Asus Model: Q501LA-BBI5T03

hi,
this might help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-b-wFoDPXc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGO3P4oLqo4

 

Can someone speak to the actual model AC adapter included with the Q501LA? I purchased one off eBay that came with a generic adapter.

I looked on various websites, and some show an adapter which comes in two pieces, in one case the wall wart directly plugs into the wall, and in the other case it's in the middle and requires a second cable to convert to the actual wall plug.

In either case, on Amazon there are both 60 and 90w versions, both of which appear to be the latter kind, but on Newegg, it shows the former kind, but I can't make out the wattage.

Thanks for your help on this!

 

Hi, I have a problem with the screen brightness control. Did a search for brightness and none of the 14 results seemed relevant.

I did a clean install of Windows 8.1 to give a Chinese base for my parents. I installed all the drivers, and everything on the function key row works EXCEPT brightness. Keyboard backlight works, sleep, screen off, etc. Even when I swipe right to get the Charms bar, the brightness control doesn't work there either. I can pull the brightness up or down but the screen doesn't change.

Anyone have any ideas?

*Update*

I've tried the drivers suggestions; Rolling back the drivers to the generic Windows display adapter.

I've tried all 3 versions on the Asus drivers page.

I can't install the Intel generic drivers as you get an error when trying to force install (Have disk, point to the graphics\*.inf file).

 

how do you managed to get 12GB of Ram on this laptop?
for what i know i only support up to 8GB of Ram.
Any info would helpfull

 

how do you managed to get 12GB of Ram on this laptop?
for what i know i only support up to 8GB of Ram.
Any info would helpfull

 

Make sure the memory is 8GB 204-pin DDR3L (1.35v) 1600 MHz SODIMM. DDR3L is VERY important. Regular DDR3 (1.5v) will not work.

You need to replace the 2GB stick.

 

I just wanted to note that the last Windows update replaced the Intel graphics/audio driver which caused the Black Screen problem to return.

The old special driver helped as always.

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/DriversForWin8.1/VGA/VGA_Intel_Win81_64_VER101810334502.zip

 

What if you download the driver off Intel's support page?

 

I tried Intel beta drivers until 3 months ago. None of them worked as well as the Asus posted one.

Could be related to the fact that Asus didn't update the BIOS still and Intel claims the Black Screen/HDMI problem is BIOS related.

I will try again in a few months.

 

I had this laptop running great for more than six months now. The other day, however, I was applying fifty-some windows updates (I had Win8.1 64-bit), then the computer restarted as one normally does after applying the updates, and at some point I got an error saying something along the lines of "We encountered a problem and the computer needs to restart". After that point, the laptop was stuck with a blank screen, and so far I have not been able to revive it. Strangely enough, it had the same behavior as described by burntoc: it powers on, and at the same time the Caps lock key comes on as well, but the screen in blank and the caps lock cannot be toggled on/off, nor other keys seem to be functional - no Asus logo, nothing. One other thing that happens is that the HDD light comes on briefly at the beginning, but then it turns off and does not light again (with the original HDD, the same thing happens, except in that case I can hear the HDD spin down and turn off very quickly). If I let the computer in this state, after a while the cpu fan comes on as well, but all I can do is press hold the power key and turn it off.

I tried several things in the attempt to restart it: removed the SSD (I had a Samsung 830 256 GB), tried rebooting without it - no go. Replaced the SSD with the original HDD (I just kept it aside, just in case) - no go. I removed the RAM module (I thought that it might have gone bad) - still nothing. I removed the battery, the same result. I even removed the CMOS battery (the button cell one) and left it without power source for several minutes - the result is invariably the same caps lock on and no other response.

I wonder if anybody else run into the same behavior (besides burntoc), and if anyone has any idea of what may have happened - it was a routine Windows 8.1 update with the latest patches (or at least it should have been). I have updated the Windows on the same computer several times before with no problems, and did nothing differently now. I wonder if the soldered memory got corrupted all of a sudden, and since that cannot be replaced, the whole thing is a brick, and unfortunately I'm passed the 3 months warranty window to try to get it replaced. Any suggestions for what I can attempt to revive it would be much appreciated.

 

Just wanted to report success with the latest Intel graphics/audio drivers.

I set power options to Balanced.

In advanced power settings I set USB selective suspend settings to disabled while plugged in.

Lastly, I changed what the power button does to "Shut Down".

No problems since.

 

I've had this laptop for a few months now and for the price I have no complaints. The one issue I've been having is with the touchpad. It often double-clicks when I'm just moving the cursor around, causing me to drag browser tabs around without meaning to. This is a bit of a hassle, has anyone else had this issue with the touchpad and know of a fix?

 

Any luck on this? I just had a similar experience after performing a simple Windows Reset (delete the files, reload Win8). I have no idea why that would affect the video card/bios...but I've done all the things you've listed and get nothing. I can say that the cpu is getting hot/fan working, but that isn't saying much...

 

dup............

 

This might be worth a try:

Hold down Ctrl+Home, then hit power button.
keep holding Ctrl+Home untill you see "EZ-Flash" start.
Now wait until the factory shipped BIOS flash is finished, at the end of this process, it will say "restart in two seconds".
Your laptop should shut down on it's own (it's really important not to interrupt this process), and now you can try to start the PC.


You might have to restore the system to out-of-the-box state to make this work.

Some people report success by removing added RAM.

 

Thank you regli for your suggestions!

Unfortunately, this solution did not help in my case - the caps lock comes on right away, and I can hear the HDD spinning down and stopping very quickly, which means the computer does not even try to read anything from it. I was really hoping the solution would be in the form of some key combination that could jolt the computer out of this strange state. It looks like the behavior is reproducible, since burntoc and now kennpl report the same problem. kennpl is right, if you let it on for a while, the fan comes on as if something is happening, but again, I can see no sign of HDD access, the screen in off, and the caps lock on with no apparent possibility of changing this behavior.

If anyone has other suggestions, I will happily try them. Thank you!

 

It does look like a BIOS corruption. If we only knew the rescue file name.

 

Have you checked with ASUS to see what the actual filename may be?
Try leaving the BIOS in original filename, and see if the recovery takes it or not.

 

If I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a BIOS file somehwere on the hard drive (should it be on the recovery partition?), but in my case it could be that the file is corrupted. Just to clarify, when I did the Windowsn updates that eventually caused the problem, I was running the computer with the SSD (Sasung 830) that replaced the original HDD (after I transfered the OS, I left the HDD untouched, just in case). So if the BIOS file got corrputed during the updates, it should have happened on the SSD, not the original HDD. I attempted the recovery procedure using the original HDD, not the SSD, but it didn't work, so to me it does not look like a currupted file problem. I wonder if it would help placing a recently downloaded BIOS on a SD card (using the SD card slot), or a USB memory stick, or even on the HDD itself in C:\, and try starting the computer with one of those. I'll have to try it, and will report back.

 

The problem is likely that the BIOS in ROM got corrupted. The Ctrl+Home procedure is intended to take the BIOS backup file and rewrite the ROM.

 

I'm trying to install Ubuntu on this, but it isn't booting from my flash drive even though I set it as the first boot option in the BIOS. It goes to windows 8 instead. Has anyone else had this problem? What should I do? It says UEFI: SanDisk as the boot option.

On my desktop there are two different boot options from the flash drive (UEFI: SanDisk, and SanDisk) and I can boot from there just fine

 

You need a UEFI bootable stick.

 

I bought this laptop way back in February for my girlfriend and besides installing essential programs and suites I haven't really touched it since. This past week she started complaining that her computer "is so slow now." Particularly when she is on the internet. Says web pages take forever to become responsive. I haven't had a chance to take a look yet, but I will tonight. I'm hoping that it's maybe just some flash or browser issues and a good old fashioned reinstall of flash/shockwave/chrome do the trick. In the chance that it's not, are there any known problems with this model that can cause significant performance issues? I really doubt it's from a virus or junk software.

FWIW I also seem to remember way back when I got it I had to either disable or uninstall some sort of power management software that came stock on the machine, as I think it was causing some sort of problems but I can't even remember what problem was 9 months later.

Any immediate thoughts? Thank you!

 

Even with UEFI bootable USB flash drive it may still not boot up correctly if there's any compatibility issue.
The UEFI part of the BIOS is primarily made compatible with Windows OS, but not Linux therefore your mileage may vary.

 

Searching through the speak as well, but has anyone successfully installed linux on this?

 

You should be able to load it via legacy mode, but device drivers are going to be a major problem since you may or may not find a working one.

 

I have the similar model Q501LAT19. I just installed a silicon power s60 SSD. I've noticed the following 3 things since doing it. I only had the laptop for about 2 weeks beforehand and never noticed any of these issues.

(1) When booting up from a shutdown state, it'll flash the asus screen and just turn off again. I pause a moment b/c it's strange, press power again and it boots normally. It never did this before but post SSD install, it's done it 3 times now. I've shutdown and started a bunch of times.

(2) I keep getting an error with chrome. On first startup, it says it was shutdown improperly. I'm not sure why, but it's been doing that since the SSD has been installed. It happens usually the first time I open it from shutdown.

(3) Finally, I did do some SSD optimization based on what I read online and maybe this is causing the problem (disable page file, disable search indexing). I normally function in desktop mode instead of tile mode, but if you are in tile mode and start typing, a search box comes up on the right. I noticed there's extreme lag in typing. The first 3 or 4 letters come up normally, but then the next letters have a 3-10 second delay and deleting letters is just as slow. Never a problem before, but maybe I did it to myself.

Thanks for any help.

 

You seem to be knowledgeable about the touchpad, perhaps you can help me with an issue. If I touch my touchpad with my finger, the cursor is jumpy and goes all over the place on the screen and will do random right clicks and left clicks. This is with just my finger and no other part of my body touching the laptop. However, if I lay my other hands palm on the keyboard palm rest and do the same thing, the effect is gone altogether or reduced significantly. I am guess this may be a grounding issue of some kind? Any idea how I can fix this?

I'm not afraid to open up the laptop and perform surgery if that is a question. I have actually opened it up to look and could not see anything out of place. Please help...I love this laptop and would hate to have to return it.

 

Has anyone been able to fix the problem with the keyboard? I bought my Asus Q501LA about 2 months ago, I like it very much excepting the keyboard which is horrible, I have to press it very hard to have all the keys registered. I called Asus support several times and they guided me to install some drivers in a specific sequence but this didn't help. If I type fast (which I usually do because I'm a programmer) I have to delete what I wrote and to write it back because a lot of keys are not registering. Any help with this?
Another problem that happened in the last 2 weeks but only twice: the computer just stopped by itself with battery full and being plugged in.

 

The drivers on the ASUS page are very very old. For those of you having problems, have you tried updating the various drivers from other sources?
My q501la is running great. I have an mx100 SSD and a clean install of windows 8.1. No issues with the keyboard or touchpad (although they'll never be thinkpad quality)
Power saving features, like DPTF, can get in the way, but I just disable them or set to max under power options.

Here are some links to newer drivers:
Touchpad: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download ASUS Smart Gesture
SATA controller: Intel(R) RST/RSTe Drivers (newest: v13.5.0.1056/v4.1.0.1046 WHQL)
(Use: >64bit Intel RST(e) AHCI/RAID Drivers v13.5.0.1056 WHQL<)
Intel graphics: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProdId=3719

 

Hello,
I was having trouble with the Q501LA bios (being stuck in bios) UEFI secure boot. Anyways after a bad bios upgrade I'm left with a useless machine. Would anyone be so kind enough to provide a bios dump? Much appreciated if anyone can. Thanks

 

2 years on, and ASUS has released a BIOS update v212.
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&s=522&m=Q501LA&os=&hashedid=nej2wkGw0bbRzP51

No problems so far, and no differences noticed. I wish there was a real changelog available.

 

Probably Win10-related changes.

 

Hi. I just got this today. I calibrated the screen in windows calibration.. I do see some change but not enough.

Is there any fixes to the mustard yellow color? If I bought the
Datacolor S5X100 Spyder5EXPRESS? Would that help?

ASUS UX501JW-DH71T(WX) from Amazon

 

It would calibrate it as much as possible but I believe there will always be some yellow.

 

So is there anything else I can do? Or should I just return it..? I see there is the nx500 with Q dot display, but, with a worse graphics card and not full size keyboard + $1000 more.

I am updating VGA, Splendid and chipset to see if it changes anything, now.

EDIT It might have helped slightly, but, still noticeable.

 

I am wondering if anyone can help me with a new problem with my Q501LA. All of a sudden, the laptop started turning into a blank, black screen (but with backlight still on) when I close the lid and reopen it. If I do it very slowly, I see that it comes on when I barely lift the lid, but then it quickly does a few "lines" on the screen and then goes blank (blacklight still on). If I connect to another monitor via HDMI, the screen immediately returns as normal. But that's the only way I've found to get an image again.

I tried a complete reinstall of Windows, and updated all drivers, and the problem persists. I'm running Windows 8.1 still.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

It could be the internal cable is loose, talk to your reseller/asus.

 

I considered a loose cable, but if that were the case, I would assume that simply connecting an HDMI source wouldn't bring back the image, as this would do nothing to the cable, right?

 

It could be forcing it to re-detect the panel after it lost connection at some point opening the display.

 

I've been having the same exact issue! I (believe I) fixed it today by doing what this video shows. Pop off the back cover, pull firmly upward on the screen connector, blow out any excess dust, and reseat the connector. Taking off the back cover is as easy as taking out all the screws on the back then carefully prying the cover off. Good luck folks. So much time wasted on getting new drivers etc.

 

Hello all. I think it will be useful for all users of ASUS Q501LA.
There is a program: https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc/releases - NoteBook FanControl.
Support page is: http://www.computerbase.de/forum/showthread.php?t=1070494

Just install it, select model ASUS N550 (or something equals), turn to Auto - and you laptop will be very quiet. When you decide to play game - just turn off FanContol (for my experience it better way). In usual using (internet, coding, videos) - FanControl works great.

 

Interesting! This would be the first application I've seen capable of manipulating the fan profile.

 

Small update to setting - i customized settings - set to 1% of fan speed - on tempuratures to 55C instead of 0% - it helps to prevent heating and produces very small noise. I think it will be helpfull. If somebody wants to use my profile to NoteBookFanControl - please write.