ASUS X750J opened to replace parts

Hello to all!
I'm new to this forum and I want to share how I open my new ASUS X750JB since I couldn't find any info on net about it. I contacted Asus, but no help from them. Asus doesn't want to give any instructions on how to open laptop with excuse that is "design secret". I also ask them how to replace battery and they told me to bring it to service

So, lets begin. There are 12 screws on back laptop panel. When you unscrew them it happens - nothing! Since, I didn't have any idea how it looks inside and what could hold back plate and front part together I tried to find hidden screws, some latches or something. One try was with card to stick between to plates. I tried it in back corner from DVD side. I opened DVD door and tried from there to stick it between two plates, so to scratches become minimal if happen. This didn't look good, since top (aluminum) plate start to bend more then it look it can sustain without bent or brake, so I give up on that on.
After 10 days arrived and my new SSD that I want to use in place of one HDD, so I start to losing patient. I got to point that I had to open it somehow even with some scratches/dent/bent. I doubt that there are hidden screws, and tried something that actually give me results:

4 screws close to front side of laptop are smaller then rest of 8 screws. I used one of this longer screws and insert it into front hole (for small screw) and tight up. When it reached end I screw it more and I noticed that front plate slightly separate from back plate. I screwed it more until it separate enough to insert plastic phone card between two plates. I screw up 3 more screws in rest of front (small) holes and then how I tight them up I moved card toward them and then small plastic latches start lousing and plates slowly begun to separate. From then I could move with card ti sides and latches opens there easily. Back side was little difficult. I raise up and down top plate and it finally everything separate.
Basically except 12 screws there is a lot of small latches all around plates. Everything is connected to bottom (plastic) plate (monitor too) and there is just keyboard connected to top (aluminum) plate.

On these 2 pictures, you can see start point witch I manage to make:



Watch out on these 3 cables that connect power button, keyboard and mouse pad attached on top plate with motherboard on bottom plate:



Here is picture from laptop when removed top plate. I circled in red some of latches that I could recognize from picture. Latches are placed evenly all across housing (note: I didn't mark them all, not even half of them). You can see first HDD on right side (C and D drive with OS). Second HDD is below motherboard and you can't see it. Location of both is marked in blue.



This is top plate from bottom side:



Here is motherboard lifted and you can see second HDD:

 

Of course they didn't explain! They don't want you risking your warranty and they don't want to be held accountable should they give you instructions and something goes wrong. Just about every OEM abides by the same philosophy.

This is still a good guide and I'm sure many users will appreciate the effort you put into it.

 

To explain process in more details now:

To disconnect keyboard, move forward to withe latches by sides of connector and then you can pull out ribbon cable. I noticed on left picture that I didn't properly (fully) insert ribbon cable in connector (see right side of connector)



To disconnect power button and touch pad lift up black latch and then you can pull out ribbon cable:



Now is disconnected top plate and can be removed. There is several screws that has to be removed from motherboard. I circled those that I could remember (don't curse me for those that I forgot One screw is below black label in left corner.
I didn't want to disconnect contact that connects monitor (blue), because it looks more sensitive and I didn't want to have problem later on because of loose connection. I just free out monitor cable that is attached to latches around fan.
Also, rest of cables that connect to motherboard (green) has to be disconnected.



These connectors (red) has to be pulled out and wireless antenna connectors (blue) has to be lift up to detach.

 

Yea, that is exactly that they mention: warranty

I told them that I want to replace battery. After several emails I told them that I found in user manual on page 30. following: "European Union Eco-label" and then under
point 5: "Designed for easy upgrades and longer lifetime through providing
compatible pare parts such as batteries, power supplies, the keyboard, the memory,
and if available the CD drive or DVD drive."

So, I was wonder what it mean easy replace of battery if you need to bring it to service...

 

Just to mention and re-image process that I used.
This laptops has 2 HDD. Imaging process is therefore easier and doesn't require any additional hardware (e.g. USB to SATA cable)
I replaced HDD that is below motherboard. Another one (on right side) has OS as well restore partitions on it and I want to save it for later use in case that I need to restore original OS again. I took Samsung SSD and it coming with data migration software. So, when I insert new SSD and still have on right side original HDD, I normally started laptop and then data migration software. Software copied C partition to SDD and than I shut down laptop.
Now, I have usable C partition for boot up Windows on my new SSD, so I remove HDD from right side that contain OS and insert another one that was below motherboard. I didn't have to change anything in BIOS, since it immediately boot up from new SSD. So, when you find the way to open laptop, rest is easy
HDD that is left (witch contain OS and restore partition) I using now in another computer. I pertain all partitions except original C and D (there is several of them), so in case that I need to restore my laptop, I still can insert it in laptop and restore to original state and repeat process of data migration to SSD. Only to note that for restore you need both original HDD's in laptop. I tried to restore with SSD and HDD but it complained that is "missing partition", however when I put original HDD instead of SSD (previously I deleted all partitions from it) it restored normally. So, it means it doesn't really need all original partitions but rather original HDD. This I mentioned for those that want to delete 2 partitions (E and F) and create just one, so they can do it without problem.

 

Cosmetics issue:

I have to mention that this opening technique leaved 4 small bumps my laptop. It is hardly noticed, but still can be noticed. I show what holds together upper plate and housing (back plate), but you should consider to improve method bu trying more non invasive approach. My suggestion would be to try with plastic card from top-right corner. Open DVD and start from there. I started as well from that side, but I wasn't sure at time that there is no additional screws, so I didn't want to push too hard.

Here is picture of 2 dents. Lights make it looks worse. Most people didn't see it until I told them

 

I have the same laptop and it took me some effort to find this very useful guide, thanks a lot!
For the opening process, there's also a good tutorial on youTube which is for another model, but can be easily applied to this one.

What I don't get is WHY on earth didn't they install the system HDD in the secret and hardly reachable location under the motherboard, to leave the second slot empty for easier SSD-upgrade??? ASUS this would have been a no-brainer, but nooo.... so I have a lot more work than was really necessary.

At least they use a Samsung HDD, which is really good and fits well with my new Samsung EVO 640 SSD

 

I have the same laptop and it took me some effort to find this very useful guide, thanks a lot!
For the opening process, there's also a good tutorial on youTube which is for another model, but can be easily applied to this one.

What I don't get is WHY on earth didn't they install the system HDD in the secret and hardly reachable location under the motherboard, to leave the second slot empty for easier SSD-upgrade??? ASUS this would have been a no-brainer, but nooo.... so I have a lot more work than was really necessary.

At least they use a Samsung HDD, which is really good and fits well with my new Samsung EVO 640 SSD

 

PS: ok just to do Asus no wrong, I think it absolutely makes sense to put the HDD separate from the motherboard for heat reasons, so to spread the heat more eavenly across the surface. Inserting the SSD in the mobo slot is then the better option, since it doesn't move and doesn't get hot...

 

I agree that there is more elegant (and not so destructive) way to open this laptop. Now, when is seen how it looks inside, solutions from similar closed laptops can be applied. It was painful trying to open it and making sure to not brake it

 

I also think heat is reason why is HDD below motherboard secondary and primarily is "stand alone" on right side. Primary is more in use, so it generating more heat.

If you change secondary HDD for SDD (like I did) and make it primarily it will fallow same logic. SDD doesn't generate heat, so it doesn't additionally heat motherboard. HDD makes more heat then SDD, so it is better suited on other side (even if is less used, it is still hotter then SDD when is it in use).

 

(strange could not find my reply here, but I'm sure it was not deleted

I managed to install the SSD yesterday (same model as the author with the excellent illustrated procedure detailed here, I was only blocked at first by the screw on the bottom left, because I thought it would only attach the SD card reader, but it also held the mainboard firmly, tough screw

Now the only problem left is the darn Windows installation, I think I might have to install from scratch - Samsung migration is a bit awkward to use, but it copied everything over successfully. Only the pesky drive letters are now messed up so even if Windows booted up successfully, some parts of the system still expect the old drive letter so Explorer constantly crashes every second etc. Shame, would have been to good to be true.

I'll try again and hide the old system partition to work around this, but ATM I cannot reboot because I tried starting Windows in safe mode and I only get a black screen with my mouse pointer, cannot do anything... Force shutdown just goes into standby and on restart, Windows boots up again, ignoring my F2 key press on the Asus boot logo...

 

@ForumAdmin: when hitting Reply, I always get a warning that I cannot post two replies in 10 seconds, later the reply appears twice - I am pretty sure I hit the Post button only once... my reply from yesterday was even lost, could you please check what's wrong here?

 

With OS installation I had same problems. Samsung Magician works fine when you have just one HDD in laptop and perform process with extrenal USB to HDD(SDD) addapter. Problem is with 2 disks, is that on both of them have "C" partition witch confuses Windows, after cloning process is done and Windows boot up.

If you don't use USB to HDD external cable, cleanest way to move original OS is following:
1. Insert SDD as secondary HDD
2. Boot up Windows and clone HDD to SDD with Samsung Magician (or other cloning software)
3. SHUTDOWN laptop after cloning completes (don't reboot, because if Windows seas both HDD and SDD, there problems begins)
4. Take out primarily HDD with OS and insert there original second HDD (without OS)
5. Boot up (you don't need to change anything in BIOS, if I remember correctly it recognize booting partition, so no need to specify it)

One more note. If you already mess up you OS (like I did) I would suggest to you to recover your OS to original factory installation and then to clone to SDD clean OS. You need to have bot original HDD's installed in its original place in laptop in order to do it. When I booted first time from SSD (leaving original HDD with OS) I almost mess up so much OS and existing partition, that at moment I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to recover original OS, but somehow I manage it and I still have original OS from laptop.

 

"I bought a ASUS X750J beginning this year. I was very happy with this very fast laptop first. After about 4 weeks the fan developed some noise. It sounds like the bearing is no more OK. So I called the customer service of ASUS. They allowed me to remove the HD - otherwise they will erase all data from disk ( I Don't even know why they need to erase my data when they only have to replace the fan...). So I saw the big surprise it's not easy to change the HD. According to the discription here it's even risky and very possible to lose the warranty. In my desktop times I always used ASUS motherboards to build up my computers, because of the good quality of ASUS. But this is more than just wrong designed. I am sorry to say this, but this is the most stupid design of a laptop I saw ever. I got the Instruction from ASUS how to open the back safely and I can say it's only possible with a special kind of tool they have there. But the common user doesn't have it at home for sure. So I will work with the laptop until the fan stops working hearing all the time the very irritating noise or I back-up my data and reinstall everything when I get back the laptop from ASUS which is a hell of a lot of work. This is my last ASUS laptop."

 

Hello,
I also have an ASUS X750JB, but mine came with a single 1TB hard drive instead of two and no OS installed. Will it have a second unpopulated hard drive slot or will I have to replace the HDD?

 

Thanks for the great information! I have been trying to find out how to upgrade the memory in this thing since I got it. The idea that I have to send it off to upgrade memory or replace the battery is just ridiculous.

I may change over to SSD at some point but mine came with 2TB's of space and that would be expensive to replace with SDD.

Thanks for the work on this guide!

 

can you please post the instructions from ASUS and what the "special tool" is called or what it looks like? that would be of help to those of use who are interested in finding a way to improve the method posted here, great as it is, it is still a bit of a pain in the neck.

thanks
Mike

 

I bought an ASUS last year and doubled the memory to 16GB just by opening the little door that covered the RAM -- now I have this thing with everything buried behind a single back plate. All I want to do is install the memory -- and I would appreciate very much if you would post the instructions you got from ASUS and a photo of that special tool they use. Thank you.

 

Hello there, first off it's great to finally see a guide in how to disassemble this laptop, since I didn't knew until I got it that it was very hard to physically upgrade.

But with that said, is there another way to do it? I bought a bluray drive and would love to install it, but I don't wanna create any unnecessary damage to my laptop, since it took me two years to save up to buy it (I'm Venezuelan), so right know it feels like a baby to me.

 

Unfortunately there's no other way to get to the screw that secures the optical drive without taking the top case off. If you're worried about that, maybe an external drive would be something worth considering.

Apart from that, since it took you two years to save for this, hopefully the laptop is treating you well.

 

Hi ITdmax:


Thank you for providing this info, with pictures.

I have almost exactly the same Asus laptop - mine is the retail store version, Asus X750JN (Asus full name: RS751JN-MB71), with the core i7-7400HQ CPU and nVidia GeForce 840M 2 GB dedicated GPU, but it does not have a second HDD (just the empty space on the motherboard (which has to be removed and flipped over, as you show in your post).

I had a very hard time finding any other info on the web about how to open my brand-new, 1 day old, $900 notebook, but I finally found a YouTube video from Russia (no sound), showing how to do it for this Asus X750 line. The guy unscrewed the 12 screws on the bottom of his laptop's case, then flipped it back upright, and using a very thin guitar pick to wedge into the very thin, tight gap, he released all the little plastic clips that hold the aluminum keyboard to the bottom plastic shell. It is an extremely thin, tight gap. This is the "Asus secret". I did not use your technique of using a long screw to screw into the short screw holes, since it damages the metal keyboard deck.

Anyway, I didn't have any guitar picks, so I went down to the nearest Music and Arts store and bought a 12 pack of thin guitar picks (about 4 dollars USD).

I carefully worked the pick into the gap, starting in the upper left corner of the keyboard (facing the screen), and worked my way around, counter-clockwise. As I slid the pick around, I noticed there are about 10 or 12 little plastic clips that had to be pushed back a little toward the center of the keyboard to release them. The panel clips in the back are very tight, too...the ones near the hinges for the LCD screen. After about 10 minutes of careful, hard work, I got the keyboard deck loose. I realized that I had then voided the warranty on my 1 day old, brand new, $900 dollar Asus laptop.

Then came the very tricky part: the 3 ribbon cables - power button, touch pad, and keyboard. You can pivot the front edge of the keyboard panel only about 3 inches up away from the base - any further and you risk damaging the cables or zif connectors.

I released the touch pad and power button ribbon cables from their zif sockets on the motherboard, using the white and black release levers.

I spent a very long, difficult time trying to figure out the release mechanism for the keyboard socket on the motherboard, and almost destroyed it. Almost. I ended up being very lucky.

At first I thought that the 2.5 cm wide, gray top portion of the connector housing was a 2.5 cm-wide zif release lever (but it's not!). I noticed the little white plastic pieces at each end of the connector, but figured they were just immovable pivot points for the (non-existent) ZIF lever. I left them alone. So using a little flat blade jewelers screwdriver, I kept trying for about 20 minutes to pry up under the top of the plastic gray socket to "release" it, which it would not. As I kept prying up under the top of the socket, I noticed that a little stress crease in the plastic was forming all along the front top edge of the connector, so I stopped. It wouldn't lift from the middle, or from either side. Obviously this was not a ZIF release lever. I almost snarfled the damn thing. I wanted to take a break, so as I was setting the keyboard back down onto the bottom plastic base, the ribbon cable popped out intact from the motherboard socket.

I took about a 2 hour break, and went searching on the web some more about this stubborn socket connector, when I found some blogs about newer Asus laptop keyboard connectors...their newer laptops have these keyboard ribbon connector sockets with little white sliding blocks at either end, that have to be slid about 1 mm away from the socket base where the ribbon cable goes. Little did I know.

After I came back from the break, I finished taking out the motherboard (the really easy part!), and replaced the slow 8GB of CL11 PC3-12800 memory with 16 GB of fast Crucial Ballistix Sport CL9 RAM (2 x 8 GB, which is the maximum). I also replaced the *very slow* OEM 5400 RPM 1 TB Samsung (Seagate ST) spinner drive with a 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD, onto which I had previously imaged Windows 8.1 from the spinner, with Samsung's excellent Data Migration app, and with my 840 Pro SDD using a USB-SATA enclosure (only took about 25 minutes). I also took out the DVD burner, and put in a 1 TB 3 Gbps Western Digital 5400 RPM spinner HDD in its place (for massive media, video & game archival storage, as well as for storing multiple image backups), using a Sanoxy HDD caddy. The caddy fits right in and is straight pass-through (the SATA port the DVD burner was on is 6 Gbps SATA3, so the pass-through will go that speed), but there's no plastic bezel to cover the end on the right side of the laptop, so there's an exposed recess...oh well, can't have everything. I didn't want to use the 2nd HDD bay on the motherboard, because I didn't want to add any more possible sources of thermal stress to that very cramped and compact environment. I really don't use DVD's/optical media anymore for anything - i stream or download all my media, movies & software from the web, or I use USB-attached hard drives, or USB flash drives, or SD cards - so I won't miss the DVD burner.

I re-connected the power button and track pad cables just fine, the little ZIF locking levers snapped them down nice and tight, but of course I now had problems with getting the keyboard ribbon connector to stay in the socket. I slid the two little white release clips back about 1mm, now noting the little white 2.5 cm plastic connecting bar pop out from underneath the socket. Then I firmly inserted the ribbon cable back into the socket, nice and straight, then slid the little white connector clips back. The ribbon cable still kept sliding out. I was really worried that I destroyed my laptop.

Here was my solution: I figured that with all of my prying, I had loosened the socket and locking mechanism, so using the cap of a Sharpie pen, I very carefully "massaged" downward all along the top edge of the keyboard connector on the motherboard, where I had previously pried up, which made the plastic crease go away.

Still no go; the ribbon connector kept popping out, no matter how firmly I inserted the cable, and whether I moved the little white clips back into place, or not. With the ribbon cable out, I decided to try first leaving the clips back in their original seated, "locked" position. Then I carefully slid the end of the ribbon cable back in, which it did, and the connector now holds the cable very firmly and tight. It feels nice and tight in there, and I used a considerable bit of tugging force to try getting it out. It's in there solid. It doesn't make any sense, but the ribbon stays. I figure that it's a sort of "self-tightening" kind of situation...the harder I pull, the tighter the little white connector bar goes up against the backside of the keyboard ribbon cable. It works, and it's fine. Otherwise, I was facing the prospect of having to insert a little < 2.5 cm thin plastic (or paper) shim under the ribbon cable, between it and the bottom of the motherboard socket...which would probably work fine, too. Or maybe a little strip of scotch tape.

Anyway, I got it all back together, everything works (especially tested the keyboard), and I now have a very fine, fast, hot-rodded Asus X750 17" laptop, with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD that cold boots Windows 8.1 to the desktop in about 7 seconds flat (in fact, I'm typing and posting this right now using this very same laptop!).

By the way, I also have Romexsoftware's excellent PrimoCache v 1.0.1 RAM caching software (which I purchased for $29.95), which caches both the Samsung SSD *AND* the WD HDD spinner drive. I set up a 3,072 MB (3 GB) RAM cache for both volumes and everything just flies. Note: Primocache is *NOT* the same as a ram disk, since it is not persistent.

I've found that my nVidia GeForce 840M is indeed almost as fast as the nVidia GT-750M in a lot of cases (even though it's only got a 64 bit bandwidth!), and it even trounced the 750M in the 3DMark Ice Storm, at 75,000+, high graphics settings, 1600 x 900 (max resolution). The 750M scored only 39,000 (at 1920 x 1080) - I figured that the newest drivers I'm using really help.

Anyway, just thought I'd post this response to your very helpful posting here, ITdmax (even though it's 8 months later), and I hope it's of use to any other Asus end-users who find themselves in a similar bind, and who happen upon this terrific & helpful notebook blog.

 

@trevayne10, when you removed motherboard to change ram you saw there is a sata port for 2. HDD? Could you tell me how many SATA ports are in your BIOS?

I am asking because i have similar but not same model its the F750LB also called X750LB, i opened it once but didnt know that the second HDD port is probably under the motherboard.

I am asking about BIOS, because in my BIOS stated 2 SATA Ports HDD and DVDROM, if you have 3 SATA ports in your Bios, i would say my notebook hasnt second hdd port, but if you say in your bios also only 2 SATA, then ill try to open and look under motherboard.

Or maybe someone else has X750LB and can tell me if it has second HDD port?

 

Hi samsungerx -

My BIOS (v.204) does not show the number of SATA ports available.

According to the Asus specifications of your X750LB here Notebooks & Ultrabooks - X750LB - ASUS -

you have this second SATA HDD option available. I am sure that the SATA port controller with connector is also on your motherboard, just like my JN model.

Let me know if this helps!

-Trev

 

@ travayne10

yes it helped me a lot, just opened and put my ssd in, yes really it has a second sata port. I really dont know why asus built it like that, many people wont buy this notebook because they cant build in SSD or second HD, if they would write it in their specifications that it has second SATA usable, then many more people would buy it.

It took me 1,5 hours, its really hard to get the mainboard out, its unpossible without losing warranty, because of the stickers, they will always know it was opened.

I had to reopen after fitting it in and screwing, the keyboard was bent, just because 1 mm cable from the battery wasnt in right place it bent the whole upper case.

2 motherboard screws were missing when i opened it, i dont know if yours have this?

Also left speaker is loose, but the screws cannot be tightened any more, dont know if this is normal?

I disconnected the battery cable from motherboard, because im using this notebook only at home, so i dont like it loading all the time. next i want to install a switch outside, so i can switch battery on and off when i like, what do you think of this modification? The only problem is there are 6 cables from motherboard to battery, so it isnt possible with just one switch, maybe someone has an idea?

 

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Hi, samsungerx -

Thanks for your post, with remarks, ideas and questions!

I think Asus makes upgrading the X750 line of laptops very difficult because they want to discourage people (like us) from making our laptops perform the way *We Want Them To Perform*. Very controlling. But if everyone did that, and messed up their laptops in the process, it could make things very complicated for Asus' warranty service and liability. Asus doesn't want that; they're just protecting themselves, from a legal standpoint.

I was very angry and dissatisfied when I found out that Asus put slow CL11 RAM in my laptop (and only 8 GB, but I knew that before I bought it), so I replaced the RAM with 16 GB of Crucial Ballistix CL9 memory that I was using in another laptop - that was my main mission, along with replacing the slow spinner HDD with my Samsung 840 Pro SSD. I want as much performance as I can get out of my laptops! I removed a lot of Asus OEM tape and stickers and stuff from the system board in the process (especially around the SD card reader housing - the card reader still works fine). I don't care. If my laptop dies, it dies (it won't, it runs great), and of course I won't bother sending it back for service - whether in or out of warranty. I've heard too many horror stories about Asus' warranty service, about them putting in bad or used parts, long service delays, bad or scratched LCD panels, mixing up peoples' laptops and orders, the poor or nonexistent customer service, lack of follow-up, long delays, FedEx shipping delays, lost shipments, and other problems. So I just tore into my laptop with a vengeance, and the Hell with it. And will continue to do so, as the spirit moves me.

My main motivation, as I said, was to replace the slow RAM and the slow, 5400 RPM spinner. The long, cold boot times and low write performance with the very slow Samsung 5400 HDD gets old very fast. My SSD changed all this, and my laptop boots from power off to a Windows 8.1 desktop in about 7 seconds.

I knew that I was voiding the warranty when I opened it up on day 1 (literally the first day I bought it, on September 16, 2014 - a long story involving Micro Center in Cambridge, MA - LONG, horrible story, with many laptop exchanges, and with many twists and turns - for another day!) and removed the motherboard, but I was very careful and methodical. Only problems I had were with these flappy, delicate, fussy, stupid ribbon cables and their sockets, which I obviously hate - stupid way of doing things. (I think problems with these ribbon cables and their zif sockets are a big part of how laptop OEMs get their end users to void their warranties. Issues involving a simple 3 cent ribbon cable part that can end up destroying $900+ laptops, and Asus and other OEMs don't have to do warranty service on them! What a business model!).

It turned out that when I put everything back together the first time, the power button ribbon cable somehow got pretty bent and munged (which is why Asus and other laptop makers put adhesive backing on all their ribbon cables, to help keep them in place!). It still works, but I am very careful with it now.

To answer your questions, yes, I noticed two missing screws on my motherboard, as well. I figured the screw holes were empty for a reason, so I didn't worry about it. I also notice that there was an empty screw hole on each of the 2 metal hinges for the LCD panel (one for each side, the hole on the hinge closest to the panel). These hinge holes mount the hinge base to the bottom plastic shell, but it turns out those holes are taken care of later, by the long screws that come up from the bottom, plastic panel, when you put the laptop back together. The long screws will fill those holes and hold the hinges tight, from underneath.

Yes, like yours, the left speaker plastic mounting base on my laptop's system board was loose, too (the whole left speaker assembly kind of bounces up and down), but the screws were all tight, so I left it alone. It's fine.

I had a little bit of difficulty stuffing the battery connector wiring harness back down into the plastic channel that it goes into (there is a little retainer tab at the top of the channel), but I got it all sorted. Wasn't too much of a problem. I noticed in your .jpg that you had your battery connector kind of crooked in the system board socket.

I would advise against installing an external switch for the laptop battery. It sounds like an interesting idea, but the potential here for serious problems (if not disaster) is too great to risk it, imho. You never know if a switching transient or pulse while running from AC power could damage a controller circuit or trace somewhere. These things are delicate, and I doubt there is a fuse to protect the line (or lines) where you would install the switch. Let the ACPI charging controller logic handle it. In my experience with laptops it's always been best to just let the battery sit in there all the time, and let nature take its course.

samsungerx, I have a couple of questions that you might be able to help me with:

Is your laptop throwing ACPI errors in your Windows 8.1 Event Viewer? Please look in the Custom Views in the Administrative Events of your Event Viewer (in the Control Panel Administrative Tools). Here is the error:


ACPI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to write to an illegal PCI Operation Region (0x10), Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.


Go to ===> Settings ===> Control Panel ===> Administrative Tools ===> Event Viewer ===> Custom Views ===> Administrative Events.


I get many of these errors during the day on my laptop, but they don't seem to be causing any serious problems. I just ignore them and delete them, using a cmd .bat batch tool that I have. I suspect these ACPI errors are caused by poor coding of BIOS by Asus. (Their BIOS version 202 was really badly coded; it caused many end users to get frequent NVRAM (BIOS) call routine crashes, along with BSODs, with Windows 8.1 running). Very poor quality control.

Also, these Haswell i7-4700HQ quad core CPUs run HOT. I always like my Windows 8.1 power profile to be in "Performance" all the time, but that means the CPU cooling fan is going moderately fast most of the time. Oh well -- this is a LAPTOP. According to SpeedFan (which I love), TEMP1 doesn't go above 75C, and none of the four cores even hits 65C, even when I am heavily gaming. I wonder if you are experiencing this, too, samsungerx. Do you notice your CPU cooling fan running pretty fast most of the time, using the 'Performance' power profile?

Thanks!

-Trev

 

Thank you, its interesting to hear you have the same issues with screws and speaker. I thought they maybe sold me a servicednotebook, but now i think its just like that.

I have many errors in event viewer, but no ACPI BIOS errors like yours.

The bios thing is just another question i had, i am still on 201 (think so) i saw theres already 203 and 204, but i was hesitating updating, because in the past i had bad experience with updating my notebook bios. Sometimes they throttle cpu or grafic with newer bios versions and so on, therefore better stay on old bios until no problems. So what would you advice, is there any improvement in 204 Bios, and should i update it?

I bought this notebook, because my samsung was getting too hot, and had a noisy fan. Even in power saving profile and when you didnt touch it the fan started every 5 minutes.

Yes if you use the performance profile its fast most time, but this is ok for me. I dont use performance all the time. For me its important that the notebook is quite when i turn on power saving profile.

I bought this asus, because users were saying the fan is unhearable or doesnt work all time, now i dont know if im picky but even in power saving profile the fan is working all time.

The CPU isnt getting hot at all, i think its at 35-40, i see no reason why the fan is working at all. My samsung notebook was quiete and the fan didnt work until it reached 55C, ok it reached 55c very fast, but why is asus fan working all time? Your fan stops when you set power saving profile and notebook is in idle?

I also used speedfan, until yesterday. Since i installed SSD on second Sata port i get error when i start speedfan system crashes and restarts. I still dont know why, but it has to do something with the SSD. I tsays something IRQ less or equal 0

I dont know bios 204 but if you search for SATA setting in Bios, i believe you also have this, as i stated it showed me 2 SATA ports, now its showing 3 Sata ports since i have installed the SSD, it only shows when device is installed.

OK, updated speedfan to 4,51 beta now its working again.

My Teperatures are very low, Tepm 34c Core 1+2 even only 17

 

hi samsungerx -

When you replaced your OS drive, did you put your SSD drive right in its place (on the plastic bottom shell)? The second HDD for storage should go in the empty drive bay on the system board. I chose to remove the DVD-RW drive and install my 1 TB spinner drive in its bay, using a SATA caddy, because I want the motherboard and CPU to run as cool as possible. Putting a hard drive right on the motherboard - right next to the RAM & CPU - is asking for trouble, imho.

I see that Asus' latest BIOS for your X750JB is v.208 - I would go ahead and update to that. You *can* go back and flash to an earlier BIOS if you want. Simply find the Winflash.exe utility in its folder. When you find it, open an elevated command prompt, change to the folder where winflash is, and type: winflash.exe /NODATE (and make sure you know where your BIOS file is, so you can point Winflash to it!)

The "NODATE" bypasses the Winflash lockout error when you choose an earlier BIOS file (Asus doesn't want you to be able to do that). Then choose any of the earlier BIOS files you want, and it will work.

Glad your CPU is running nice and cool. My CPU fan does throttle way down and runs nice and quiet when I select either the "Balanced" or "Power Saver" power plans, and runs around the same temps as yours.

Cheers,

-Trev

 

Hello Trevayne10,

i installed the SSD on the Port right unter the motherboard, because it was easier for me and i think SSD will produce less temperature then HDD.

Also ordered SATA Caddy, before i knew theres a second sata port on motherboard. Maybe i will install another HDD, i had also a caddy in my Samsung notebook, dont need DVDROM for years.

My exact model is F750LB, as i see theres already BIOS version 211 for this, i think will give it a try, especially knowing i can downgrade it withy your hints, thank you for that.

What do you think of modifying BIOS, i know its very dangerous, but i read about it here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/660901-asus-fan-control.html

 

hi samsungerx -

BIOS modding = Dead. Laptop. I strongly advise against it. The overwhelming odds are that you will brick your laptop. Even the slightest mistake, wrong value, or typo could fry an ASIC, microcontroller or some other extremely sensitive component on the motherboard.

Regards,

-Trev

 

hmm... ominous silence.

I guess samsungerx mod'ed his BIOS & bricked his laptop.

Oh well...easy come, easy go... "...we hardly knew ye".

 

Hardly OP, but I found out last week that the Asus X750J series is *incredibly* susceptible to exactly what you describe. I was using a Kali Live CD to recover some stuff as I've done many times before, except my Asus X750JA requires me to jump into the BIOS and tell it to boot off CD/DVD first or it won't recognize that's an option in the legacy boot environment. Ditto for booting from HDD.

As I transition back to HDD, I realize I left the memory card I was recovering plugged in. No big deal, HDD is first on the boot order and... where'd my computer go?

Somehow, the 16 GB memory card wound up overwriting the first 16 GB of my HDD, the rest of the drive was marked as unpartitioned (and recovering documents from a 1 TB drive has been *loads* of fun), and my BIOS took itself out to the back 40 and shot itself. I certainly don't recall entering those commands in Kali.

Now I'm trying to figure out what exactly the difference is between an Asus X750JA, X750JB, and X750JN, if I can (or perhaps should!) substitute one board for another, or even if there is a difference in models besides what's plugged into that motherboard. Let's see what happens when I call one of the United States ASUS authorized repair centers in the morning and ask them if they can just send me a replacement board, screw your stupid warranty, here's my plastic.

The chances of me sending that laptop back with the original HDD in it before I'd clawed every bit of data back out are precisely zero, so this thread's idea of using a guitar pick or old credit card to open the case worked out beautifully.

 

hi justanothergraysuit -


You're transitioning *back* to HDD? What on earth for?

-Trev


ps - glad the guitar pick trick worked out for ya!

 

If the very first thing in the boot order does not work, my Asus X750JA ignores every other option and refuses to boot.

If I want to boot from an optical disk, I have to go into the BIOS and tell it to boot from optical disk first.

If I don't have anything in the optical disk tray and want to boot from HDD, I have to go back into the BIOS and tell it to boot from HDD first.

When I did this and left a bugged-out camera memory card in the card reader, the laptop overwrote the first 16 GB of my HDD with the memory card's contents (bitwise, as far as I can tell), destroying the disk's partition structure in the process, then refused to even POST after that initial reboot.

I now have a paperweight of a HDD unless I do a REGEX-based file structure recognition recovery of every format of every file I ever saved on there (and fragmented files are probably just gone), and a paperweight of a laptop unless I replace the motherboard.

On the plus side, I've found out that the X750J(A/B/N) series of laptops may be differentiated simply by what's plugged into the motherboard. I already found out there's a second SATA HDD slot that I never noticed in the BIOS, and that I could install a primary SSD into. Somehow replacing the optical drive might also be an option.

The big question is, can I somehow install the X750JB's video card on the same motherboard the X750JA uses? I'm not sure yet.

 

hey JAG -


sorry to hear you're going thru such grief with your 750JA....

I'm seriously scratching my head over how your 16 GB camera memory card took out your BIOS (? ...if I'm reading you correctly), your original boot HDD, and possibly your whole motherboard (!).

You may be able to recover the MBR or GPT of your OS hard drive with a Windows 8 DVD. Put your DVD burner back in, boot the Win8 DVD, go to the Advanced recovery tools, command prompt, then run these commands:

bootrec /RebuildBcd

bootrec /fixMbr

bootrec /fixboot

Exit


After it completes, then reboot to your C: HDD, and hopefully it'll all come back.


All I did with my 750JN, storage-wise, was remove the lousy 1TB 5400 spinner drive and replace it with my Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SSD (I pre-imaged it with Win 8.1), then I took out the DVD burner, and replaced it with a West. Dig 1 TB 5400 spinner. I also replaced the slow 8 GB of CL11 (ugh!) RAM with 16 GB of Crucial Ballistix CL9 RAM, and that was that. I really didn't have to touch the BIOS, it all just came right up.

I don't think you can remove or replace your discrete GPU...most discrete GPUs for laptops are soldered onto the motherboard. I know mine is (GeForce 840M, 2 GB).

You might check on eBay for a good 750JA board.

Holy [email protected] this all happened...very, very peculiar.

 

Very helpful - and thanks for the expanded directions. Asus is appallingly indifferent to helping. I too tried - asking only for a map of the interior - but my "official" support request was ignored.