Asus Model: Q501LA-BBI5T03

Since the offer is back and I got quadruple ebay bucks I went ahead and ordered it since the screen on this one is slightly messed up. It took less than 5 minutes on the phone with buydig and they're sending me a prepaid label to ship it back,

 

Thanks for the heads up, I ordered it this time.
yay


As a side note:
I couldn't get a consensus on this but one user says the Toshiba alternative I mentioned has a very dark screen. It is dim even with the brightness set to max. Extremely sensitive to viewing angles. I don't know how accurate is this information but if the screen is not that bad, Toshiba is still a good buy. Thanks god I managed to order my Asus this time.

 

I originally purchased this laptop a couple weeks ago at the 539.99 price at buydig. After receiving it and installing all updates i noticed my headphone jack was not working. Luckily I saw buydig had it for sale again but this time at 479.99 so i went ahead and purchased another to get the even more discounted price and to replace the first one with the non functioning headphone.

Well i received the new one yesterday and THE HEADPHONE JACK ISNT FUNCTIONING ON THIS UNIT EITHER.

Ive installed all the latest drivers and played around with all the setting i could find to try and fix the problem. Am i missing somethig????

SOMEONE PLEASE HELPPPP!

thanks!

 

Just purchased one from eBay. Can't wait to get it here and put it through it's paces. I want to make sure it works correctly before keeping it past the 45days!

 

Did you check your headphones ?

 

I've tried 3 different headphones and two different sets of speakers.

 

It seems to be very picky about the headphone port used. Some headphones work for me and some others do not. I know that the 3.5mm extension cable I have gets picked up though.

What headphones have you tried?

 

Ive tried my Samsung S4 headphone, Iphone 5 headphones, and also my bose desk speakers. None work.

I can hear its making some kind of connection when inserting the jack but when I play sound it still only plays through the laptop speakers.... Im stumped.... Unless I have the worst luck and purchased two units at separate times with the same defect or Im missing something in the settings.

I will go through all the settings/drivver versions/etc again tonight...

 

Just curious, did you make sure that you plug the connector all the way in? Since it's a combo jack, maybe it's expecting the 4th conductor?

Also, did you update to the latest Realtek 6.0.1.7058 driver?
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/DriversForWin8.1/Audio/Audio_Realtek_Win81_64_VER6017058.zip

 

I'm running win7 on SSD now, so far so good, only one hardware does not rec (do not know what's that, but seems not a problem). Also have a $14 7260N in, it's surf faster!

 

For those who have already removed the back of the Asus, how do you do it without doing damage to the plastic edge? The 10 screws can be easily removed, but the back is so tight fit that I am afraid to scratch or damage it. Someone said to start near the hinge of the laptop and work around with a CC. My problem was to get started near the hinge. I really want to access the back for SSD install or adding some memory. Really appreciate some pointers here.

 

http://i.imgur.com/vsRpoCa.jpg

If you pry it open just a tiny bit with a knife or something you should be able to get a credit card in there. Once you have the credit card you just slide it along, you don't really have to worry about prying it.

 

I used a guitar pick. Started at the back by the hinge, which was the easiest place to get it to slide into. I was pretty careful and still managed to break off a few plastic clips, just to be aware.

Also, the second time I took it off one of the plastic pegs for the ethernet hinge bent and loosened until it completely broke off. I'm not sure how it happened because I never put pressure around that spot. I couldn't find a replacement piece without buying the whole bottom cover, so I managed to fix it with a piece of paperclip.

 

I tried to opened with the same tool, still was pretty hard.
I opened it to see if it had mSata in it, which was there. but after i closed it and turned on there was weird crackling noise coming. first i thought it was the fan but i found it was HDD making that noise..

Any of you experienced same problem. Also, any of you have problem with the fan noise? it seems pretty loud sometimes.

 

Wondering what the general concensus is regarding the habit of working with these batteries.

Unlike some notebooks of the past, it's not as easy to just keep batteries separated while working extended time at home plugged into the wall. Since it's not good for the battery to keep power connected charging while at 100%, do you guys just unplug it at 99%-100% and work on it while battery discharge?

In the past, with my old lenovo T400, I had a habit of just separating the batteries when charge was full.

 

I'd like to know this too. Mine's been mostly plugged in since I got it. Last night I noticed that the battery indicator said it was at 95% and not charging. Maybe that's a built-in function for protecting the battery?

 

Well, %99 of the time that crackling noise coming from hdd means its dying, if not already (partly) death.
You might wanna check if its seated properly and tighten secure enough, so it doesnt vibrate or something when laptop is running.
Maybe its not the hdd...

 

@akonet83 & liebherk

Guys, I might be wrong on this but I strongly believe relying on my experience and knowledge; the gain you will have by removing the battery is not worth the hassle.
Let's say unplugging the battery will make it last 1 week longer in 5 years of usage, lets say it will last 2 weeks longer and I am being extremely generous when I say 2 weeks; for me it is not worth the trouble. (to each on his own) For me, the extra work is not worth the benefit.

If I am scientifically wrong on this, I simply do not accept it

And liebherk is right, my old laptop, a 4 years old T510, wasn't charging unless it was below %95 and it was built-in. I didn't do anything special to make it work like that.

 

yea, my old Lenovo T400 also had that feature where charge would stop at certain point to avoid topping off, but I noticed on this Asus Q501LA, it charges to full 100, and it appears that if I keep the charger connected, it would keep feeding it.

 

Not the case for me. I got mine just yesterday, so I didnt have time to look over everything in detail yet. But, right now, it says " 97% available, plugged in, not charging" which is a good thing.

 

Did anybody get the right hand number keypad working, i.e. typing in number? I tried typing in number and nothing. Nothing in bios either. Update ATK whatever that is, still nothing.

 

Try pressing num lock.

 

It doesn't work from boot because of the UEFI bios the computer uses. There is a "hack" you can do if you Google it.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk

 

have you tried [fn] +[end] Key?
The end key's fn is "Num Lock"

 

Exactly what do we google? Google and I don't get along all that well

 

Exactly. I also spend some serious time to figure that out myself, lol.
[fn]+[num lk] to activate/de-activate numeric keypad.

 

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/numlock-startup-windows-7-8

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk

 

I got mine today after waiting due to some slow shipping and it won't boot. It powers on, but the drive light flicker looks like it is just repeating over and over and there is nothing on the display at all. Caps lock key comes on when powered on and stays lit - can't be toggled. Very bummed.

 

Thank you kindly!

 

My touchpad upper hand corner is loose, appears that the clip holding it down is broken. What is my chance of getting a better shape laptop from buydig? I am conflicted about keeping this and returning it, opinions? I did spend a couple days setting it up and don't want to waste it.

 

Mechanical issue requires opening up the laptop to adjust it.
You can use User migration tool to save your setting (not programs thou) to backup, then either exchange it if possible, or contact ASUS for DOA service.

 

Hey guys...I am having issues with my audio. When I plug in my HDMI cord it displays the video fine on my TV but the audio does not go through. It continues to play on my laptop. Also when I try to plug in any auxillary cords to play through an outside speaker system it doesn't work either...does not even recognize it. Headphones seem to work fine. I have reinstalled the realtek driver but is there another driver I should be installing? Any ideas on what might be the problem here?

*edit* Solved the problem. Had to update the intel VGA driver and now it works great

 

Thank you Kevin. Much appreciated.

 

For those interested and have the capability to install a mini mSATA. There are some new drives just became available on pre-order.
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/mydigitalssd-msata-mini-ssd
I have not tried these out so I can't speak about their quality but they will fit on this laptop

 

It was all working well for me.
Then I updated to windows 8.1 and updated the BIOS and all drivers.
When I tried to restart it took really long time. Then I tested for shutdown and it took longer then usual.
After researching I found that the culprit is the bluetooth, since i dont use it i disabled it, then the shutdown and restart was fixed but still the boot time is very longer that it used to be.
i tried disabling unwanted app in startup, still didnt help.
Any suggestions? if i should return it or try to fix it?

 

What settings do you have in the bios for booting?

 

So I recently got my Q501LA from the Buydig sale. I finally figured out how to wipe the HDD and re-install Win8 using a fresh copy. I attempted to install Win7 using a UEFI USB drive I made with RUFUS. But when I boot into the install startup, it just errors and tells me "A required CD/DVD device driver is missing" I have an external DVD drive on the way, but is there something I can do to get the USB install to work?

 

Probably going to be picking this up new from Best Buy today. Nice to see a "budget" laptop with more premium features (backlit keyboard, wireless AC, IPS display). I have a Samsung Evo SSD I was planning to install but I saw that some of the laptops seems to have a mSATA port? Will the new model from Best Buy have this mSATA port?

 

The only way you will know if it has mSATA generally is if the laptop you buy has the Atheros wireless card. However, some users have reported that even the Intel 7260 wireless models (which appear to be newer versions of the model) also have it. My laptop has the Intel wireless, but I haven't taken the bottom off yet to see. I'm not that concerned about it.

 

Ah alright. Well if I don't get an mSATA drive I'm at least going to be swapping my SSD in, so I'll let you know if the port is available.

One last question, how is the cooling? With the ULV processor I assume it's not an issue, but I can't really see where they put the fan exhaust. I know it isn't a gaming PC but I plan on playing Diablo 3 and such on it and want to make sure it will stay cool.

 

I don't game, and I haven't done much with it yet. Just been installing Firefox and Office. But so far it doesn't appear to get hot at all.

 

As far as I can tell the exhaust and intake are coming from the gap between the hinge of the screen and the motherboard.

I don't game either but with Pirme95 running 4 threads, the laptop is just slightly warm to the touch. I think both cores were hovering around 52˚C


Hope that helps

 

I picked the laptop up on Friday, just wanted to give my impressions.

Display

The display is great, especially considering the price. Great viewing angles and colors, and minimal light bleed for an IPS panel. My only real issue/concern is around the resolution. A lot of applications seem to scale poorly. Chrome, for example, gives me very blurry text while Firefox looks fine. The Battle.net and Steam interfaces look awful as well.

Keyboard

The keyboard is pretty good considering how thin the laptop is. The backlighting is great, but I wish they had gone with black keys with white letters. With the current setup it is difficult to read the keys if the backlight is on in a brighter room. My main issues here are the power button being a key on the upper right side, and some unevenness with the keys. My left shift key is slightly depressed compared to the other keys. Not a huge issue though.

Touchpad

The touchpad is very good and the gestures are great. I have some issues with consistency though. For example, the three finger swipe for forward/back works in Chrome but not in Firefox. Not sure how that makes any sense.

Build Quality

Overall it's a decently well made machine. There's a little bit of disappointing flex if you pick the laptop up by one edge. Some thinner laptops like the MBP 15" don't have this issue, but they cost more than twice as much. Some minor issues like the lid not being completely straight (it's about a millimeter to the right). Considering it's a $750 laptop I'm very happy with the build.

Performance

I didn't expect this to scream, but the HD 4400 is a little weaker than I expected. Even older or lower requirement games struggle with the 1080p resolution. I can run them at 720p but then I experience all the scaling issues with text in game. This may be the deal breaker for me, since I hoped I could at least run older games on the laptop. It does stay cool though, with HWMonitor showing a max of 70C when playing a more demanding game (since it hits both the CPU and iGPU hard, I'm not surprised that it's higher than running Prime95). I think the HD 4400 would be suitable for playing older games only on a 1366x768 screen. I don't think they make any of those in IPS though I do love that you can get the same performance on battery or AC using the Power4Gear application. There doesn't seem to be any throttling on battery.

Overall I like the laptop, I just need to decide if the performance is sufficient for me. The fact that you can get a 1080p IPS display, decently solid construction, a backlit keyboard and wireless AC for $750 is amazing.

Question: If I decide to keep the laptop I will be installing my own SSD. I can use the Samsung utility to transfer the data to the SSD, but how can I backup the recovery partition? Most laptops have some sort of Recovery utility you can launch but I am not seeing that.

 

Just got this laptop as well, refurb for 480$. Exceptional value.

The screen is really the most stand out thing about this laptop. Its rare to find a budget system with a great IPS touch panel.

Unfortunately I received the Atheros card version, but am seeing if there is an ability to get a 7260 substituted hopefully. (to enable WiDi support and just fix the inconsistent performance of the Atheros)

I have noticed the incredibly frustrating keyboard issue at times, then other times it goes away.
Some have claimed switching to ssd drive and looking into power options/sleep states (already removed Power4Go thing) may hold the fix for the keyboard issue, so I'm optimistic that will be straightened out- as its really the only un-
replaceable downside.

(I'll be doing a fresh install of windows 8.1 on the ssd; making sure to grab the windows8 license key using belarc or some other program before making the switch)

 

Amazon.com: Intel Network 7260.HMWG WiFi Wireless-AC 7260 H/T Dual Band 2x2 AC+Bluetooth HMC: Computers & Accessories

That's the wireless card that is in the newer model. I haven't opened this up yet but with the full bottom coming off it should be easy enough to replace.

Edit: And sorry, what's the keyboard issue?

 

Am i correct in thinking that only some models have the ability to slot in a mSATA SSD?
I find that i find my laptop constantly off even when the last time i used it, i put it to sleep. Anyways, having an SSD in the desktop makes me feel as though the HDD is sluggish as well.
Does anyone have a pic of their SSD in?

 

That's actually a setting. If you run Power4Gear and go to the System in Sleep tab and set it to Instant On it should stop doing that. I can't remember how to toggle it without Power4Gear but there is a way to do so within Windows.

 

You'll need a mini mSATA drive. Here's what happen if you have a full size drive - image by hajalie24

 

Half-height mSATA is what you needed.