N56vz review and owners lounge - Techno Art

Does ASUS global warranty cover these kinds of thing? My only problem is I'm not in U.S. nor Canada, and I've read most ASUS support centers in my location takes 1 long month or more before they can finish the repair/replacement.

 

Here in Norway, I'd always use the retailer for repairs or returns, so they can find the easiest way to send the laptop around, and so on. (Or demand a new laptop if it takes too long, etc). So I don't really know. Maybe send asus a mail and suggest they'd send you a pre-paid package number for an rma, or something like that, if there's no retail outlet you can use. But the way they handle this is different from country to country.

 

Any news about buzzing subwoofer noise?

 

Some update on my problem. I noticed that there are ants outside my laptop often, I'm not really sure if they made a home inside.
I've read on other forums that ants may cause damage to internal components of the laptop, which may cause my speaker to fail.
Could my ASUS global warranty cover such incident, if my right speaker was really destroyed by ants?

I don't have time to go to a service center right now, but I am planning after my project is done.
Thanks in advance.

 

What do you guys do to help cool the GT 650M? Cooling on the N56vz seems a bit odd... like its not designed to actually cool

 

My CPU gets to ~93C max, my GPU never goes over 83C or so. No throttling while gaming. Does your N56VZ run hotter than that?

 

Hi. I apologise for the slight gravedig, but I'm interested in the newer, upgraded parameter version of this laptop. And I wanted to ask current owners several questions. I have already posted this on threads concerning "sibling" models of this laptop, but have got no replies as of yet.

- Do the holes of the speakers tend to collect dust easily?
- How much worse is the sound without the subwoofer? I'm concerned about forgetting that it's connected when picking up the laptop and have it dangling by its cord. That subwoofer cord/jack doesn't seem very strong and I'm afraid that it might break after a few such accidents.

 

I haven't had a real problem with dust collecting in the speaker holes. But I have nearly destroyed my subwoofer before I got in the habit of checking for it before grabbing my laptop and moving it. You're spot on that the connector is pretty fragile, and worst of all the jack (the part on the computer) is pretty weak as well, so even if you order a new subwoofer you might have problems getting a good connection with it after a few accidental disconnects.

Sound wise the laptop is pretty darned good without the subwoofer. The only time I plug it in is if i'm listening to music or watching a movie. The rest of the time it sits off to the side or is safely tucked into my backpack. I'd say that without the subwoofer the sound on this laptop is better than other multimedia laptops that don't have subwoofers built in, and almost as good as those that do.

 

Thanks for the reply. That's a bummer about the subwoofer, but I guess that's a minor flaw in the whole picture. Also had one more question. One review I've read mentions throttling of the processors when under load. However, that said load was achieved during benchmarks and not real use.

I imagine you've played a game or two on your computer, have you experienced said instances of CPU throttling? Having all that power in the processor and only being able to use a fraction of it would be a major deal breaker for me.

 

I have had no issues with this machine throttling the CPU. Note that I played some games on it when I first got it, but nowadays it mostly runs with the GPU turned off and doing linuxey stuff, not games. However performance-wise the i7/GT650M N56vz is MUCH faster. The 7730 is alright as is the AMD A10 CPU, but it's no match for the current intel/nvidia vz machine. But throttling was never a problem, with max CPU temps in the high 80s / low 90s under load playing various games.

 

Thank you very much. Very informative.

 

Hi!
I have a question about this model ASUS N56VV-S4032.
What matrix is used in it - Samsung 156HT01-201 or LG Philips LP156WF1?

 

Re the full HD screen, can't you set it to Large font ?

 

Some fonts you can set larger, some not so easily, like a lot of system dialogs and such.

 

@Sxooter, what do you think of the newly release N56JR exactly the same chassis/design/color of the other N56 but this time comes with a much potent GDDR5 GTX 760m gpu, a Haswell quad cpu, and finally an Intel Centrino N-7260 dual band WiFi instead of the usual and common atheros card that is commonly problematic.

 

I think the specs look quite impressive. I do know my GT650M runs much cooler than my core i7 in my N56VZ so there's probably enough thermal overhead to keep a GTX760M happy. I find it humorous that the N550VJ has like 10 open box returns at Microcenter that haven't moved in weeks, but the one N56JR open box I saw was gone in less than a day. The big advantage of the GTX760M is that it's (supposed to anyway) run on GDDR5 memory which makes it much more overclockable than the GT650M w DDR3 that the N56VZ has.

Sadly I've not gotten to touch one.

 

My new N56VV (very similar to N56VZ, except with a 750M and a 3630QM) has a weird sound problem. More prominent at max sound, but not completely gone at 50% or so volume. Best felt with the default Skype ringtone - the speakers buzz during playback, it's as if there's something vibrating against the aluminium chassis. It's not constant, and happens only on some high/low combinations. Also the sound, at least to me, sounds as if it's coming from underwater, but maybe it's a difference of perception from my old laptop.

I've installed the newest Realtek drivers from Asus's website. They're not that new either, I think they were dated May 2013. If anything, they seem to have worsened the problem slightly, but at least the microphone works now (it didn't with the drivers that Windows downloaded through the device manager).

Am I looking at a hardware defect in the speakers or can this be solved with drivers? I've already returned one laptop because of a BIOS problem, I don't really want to do that again. Besides, since it didn't come with Windows 8(which I have installed and am using), any driver problems would probably be my own problem, and not covered under warranty.

I should mention that when I connected headphones, the buzzing is not happening (obviously, since the speakers aren't vibrating). Which, I think, makes it point even further away from a possible driver problem.

 

Meant to edit, accidentally double posted.

 

Hello, I have Asus N56vv whit i5-3230m and nVidia 750m 4gb DDR3. And i get very low fps at game's like BF4 or Nfs:rivals. It's no difference or the graphics is on max settings or it is on lowest still no more that 20fps. I tried to reinstall video drivers, changing parameters on nVidia control panel still nothing helped, maybe someone have/had same problems and know how to fix it?

 

750M is only good with older games, but may struggle with the new titles.
Can you run 3DMark benchmark on your system and compare your result with the website below?
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

 

I ran cinebench r15 test and in the notebookcheck web it says min:59.73fps and i got only 26 :/ https://www.dropbox.com/s/1u336q1hsutejqw/Screenshot 2014-01-30 18.29.37.png

 

Is your CPU overheating maybe? Or is something like throttle stop slowing it down? I've monitor it's frequency and temps while working.

 

FIXED!!! Now i have BF4 running 40fps on fullHD rezoliution and MED settings.

 

What was wrong?

 

Bios graphics settings was on 64M changed to 512M therefore core clock and memory can boost normally.

EDIT: yesterday it worked well, today its wrong again. When i play Nfs:Rivals GPU percentage goes only from 20-60% therefore fps are very low, sometimes its gos to 80% then fps is normal, any suggestions?

 

Are you sure it's using your discrete GPU and not your integrated one?

 

Yes I am sure, becouse i use GPU-Z and its show;s that nVidia card is working.

EDIT: i just checked that these settings in BIOS https://www.dropbox.com/s/66453k6hlei74nd/2014-01-31 21.10.24.jpg have nothing whit nVidia GPU, am i right? its for integreted GPU?

 

The BIOS setting only affects Intel HD Graphics's shared memory amount but it does not offer settings for the Nvidia GPU.

 

Hi guys. I'm deciding what laptop should i get, mainly for school and gaming. And the graphic card on this machine is not bad as i check
I know the laptop has been here for while, do you guys still recommend it?
The build quality is my corner. The aluminium body has already caught my eyes! Wonder the touchpad and keyboard quality
If I have $1200 (US) right now, is this the best option i have, in term of battery life, performance, and the weight
I read the review, the battery life last about 4hours, and performance is about mid-range for a gaming laptop., the weight is ok too

 

It's a generation-older technology so they are out and you may find them as second hand.

 

If I have $1200, what would you recommend?

 

I have the n56vj version of this notebook which has a little lower graphics card.. 635m. This is a performance notebook... If you don't need to run after technology.. Go for it.. You won't regret.. In another year.. The current generation would be the older generation.. So if you are not into replacing notebooks every year..this is a beast of a notebook... I purchased mine an year back for $949 working great.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

I'd either get the Lenovo Y510p with dual GT750/GT755 or the Sager NP8235 with GTX770M

The raw CPU horsepower is similar. The advantage of the Sager is that it doesn't have to deal with SLI. The advantage of the Lenovo is that it has a ~5 hour battery life without even using switching graphics. Note that the Lenovo white lists wifi cards, a terrible habit for a manufacturer.

 

Thanks for your reply!
I'm Struggling between y510p and N56JR now. I heard y510p won't last 5 hours with the SLI, only about 2 max under normal non gaming uses, and it gets really hot. They keyboard is average and touchpad is terrible
on the other hand, N56JR has GTX760M, it can't compete with Y510p's SLI at all, but it's not bad, the battery life is better as some reviews say it has about 5hours battery life under non gaming uses. I'm not sure the build quality, except its mostly aluminum finished.

What do you think?

 

Disclosure: I own an N56DP (AMD A10 and 7730M) and an N56VZ (i7 qc and GT650M) I do not own an N56JR. All N56 models use the same case and cooling layout etc.

I can get ~3.5 hours on N56Z running windows and 3 hours on the V56DP running linux, both at low brightness (20%) and mostly idle / simple web browsing. My son owns a Lenovo Y500, and with its pretty decent sized battery gets right at 4 hours real usage time with dual GT650M GPUs. His does not run REAL hot, but is not exactly cool either. Biggest problem is that the GPUs exhaust out each side of the machine == hot mouse hand syndrome.

The NV56JR looks very promising (easily 35 to 40% faster than my GT650M).

The Sager NP8235 has a GTX770M and that is a HUGE step up from the GTX760M in the gpu department. So at $1200 I'd be getting that. At $1000 or less the N56JR looks really good to me though, for the money.

 

True, and i just checked the review for NP8235, it's too heavy and big. I need the laptop for both gaming and school, i don't think i want to put this in my backpack everyday

 

If you can get the unit you want still from the market, then by all means go for it.
But I wouldn't pick a SLI system due to heat generated and lower battery life.
You wouldn't know whether you may be stranded without access to an AC outlet one day.

 

While the Y500 had no optimus and battery life was in the 3 hour range, the Y510 does have optimus and can get a respectable 5 hours on battery, far better than any of the N56 varieties. It definitely runs hotter than my N56VZ though. I'm no big fan of the SLI concept either btw. I'd probably get the N56JR if I was buying a machine today.

 

Help and advice needed on new Blu-ray drive.

Has anyone changed the Blu-ray optical drive. Mine will only burn Cds, it will not burn Dvds or Blurays for whatever reason. So I thought I may as well replace the drive completely.

All ideas welcomed.

Paul

 

Nowadays, they are standard fit including the eject button so you can get any kind of slim drive to use.
Just double check on the position of eject button to verify prior to your purchaes.

 

Thanks for the info. Just one more question, any recommendations as to make. i.e. Is one better than another.

Paul

 

They won't have much difference from one to another, as they are always bounded by its physics limitation.
As far as features go, they are pretty much the same, but there could be minor differences in spec.

Panasonic
Toshiba
Samsung
LG

Here's the search result from Amazon US.
Amazon.com: slim blu ray drive: Electronics

 

Thanks Kevin very much appreciated

Paul

 

You are welcome, hopefully you find the one you want.

 

Whats the correct RAM model to make an upgrade on this notebook?

 

1.35v or 1.5v DDR3 sodimms 1600mhz CL11.

 

like wich model Meaker? Any amazon link please, would be very helpful ,
Thanks!

 

For your reference,
Amazon.com: DDR3 SODIMM 1600MHz 8GB

 

Any decent shop like Newegg will filter the ram by the specs I gave you.

 

I have N56 VM, not VZ, will they work anyway?

Thanks