N56vz review and owners lounge - Techno Art

Just thought I'd post this in case anyone else was having the same problem as me. My main annoyance with this laptop was that the card reader had issues with SDXC cards, erroring out and corrupting a card after trying to write data to it for more than about 30 seconds. After some searching, I discovered that there's a component-specific support page for many things on the ASUS site, with the one for card readers being here (the Alcor drivers for Windows 7 work perfectly under Windows 8 and are a year more recent). I've tested writes of up to 20 minutes (transfer size 19.6GB), and everything seems to be working fine.

 

^yes, was something like this with the usb hub for a very long time as well. Not sure if the newer intel drivers for the "extensible host controller" are pushed with the windows updates. But installing newer drivers will fix the similar time-out issues with usb devices. What you want is the panther point version of the usb 3.0 extensible host controller.

You can get a newer driver than the one asus is pushing for the atheros wifi chipset as well here. It will fix a couple of issues with resends and negotiations that happen sometimes on aes networks when there is a bit more than average amount of radio noise.

 

Hi, I am having weird issues with the battery of my laptop.

- It does not fully charge
- After 10 minutes on battery it just turns off without any warning
- If the power and the battery are connected, the battery LED starts turning on and off

Is this the battery that is faulty or the charger?

 

What happens if you leave the system off and the battery charging? Does it fully charge after a while?

 

Battery is worn out, since it might had about 500 cycles of use, or became defective.
If it's within 1-year of use, then you can claim warranty from ASUS.

 

Hi guys,
I've already posted this in the 16gb thread but found this one after.
Hoping someone could help me with this:

Hi, first of all sorry for digging up such an old thread, but i'm in need of some help.

I've bought this kingston memory: http://www.kingston.com/datasheets/kvr16s11_8.pdf

I intended to use it together with one of the original modules (hynix apparently with the same specs), but am unable to since the laptop keeps crashing while playing (12gb total ram)

Right now i'm using only this module and seems to be working fine.

Has anyone here used one of this with the original modules or can tell me if two of these would work together on n56?

Thanks

 

You can try swapping places with them, i.e. whatever order they were in the first time reverse it. What happens is that the hardware detects the first dimm and sets timing according to it, and the new dimm can't keep up etc. But sometimes some dimms just don't / won't play nice with each other.

 

hi,

That was the first thing i tried, unfortunately it didnt help much.

The first setup i installed i tried playing fifa and the game crashed as soon as the field showed up.
After reversing the modules i was able to play fifa and have my computer with 6gb occupied without a glitch, but trying another game (rising storm) i can barely start a round without freezing or shutting down.

 

Yep, just get a matched set of dimms then.

 

I would suggest you to order a 16gb combo from crucial.com search there and you would find guaranteed working ram for your notebook. I have n56vj and 16g from crucial.com and never faced an issue. You may have to keep the preinstalled module idle..as these RAM modules can be tricky in compatibility.,and use the 16g combo from crucial that should be guaranteed to work. I am in the same boat as you. Hope this helps.

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I've found this yesterday: Memory Search | Kingston

According to that this memory should work well on n56 so i will probably end up buying a match and see if it works.

Thanks

 

Sorry for the double post,

apparently this module is causing my computer to overheat while gaming.
The laptop is shutting down after about an hour of gaming due to overheating i believe.

Is it possible that running with a single stick causes more heat? or could the stick be faulty?

I've swapped the original modules in again to see if it happens again

 

With the forced latency settings Asus ... still insists on keeping with their bioses. On the n56, and on practically all of their laptops, also the new ones, it's probably not unlikely that the RAM would be the cause of hangs, and so on, no. It's not really overheating, though. It's just working at wrong/too high timing, and it's causing too many errors.

But yes, just switching the original chips for a set of better cl9 ram isn't necessarily going to work. Because Asus bios tweakers are not like other bios tweakers. The actual Ram-modules are practically never faulty these days.

edit: Btw, note that normally - like sxooter says - the latency settings will be detected at boot, and the standard settings applied. So that in any motherboard config, 1.35v, 1.5v, cl9-11, various bus-speeds and ram speeds would be allowed. Also, you would normally be able to actually control the dram:fsb/base clock timing, although not on laptops. Actually, many brands enforce similar idiocy like Asus...

Anyway. But instead of having spd-timing on auto, Asus has forced one latency setting config, that in reality isn't even the recommended settings for the standard hynix chips that ship with the laptop. Or, the timing that is printed in a chip on the damned dimm that ships with the laptop, is different from what Asus forces in the bios settings. And that's the reason why if you try to add an identical 8Gb stick to the one that is there in the first place, for example, the setup croaks. It's also the reason why the standard setup, if you're unlucky with the quality of the chip, doesn't handle the settings with just one chip. It just produces too many errors.

I've tried to discuss this with Asus support. I've tried threatening Asus corporate to do something about it. I've asked different resellers to at least notice what's going on. I've attempted to appeal to custom build resellers to suggest that they would be able to sell more chips and chip configs if Asus sorted this out... as in simply set the damned settings to "AUTO DETECT" rather than " ALL I DON'T KNOW".

And none of that has worked. Indeed, their "solution" to the "two sticks don't work" problem was to insist - and I'm not making this up - that their computers only support up to 8Gb ram. Not just from their support manual, and so on. No, they changed the specifications on their product sheet. That's right - Asus is the only laptopmaker in the world who has a panther point based laptop, with 2 dimm modules, that officially cannot support 16Gb ram. True f'n story.

Making the only logical explanation left that either 1. Asus are idiots, just like the resellers who pick up their products. Or 2. They're both conspiring together to me off.

 

@nipsen so am I really really lucky to have got perfect compatible ram modules from crucial.com for my n56vj? I think n56vz is more strict on the frequencies..
In a separate note... So do you plan to switch to another brand for your next notebook?

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No. Same settings in the bios.

But if you have quality ram supposed to run at cl9, it will deal with the braindead timing without causing too many errors. I don't want to jinx you, but ram modules do work as long as the error correction is eventually successful. You only get consistent errors if there are enough errors to actually make the error-correction fail. ..

It's never about brands, it's about what you actually get, isn't it. My current kit is some sort of weird limited asus kit that's only sold in parts of Europe, and isn't on sale any longer either apparently. But what it had was brilliant for the price (was an offer, well under €150 below the list-price), I also got a heads-up on the way the cooling works - that it stops the fan, and can rely on only passive cooling while just using it as a typewriter. And the battery really is great. So that was the reasoning for buying it. And it actually does last 6.5h as a typewriter while listening to spotify. So nothing else matched that for my needs..

When I opened up the case as well, I was thoroughly impressed. Actual anchoring through the boards, that are placed in level, etc. Rather than having a screw at the edge threatening to break off a piece of the chassis from the inside - suffice to say it's completely different from the zenbook and the rest of the popular models, also including the n56 shell.

On the other hand - it also has soldered on ram, I'm sure it's easier to force Asus CEO types into a Volkswagen than to switch to an ssd and install the OS on it (thanks to the new on-board ssd and secure boot policy, hidden product key, and on and on). Asus support are of course less than helpful, to put it mildly, and keep on being given "solutions" to things officially that are so dumb it's probably even worse for the support guys than it is for us.

But Asus keeps coming up with these glorious exceptions to the rule like this. This r553 model, the g550 case, and one of the newer flat models in aluminum - they're really well made. Brilliant kits. Only hampered by truly idiotic software and bios solutions, of course..

Not that you actually get any other brands that have more careful settings.. The ones that have a conscious relationship to bios-tweaking, usually has it because they sell their own branded ssd and ram upgrades, and so on. And good luck installing some branded software and having /no/ issues. At least on the asus laptops, at least for the time being, does have the brand specific packages and drivers set up as a post-install package. So if you know what you're doing, you can use that.

So who knows, maybe my next laptop will be an asus as well. If I had a bunch of cash, I'd make my own company, use my status as reseller to tweak the damned bios myself (in 10 minutes - not exaggerating. Anyone could do it in 10 minutes..). But I don't have that, so whatever.

 

Dear all,
I'm here asking for help as my n56vz-s4196p is making some rattling sound when I insert a usb device ( mouse or x360 controller is indifferent)
It is not like the subwoofer buzz or the BR-drive spin, in fact it recalls me of the "hdd click of death" except everything is perfectly working and the sound cease in 3-4 second if I leave the device plugged in.
If I remove it the sound cease immediately. Actually it seems to me that the clicking comes from the bottom right part of the pc.
Can you experts help me to shed some light on this? My warranty period is almost over and knowing that asus has a poor support here in italy I'm worried as everything else in the pc is working perfectly fine (no high temps, no speaker buzz, no touchpad problems and so on...) so I don't want to send it in for a repair and risk to receive a damaged pc back.
thaks in advance
PS I admit I haven't read the whole thread (tried with search but didn't find anything useful) so if this was already discussed I kindly ask to be redirected to the post
thanks again!

 

..think it could be the "USB insert" sound event? The usb hub/eXtensible(sic) host controller driver thing has a sort of looping detection event until the hub resets (depending on power profile settings), or something like that.

 

First of all thank you a lot for your help nipsen,
well it is not "software related" ( If I understand correctly you are referring to the windows usb inserting sound right?) it is more like if the head of the bd-driver starts to tremble, but it's not the usual "I-spin-because-I'm-trying-to-read-something" thing, it's more similar to the mechanic sound of hdd heads and it vanishes in 3 or 4 seconds if I don't remove the hardware I just plugged in. Also this happens only once in a while and never repeats itself two times in a row.
At first I though it was something like the hdd going "crazy " when I plugged something in the usb ports.
If you can confirm me that there's no electronic part that could do that sort of sound I'd be less worried...
Thank again for trying to help me

I'd try to rec it but it's too unpredictable and short

 

Anyone updated to Windows 10? Any luck?

 

Yes no problems, just make sure you download Asus Smart Gesture drivers and software


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