFF! the keyboard backlight lights for a few seconds and goes off... the fans keep moving. and thats all that is running in the notebook.

the most frustating thing is that i purchased this from the US while i was there.. and now i am in india. and asus has tieup with local indian companies that asus says is authorised asus service centres. i have read few reviews about it, and none sound promising... so i believe i should handle it on my own.. instead of giving it in the hands of some stupid people.

is there anything i can do to hard reset the bios?? can anybody help me in this?

thanks so much.

 

Strange it won't even flash on for a moment. But what you probably want is to reset the cmos. And that's.. not very convenient on these boards/laptops. I wanted to create that custom bios, you know.. to avoid the ram problems, and set up some better (read: earlier/lower temp) throttling policy. But I had to give it up, because the only way to reset the cmos - if I make a mistake - is to unplug the power, battery, open the chassis, and remove the battery.

Might be easier than dealing with Asus support, I guess. But warranty voided, etc. ..I feel your pain, believe me. Are you sure you can't manage to get support in India to switch your laptop, though..? They usually do things like that, even if they can't do bios-tweaking that well...

 

What i really want to confirm is that will removing the cmos battery reset the bios to its default settings?? what i understand from your post is that if you had flashed the tweaked bios and bricked the notebook in the process.. then removing the cmos battery would have done the unbricking??

so If thats true then i have hopes.. as i was not playing with flashing bios..

you could be right that these people do these things often,, but i want to play with everything under my control before giving to the support.

BTW how can asus know that the cmos battery has been removed to reset the bios ... are there any stickers or something like that .. that have to be removed to get access to the battery.. thereby voiding warranty? or just opening the chasis would void it?

i searched over to find clues how to do this on my own.. but still not able to find one... do you have any clues how to do that../guides that you know of?

thanks.

 

I'm petty sure there's a disassembly guide on YouTube, but asi remember it was not English, the good thing is that he does everything step by step and clearly

 

The new FHD colour turns out to be very bluish in login screen using existing lvds (HD one). 1600x900 display was also tested by them but same behaviour occured. They don't have FHD lvds cable for asus N56VZ, a bit misunderstanding from the beginning.

I've asked other repair shops.. none have the lvds cable

ebay listed the cable for around $40. B156wx01 v.4 is sold around $170 here. I am not sure $210 is a good deal for this. I know i'm stuck at the moment with this HD resolution with "screen door effect" and "quite bad color banding" features .

Lesson learnt

 

check asusparts.eu they sell genuine parts for all notebooks.

 

can you point me to that video??
i have found an anonymous one that relates to some fixing of the power port and one recently by gentechpc.com. but unfortunately both are not showing how to access the underside of the motherboard which is necessary in my case as the cmos battery is at the underside of the motherboard.

Thanks.

 

Almost. If you flashed the bios with ez-flash or something similar, and interrupted the flashing, then the bios is corrupt, and no reset of the cmos is going to change that.

If you changed a setting in the bios interface, saved and quit, and that setting caused the laptop to not boot - then resetting the cmos will give you the default settings again.

When you get to the mainboard, you need to remove some screws to lift it up - that's when you break the stickers. I suppose it's.. possible that the cmos battery is exposed when you get the two plates up, though..

Would someone who have recently opened their chassis know about that?

 

My N56VZ-S4207H arrived today - I'm super excited! It is the model with 3630Q Core i7 CPU, 650M graphics, Bluray, 1TB 5400rpm HDD, 8GB RAM and Full HD+ screen. It's one of the last N56ZV models left, I think. Currys and John Lewis are completely out of stock, there are only a few left on ebuyer where I bought mine.

I want to upgrade the RAM to the Crucial 16GB set many people here recommend, and am also thinking of getting an SSD, maybe a Samsung 840 Pro.

What I want to ask is, I have the option of replacing the 1TB HDD and putting it in a bracket (or NAS Server), or replacing the optical drive with an SSD using the special bracket people here have used and then making it external. I don't think we will use the BluRay drive much, so that's definitely an option, but I wanted to hear what people here recommend. I figured if I get like a 256GB SSD or even the new Crucial M500 480GB one (the 980GB one is still a bit expensive), it should be enough space if we store our media externally.

 

With the display have you tried tuning the colours to see if you can get them right in windows at least?

 

Hello anyone knowing how to get the "Intel(R)_USB_3.0_eXtensible_Host_Controller" in the device manager under windows 8??

i am sure i did not see that option and found somewhere on the net to enable an option in the bios something like preboot-xHCI which i tried to do and my notebook went dead... i am thinking of not to open it apart and RMAing it.. so when my notebook comes alive .. iwant to be sure how to enable the usb3 in windows 8... can i give instructions to the service center about enabling the option before shiping the notebook back.. because i would be needing the usb3 option any ways.. and i dont want to experiment again with preboot xHCI option my self.

anybody here have successfully got usb3 speeds... I was getting usb3 h/w detected as usb 2 ..

Please share your experiences.

Thanks.

 

Hello! As far as I know, my USB 3 was working straight out of the box. I think your previous unit may have been defective. I've never had any issues with USB 3. Is "Intel(R)_USB_3.0_eXtensible_Host_Controller" completely something else though?

 

In a way

You need the chipset drivers+intel usb3 ex. host drivers together if you want to have usb3 speeds. The usb ports are set up with two hubs, with their own bandwidth pool, apparently. That pool/hub is called the "extensible host" over the usb controller... honestly not sure if it's a virtual device. But in any case - even if the ports support it, they won't go up to usb 3 speeds without the governor/driver allowing it to the usb controller.

 

Really didn't know about this! I get about 80mb - 90mb transfer speeds through my USB ports - but haven't tried using two ports on the same hub at the same time.

Does anyone know if there's a way I can temporarily/long-term disable the Optical Drive? I don't use it, but it regularly spins up when I boot and when I access file explorer. I feel like it's draining unnecessary power.

 

It depends a little bit on the drive and the specific driver how well it works. And Windows in general will try to rediscover devices that are registered but not present in the explorer. There's.. apparently not much you can do with that. Had a long bout with the registry settings and services in XP, trying to get around this. But you seem to need to have the explorer component active, or either not active at all. And this component uses rpc-calls specially written to the program logic, to discover devices. So essentially, if the drive has a disc in it and you open the explorer (or any save-as, file-open dialogue, it will spin up).

But you can disable the drive, and let it instantly time out again by hooking off "odd"/optical disc drive in Asus' Power4GearAwesome application, for the profiles it makes sense for.

Also be aware of that because of the way the filewriters work, as sketched out above, any device that mounts one device is likely to force a brief "awaken" cycle for all devices when first mounted.

...So either pick an imperfect solution in Windows. With P4G. Or pic another slightly less imperfect solution and switch to linux

 

@nipsen

you seem to know an answer to every question.. and the quality of your answers has developed a habit in me.. that i read whatever you post.. even if its unrelated. there is so much information that you speak of..

You are worthy of the title "Notebook Deity". thanks for helping out in the forum.. this seems to be a great place because of people like you.

and when my next time comes to buy another notebook.. ill look at your signature.. and ill buy that model blindly.. no need to dig the internet for a month.. you will get the right one .. i know.


P.S i just updated my signature!

 

thanks. But I have blind spots, and I make mistakes like everyone else. And I wanted feedback on what I wrote so I could learn something new. My ego is big enough already. Another thing - as someone else said back in the thread - it's not always going to be obvious that something one person thinks is easy or not a problem at all, that this could sometimes be extremely difficult to get past for someone else.

The entire "different power profiles" thing is a good example. Asus has become reasonably good at it eventually, but how would people know that you need to click on the widget control panel? Doesn't say anywhere. And if you flip open the help-files, MS starts to instruct you to how to change the profiles under windows - and editing here can easily cause conflicts, need admin access, etc. So Asus assumes that as long as you use the tools exactly like they've intended, then it'll work. And then they'll be completely baffled if something breaks.

So since we always seem to aim for some sort of "middle road general impression" that we'll somehow arrive at when tugging back and forth enough times, all of those details and problems like that just disappear. Either because we figure the quirks out and work around them, or whoever had the problems rightfully think we're a bunch of idiotic nerds, and move on to something else that actually works.. you know..

Just.. please be aware of that. That a laptop can serve every possible need that a person doesn't actually have. Or have problems that will make people throw it at the wall. But people who have been working with this stuff for years just don't see them.

 

Hi, I am a new N56VJ user, running Windows 8. I have read a lot of pages in this thread and tried the search tool but couldn't find the answer to my question.
Some of my taskbar icons are in low-res and I have no idea why. You can see the icons pixels, with jagged edges. I can't upload an image of my pc right now but I'll do it later.
I'm not sure if it's a problem with windows 8, with this resolution or with this computer. Thanks

 

Hello! I believe the OS is up-scaling the interface (To compensate for the small appearance of elements on such a high-res screen at 15"). My Windows 8 did it by default, it probably detected my screen specs. I saw the same issue with icons not displaying correctly (not all icons are high-res and cannot be up-scaled). This is what you should do:

1) Right click your desktop and choose "Personalize".
2) When the window opens up, click "Display" in the bottom left corner.
3) Change size of all items from "Medium 120%" to "Smaller 100%". That should remove the up-scaling.

So what was happening is that you were viewing everything 120% their original size. Now you should be viewing everything at 100% their original size.

 

You are right. That did the trick, thanks!
However, if I set everything to 100% scaling, obviously everything seems too small and uncomfortable to read. So, what I think should solve the problem is changing the resolution to a smaller one (with the same 16:10) ratio. I changed it from 1920x1680 to 1600x900 and sizes are ok again but text and items now appear blurred.
I guess that with a screen with such a big resolution, you have to deal with at least one of these problems, right? Low res taskbar icons or everything quite small for average eyes.. What are your resolution and scaling guys?
Thanks

 

You guys onow anyway to make this run cooler, i hit 87c on my gt 650m thats pretty high for a cool card.

 

You can try doing a repaste with a high quality thermal compound.

 

I see that there's a new Intel HD 4000 driver online. I've found reports where the driver has caused problems with some notebooks that use Optimus. Apparently it's with notebooks that use the manufacturer supplied drivers - many people suggest we MUST use the manufacturer supplied drivers (From Asus) and not the generic drivers from Intel. I haven't seen any reports regarding the the Asus N56vz though.

So has anybody tried the new Intel drivers yet? I know Nipsen is a big fan of using the original Intel driver and ignoring the Asus tweaked drivers - any feedback?

 

I see that there's a new Intel HD 4000 driver online. I've found reports where the driver has caused problems with some notebooks that use Optimus. Apparently it's with notebooks that use the manufacturer supplied drivers - many people suggest we MUST use the manufacturer supplied drivers (From Asus) and not the generic drivers from Intel. I haven't seen any reports regarding the the Asus N56vz though.

So has anybody tried the new Intel drivers yet? I know Nipsen is a big fan of using the original Intel driver and ignoring the Asus tweaked drivers - any feedback?

 

Usually though in optimus setups the integrated drivers have no impact on gaming performance.

 

*nods* not in general, at least. But they keep adding features so OpenCL instructions can be run in parallel with an optimus card when the intel card is not initially active, that sort of thing. Won't make a huge impact, but if you're running a program that uses quick-sync "features", or hardware calls with those specific intel instruction sets.. Powerdirector, CS, Cyberlink products possibly, Autocad.. then it could be you suddenly lose some of the potential problems in the new drivers, since those calls are specifically written to not.. randomly overwrite the wrong buffers, or suddenly stall the io, etc..

Anyway... The reason I used the newer intel driver was that some of the optimus-specific fixes in the 3.+ nvidia drivers for a few programs just don't work with the old intel drivers, or the ones supplied by Asus. The entire "I have a dual monitor setup, and all my windows seem to lag like crazy when I drag them" problem comes from that. Aero hanging itself completely at random - same thing. Hangs when using nvidia acceleration on a web-browser, and then switching to another 3d app - same problem. Corruption when switching to desktop and back. Also was the first oem intel driver croaking, because it used a workaround for the screen-buffer.

The relatively widely reported hang with one of the windows updates that happened a while back - this was only an issue if you had the original intel driver with that weird screen-buffer/direct addressing workaround.

Point is that normally, it'll work just fine. But there are a bunch of issues with the initial release, specifically for kepler cards, that were resolved last year. So I don't think it will hurt to just go with the intel driver. Gaming performance and performance/Watt on the integrated graphics is horrible no matter what, though..

(It's still impossible to underclock the igp for some reason, even if that would save a lot of battery, though. I guess intel is saving that one for haswell..)

 

Well, I have a little problem with my N56. A couple of days ago I saw keyboard smudges printed on my screen. It appears only when the screen is off and in good light. It's difficult to clean that key traces/smudges without cleaning liquid (just with the cloth supplied by Asus) but what worries me more is that it's physical contact between LCD and keyboard. For now I put a new spacer (the cloth from Asus) at the edge of lid...
Otherwise in time I will have a full keyboard on screen...

 

Thank you!
Have you installed the latest intel driver (Version 9.18.10.3071) on your N56 and has it been successful?

 

Yeah. But no noticeable differences since the driver that turned up in ..September or so, I think. The settings for scaling that didn't work, etc., was fixed by then. I keep reading about people who have different kinds of microstutter and so on with games that partially use Opencompute and CUDA supported libraries, though. So could be that newer drivers will fix specific issues like that. TressFX in Tomb Raider, for example. Some of the problems with "nvidia cards" was very obviously bandwidth crunches when running opencompute calls to the wrong "provider". Seems to have been a few ugly workarounds that weren't necessary on the latest drivers..

And generally, the maturity of both the intel drivers as well as the nvidia drivers is so high now that you really run no risk when updating. Beta 3.+ drivers at nvidia are more stable now than the "final" geforce driver releases used to be a few years ago. Install-routines work, don't break the database, no need to do safe-mode removes and clean systems every time, etc.

So no, no worries about those drivers, at least.

 

Report Back: I just tried the latest Intel HD 4000 drivers and got blocked when trying to install - with the message popping up that it's not compatible with my configuration (Asus N56vz HD 4000). So that means we're forced to wait until Asus provides the update via their own channel. Thoughts?

 

I'm sorry to intrude here, but can anyone tell me how to start a new thread? I've hunted all over the site and can't seem to find a POST NEW MESSAGE link. Again, sorry, and TIA.

 

@Zaphod.. They have 32 and 64 bit packages, and one variant for the desktop version and another for the laptop version. Other than that.. Evil invisible goblins? Windows 8 quirk/driver signing problem..?

@DeeBee: They've set it up so you need to post some ditto-posts before you get access to start new threads. Stops spammers and serial posters. Sort of.

 

Hello everyone!

About a month ago I bought my Asus N56VZ laptop. Installed Windows 7 64bit. It was working fine for 2 or 3 days when suddenly my laptops DVD/CD-ROM opened by itself for the first time. And this thing is still going on and annoying me .
It can even open by itself while there is a CD running in it.
What can cause this problem and how should I deal with it? I have already tried to uninstall driver, but it does not help.

Please, help!!!

 

I'm on the market for a laptop and have been looking at the Y500 (and glancing at the Samsung Chronos 7) but this laptop caught my eye today - well this thread did

I'm curious to hear from anyone who has maybe tried a Y500 but then decided to go for this laptop instead - or maybe was shopping around and chose this over the Lenovo. What build quality is like, how the performance compares etc.

I know you can run a second GPU on the lenovo, but I figure it makes it slightly too expensive if I bought the second card.

I'm in the U.K by the way, so the Y500 I have been looking at, has the GT650M and not the newer GT750M. So it seems as though - bar the difference in GPU memory, the two machine seem to be on a par?

Any replies appreciated. Thanks.

 

650M and 750M are very similar performance wise, if you can wait a touch the newer haswell models will be launching soon and you will either pick up a good deal on the current machines or get one of the newer ones.

 

Definitely agree with that. Haswell isn't going to be any faster, or anything like that. But together with a kepler card, with the dynamic underclocking - those new lower power-saving states on the cpu, and the dynamic bus-speeds, is very likely going to go really well together with an extra battery. That you're going to get both low idle and low burn battery time (maybe even on the level of a properly underclocked Llano apu). But also fairly good performance in a small chassis.

The w650eh clevo model looks promising. Something like that with the updated power-profiles on the cpu would be very interesting. Difficult to tell when these new processors will be rolled out, though.. From what I hear, it seems as if some retailers are determined to give Haswell a miss, believing it's not going to be extremely interesting to upper or lower end of the markets. That the other ulv processors are covered well on the ultrabook front, and that the existing 35w i5/i7s are ideal for the larger notebooks.. I.e., that making a chassis that essentially combines an ultrabook and a multimedia-laptop (and ruining both production lines, etc), is a bit too soon.

Difficult to tell, though. But I predict(!) that 750m notebooks are going to be on the market for a while before they're updated with haswell kits (if those will be used on these laptops at all - after all, they will have lower synthetic speed than the 35w i7s from the beginning. So could well be seeing that the actual model these processors would fit best in will be passed off on - that they'd be consciously putting haswell in internal graphics setups only, for example, to promote a specific type of field where those processors are useful). This is pure and almost completely only speculation, though.

 

Double, triple and quadruple checked that it was the correct driver - the message actually says I need to download official drivers from the manufacturer. Will post up a screen shot soon and edit this post.