Asus N56VZ-DS71 first impressions

Thanks!

Looks like it might be same display as default display in the latest clevos (P150EM/W150ER).
That's a good choice, it's a very good display, not best of the best but very good.

 

Thank you for the picture and the review videos on Youtube. Can you also post the display model for the Asus N76 17 inch? That'd be much appreciated. Also I noticed that during the video review of the N76, the temperature (idle and under load) portion is missing. Can you tell us more about that? Thank you.

 

Any of you tried replacing the Optical Drive with an HDD Caddy? I already replaced the internal HDD with a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD but I'd really love if I could put some of my VMs disks on a larger HD.

 

i am already getting a replacement computer sent out because my speaker crackle really bad even at low volumes, and when Im listening to music or doing anything with sound, and I am multitasking, if my computer freezes up the music will stop too and the speaker emit a loud robot sounding noise. Diablo 3 performance was also terrible it didnt matter what settings I put it on it would lag so much on a great internet connection. Hopefully I just got a defective unit...

 

Thanks for this thread. I'm on the verge of ordering a N56VZ-DS71 myself. The first thing I'm planning to do is wipe the hard drive and do a fresh reinstall, which I always like to do whenever I get a new machine. Has anyone else done this? Have you run into any issues reinstalling drivers, etc. from scratch?

 

Planning to drop the same SSD in mine when it lands on Wednesday. Did you just run the restore disk, or did you install 7 off an oem copy to avoid the bloatware? How's performance overall? Thanks!

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

 

Yes. Many

They don't send out OEM disks any more. So you can do one out of two things.

1. When you start up the computer the first time, the AI recovery something reminds you that you should create a bunch of dvd-images in case you need to reinstall (and this is Windows, you will need to do that sooner or later). What the software does is to take a backup of a "hidden" partition on the disk, along with a bootable image on the first disc. If you delete everything, or install a new hard-drive, or an ssd, that kind of thing, you can boot from that first image, and basically mirror down the hidden partition, which then installs a "fresh" boot with all the asus programs on, for a one-partition setup.

You might be able to shrink that partition later if you want to install linux, and so on, but I'm not going to guarantee success doing that.

2. Download a win7/64bit OEM disc, install it on a fresh setup (as in delete everything, and delete all partitions, remove them from the partition table, etc). And use the key on the bottom of the panel. Then if you don't really have a problem with the asus software, you can install it via the driver disc. And that will be more or less everything except for the Works thing with office. ...frankly, install OpenOffice.. or Libreoffice, or what it's called now instead, it's better.

The problems you're going to run into are the following:
a) Asus' power control software needs to run with monitor/admin access. If you install the Power4hybridawesomepowersaiken software as admin, you can be lucky to get a bunch of hangs if you just continue to use it with your user-account.

This is a serious bug with their software, that stems from the fact that it's made for Windows xp, where the UAC (useraccesscontrol - nothing good about that, though) didn't exist. Tried to get support to understand that this might be something they should sort out. But no luck.

The Windows control software as well is completely mysterious, though. What does "optimise for media-playback" mean? Doesn't say. So solution is generally speaking to install and run the actual profile software addons as elevated user, and then remove the on-screen calls. I don't know exactly where the problem is, but that fixed it. So very likely it's a call between the different asus programs that cause the hangs when switching to and from battery for example.

b) Anything you ask Asus support from now on will be followed by "but we don't support people doing anything other than start the computer, boot it, and use it like "intended".

But generally speaking, all the software will be available on a driver disc, and you can install parts of it without many issues. But there's always some parts of the software package that have been taped together and suspended by a clotheshanger and a rubber-band, and so on. And that it will partially fall apart when it's not used exactly as the guys who put it together intended.

Hardware, drivers, etc, should be relatively painless, though. Specially when it's very common components like this. Something will be supported out of the box, and you can always get a driver from the dvd or the internet afterwards. That is not going to be a problem, at least.

 

Can OP or anyone else tell us if any problems have occured with the machine since you've gotten it? I just ordered one and want to make sure I made the right choice haha. Also as far as gaming goes, what games do you play and what kind of frames are you getting normally?

 

#57 Nipsen have you tried out linux on n56vz?
Can you check what wifi-card is installed?
Nice description by the way.

 

No, haven't got mine yet. I had a n53tk for a while, which is the same sized chassis, same software more or less.

And I don't know if it's the same wifi module, so I can't tell if it's going to work. But I think they're using the same card series as in the other builds (at least it's the same driver series for windows), so I'm guessing it'll probably work.

I'll check once I get the laptop, though..

 

Thx. Any idea/hunch about linux on these new machines, with n53 in mind, will basic stuff work under linux?

I know from the web, ice-power won't work, at least not on the n55 model...

 

If you are worried about the wifi card just buy it from xoticpc or other such sites. You can choose up to a Bigfoot 1103.

 

Basic setup shouldn't be a problem. The things that didn't work so well was:
1. hdmi sound out. I don't know how to fix this. I expect that this is an ati quirk, that I won't have with the nvidia drivers.
2. ..possibly power-controls/clock states.

But I had the one with amd/apu, and the n56 comes with nvidia/intel. So I'm kind of expecting it to be smooth sailing.

The icepower stuff.. Don't know what this really is. Expect it's an instruction set on a standard dsp that the software doesn't actually deal with much differently than any other card anyway.

The Soundmaster software (Asus could really do with some new people on their naming council, imo) is a normalising/frequency filter, that basically enables different controls for separate streams of sound. You know.. what's been available with ALSA for a decade.

And the sound in the speakers, switching out when plugging in a mic/headphone, etc, worked just fine. Didn't have that brittle pc-speaker quality that you have in windows if you disable Soundmaster either

(..seriously, 10-100% constant extra load on the processor via the Win7 soundserver component. Thought I was going insane - the component doesn't show up in the task-manager, but it has 100% load peaks on one core. So I was constantly pushing into boos states for no reason, even when on battery. Honestly, some software makers should have their brain debugged.. You can't make some software that will constantly discover functions for the streams, for example. Or constantly try to fill the buffer of undetermined length. I had something like a stream of 2Gb that the thing wanted to "prefetch". Windows = e.)

 

#62 Thx. Got the possibility to upgrade from where I'm ordering it, but no reason for spending the extra money, if not necessary

#63 Yeah, intel/nvidia big plus. Its the external sub, that I know can be a bit tricky, but life doesn't depend on that one

What linux are you running? I'm fiddling with arch, it's a learning process, so it would be nice if most things are supported. Works fine on my old Asus m51sn, so guess I'll just stay optimistic, and order

 

Thanks so much. This is incredibly helpful. To make sure I understand correctly, you're talking about three potential issues, correct?

1. How to install Windows;

2. Issues with ASUS utilities running under non-admin accounts; and

3. Installing drivers.

It sounds like #3 generally isn't an issue and #1 won't be an issue for me because I own a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, but I can see how it would be a huge inconvenience for a lot of people. Windows is included in the price of the laptop whether or not we want it. It's ridiculous to force it upon us but not include an installation disc.

#2 shouldn't be an issue for me because I will be the only person using this computer and it will have only one account (my admin account), but this really concerns me. Windows 7 has been out for years. Why is ASUS still using utilities written for XP? That raises a huge red flag in my mind, even if I can circumvent some of the potential problems with an admin account. Who knows what other potential issues might arise?

 

^yeah. Can't really blame Asus or .. anyone, really, for not keeping up with the changes in the UAC in windows. Specially since everyone have relied on workarounds since Vista. And the installers(winshield, something) actually allow you to run "admin" access to registry, while the Win UAC(the access control system) disallows it afterwards when the program runs.

But I think they've seen the issues with their software, because you don't actually get the option to make a user-account during their slipstreamed install. While you are encouraged to do so on the other OEM installs.

So just install everything from your user-account with elevated privileges, (if you don't plan on only using an admin account) and you should be fine. ..specifically speaking. I would not have dared to run a windows system connected to the internet as admin. Just saying.

You're basically setting up a kennel of beautiful virgins in the Transylvanian mountains, with a note on the door that says: "Please do not ravage or drink the blood of these virgins, please".


@elmer_f: hehe.. I'm not expert or patient enough to run Arch. A Gentoo spin might be an option with this one, since it has enough processing power to compile everything very quickly.

I'm running Fuduntu right now. Fewt, the guy who runs it, has a very specific goal about "full desktop use" while focusing on power-consumption and so on. So it's a very good spin. Can recommend that without adding "but make sure you always do...". Usually don't use the terminal any more. Fewt is the guy who made Jupiter. It's is incorporated into the distro by default.

Not really sure about the sub. I.. immediately sort of doubt they've bothered to implement a specific software controlled channel. And that it would be based on the signal on the dsp already. Like the iPhone dock setups. I mean, if they're using the same amplifier set for living-room speakers. And they will have... "2.1" out, or dolby stereo out, and need to downmix automagically without an extra amplifier. Then having a filter for the channel instead of a separate output might make sense.

But if people had trouble getting it to work, then I guess there's something on the soundcard module after all. That it's a separate channel for output. Which is good, really. Might not be a useless thumping bucket after all.

Best guess - it's not actually a problem to enable/detect the sub channel. But you might need to install some later kernel with the right card support to have it detected. And then you would need to manually assign it, and have software that mixes all channels (since that channel would be disabled by default, to not output something that's not heard, etc).

 

I missed this part. I would like to delete every partition fresh out of the box, do a low level format, install my own copy of Win7 Ultimate, and reinstall drivers from the internet. Based on what you said, I assume this won't be a problem because I have my own Windows installation disc, right?

Does ASUS make it easy to identify and download the most recent drivers for your particular model on their web site like Dell does?

Yeah, I used to run into a lot of problems with spyware and Malware back in the day, but I haven't had a single problem since I started running MalwareBytes with realtime protect. Every once it awhile it will catch something trying to access a port or redirect to a shady IP number. Blocks it every time.

 

Right. Use the installer, make sure you go into "advanced uber-l33t mode" half-way. Then delete the partitions on the disc, create a new one, let windows add the first boot partition. Optionally leave a part of the disc unallocated for another install later. No extra tools required.

Essentially: don't run "upgrade", and make sure the installer doesn't install a "new install" over an old one. I did that, believing the install would wipe the partition I installed on (since Windows warned me about something terrible and irreversible imminently taking place about...six times). And it didn't actually wipe the partition. I had to delete it manually.

But make a recovery backup with the AI recovery software first, when you boot the computer at first, just in case. Since if things blow up, you would have to order a replacement disc from Asus to get the system up again. You need four dvds (or "betweeen 2 and 6" to quote the software). You can create iso images on an external disc as well (not possible to boot from those very easily while on the usb-disk. But then at least you have the discs, so you can burn them later. On another computer, or a linux live boot from a usb stick, etc).

At least they have a page up with the categories, dates, etc, for the specific model. They don't actually tell us anything about what drivers are included, or what the update actually does. Which series of drivers from nvidia. What catalyst version, which motherboard driver compared to the one from the manufacturer, etc. But.. no one seems to do that anyway, so I guess it's on par with everything else

The asus live update thing also actually works. Shouldn't be a problem just using that, and ignoring everything else.

Unless you want beta-drivers for the graphics card (which obviously everyone does. I mean, who doesn't spend 10 hours on getting three more points out of 3dmark11?).

 

#67 ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download N56VZ

But my experience with m51sn is that there isn't really much support, talking new drivers!!!

#66 Thx. Is this where to find you, when I need some good linux inputs on Asus n56vz?

 

Any tried this yet?

 

Off topic: how does this compare to/ anybody have impressions on the ES71 model?

 

Does it have Optimus? cuz i read battery life is about 3hours... thats a shame...

 

^is that the k55? Silver flat keys, subwoofer, that kind of thing? Imo, if you're buying a notebook right now, it's probably not a good idea to go for a model with the nvidia gt 5xx cards. Hot, not extremely good performance, and still kind of expensive. The "tk" models with amd a6/a8 + hd 7670 radeon cards are above those in performance, with a lower price, and generate almost no heat at all. So those might be worth it from a pure performance perspective.

But I don't think any of those come with a 1080p screen So either the n56, one of the butt-ugly with low res screens -- but otherwise very good tk models. Or wait for either:
Intel systems with nvidia 680m cards. Kepler, refined memory architecture, expect they will have ironed out early problems with gddr5 ram in terms of timing, etc.
or
AMD apu systems with a8/a10 "Trinity" setups. With or without a 7970m radeon. Both should be around the corner.. Summer... autmn-winter-next year for certain, etc..

I'm probably not going to be too much help with building your kernel with the right modules in Arc, but probably, yeah.

 

N76VZ screen is CMO1720, I'll try to test the temperature on N76VZ:

 

Hi guys anyone realized that GT650 of N56 actually is DDR3, not DDR5. While HP DV6 7000 has DDR5 GT650. Any comments on this? Cheers

 

When shopping for laptops, temperature under load is very important. HP's DDR5 might run hotter than DDR3. Do you game a lot on laptop? For me, I only play PC-exclusive game on laptop. All other games, I can them on XBOX or PS3. Also, HP and Dell is notorious for their bad laptop build quality.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384243,00.asp

http://www.pcworld.com/article/244419/laptop_reliability_and_satisfaction_macbooks_rule.html

Chi Mei (Taiwanese company)'s screen is great, although not the best. MSI GT70 uses the exact same size screen. Here is a review of that done by Notebookcheck.net:

Review MSI GT70 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

I have no doubt the dv6 7000 will run extremely hot. I'm sure if asus could, they would have put the DDR5 card in, but it probably just runs too hot. HP also has very questionable reliability in their laptops so going with the N56 is a much safer route.

 

The question is....Is there anyone that didn't know about that?You are one/two months late .
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/647392-release-date-price-n6-series-51.html

 

can anyone tell me if the gfx card is upgradable on the n56/76 versions or if soldered. also how many hdd bays on the 15 and 17 inch

 

Soldered of course. 15-one. 17- two.

 

i doubt that its soldered, that makes cleaning and repasting difficult/impossible. In my experience, asus makes most of their CPU/GPUs removeable. If you are talking about the memory on the graphics chip, that would be soldered for sure

 

having the chip soldered on has nothing to do w/ taking off the heatsink and repasting. I've done that to plenty of laptops that have GPU soldered on it's the same.

 

I am strongly considering purchasing the N76 version and would also like to know if anyone has run into any issues with either the N56 or N76.

 

I posted a couple pages back I had some trouble I am sending back for a replacement, my speakers sound like they are busted even at low volumes they crackle really bad and my computer lags for about 5 seconds every 15 minutes or so, hope to get i fixed because otherwise i freaking love this thing

 

For now...nothing to say about. 14 days 8/9 hours a day using it and i'm very happy with the laptop.

You are very confusing. The GPU are 100% soldered. Not even the asus g55 ou 75 have the gfx card. The gpu on asus is always soldered(that i remember). Series P of clevo is the ones that you can make GPU and CPU upgrades...and alienware...msi i think...
If the GPU are not soldered you can upgrade latter if it is compatible and this will be a dream . If you think that the GPU is not soldered why you having so much trouble about the ddr3 card on asus? If you can remove it, you can always change for another one lol . But you can't do that. It is soldered as almost every laptops that exists. You cannot remove it...and it has nothing to do about cleaning your laptop. It's complety different things...

 

Did you use the notebook upgrade kit or just the basic version of the SSD?

Does it fit very well?


greets from austria

 

for my laptop, the heasink contact with the GFX card is below the card, so to clean or repaste i have to remove the card. its a MXM standard, and removeable. its an asus F8. since i never played with a N56 yet i am not sure

cost a good amount of money to change to a new card, even the old 8600 costs around $150, and also have to wrry about compatibility issues, thats why i dont like to switch cards, rather get a good one that i can use for 4 or 5 years

 

Is the 'Express Gate' software included on this model, and how do you enter it? Can't seems to find anything about it.
By the why, my laptop comes with Atheros 9485 wifi, that seems to be working in ubuntu linux at least

 

Hey guys!
I dont want to make a new thread for what im going to write, so excuse me if it has nothing to do with what precedes :
I have an Asus N56VZ laptop (already contacted Asus but didn't really help at all) and a strange problem concerning the performance in games:
when i run a game when plugged to charger everything is all right, but when i play UNPLUGGED the FPS in games starts to stutter, it seems to be a kind of cycle, for example I have 50 fps, 2 sec later it drops down to 10, 10 sec later 20 fps, then back to 50 for 2 sec and so on.
I ve update everything, the graphics card (well, there is only one driver availble for the 650M, which came with the notebook) , the windows updates too. After the updates the "fast" moment seems to be longer but it's still very disturbing. Also i can't get a full screen in Battlefield 3 (it's full screen with borders filling up to the resolution i select, so the real full screen is only at 1920x1080, i tried alt+enter witch worked like this : i selected for exemple 1440x900 -> when i alt+enter it goes to a window of 1440x900, second time it goes back to full screen with 1080p or, lastly the black borders. And ive also tried Borderless software). I precise that it has to be a problem with the card/drivers, because when I select to run a game with the integrated Intel GC it runs much slower, sure, but there is no this slowdown-accelerate lag.
maybe you know something about it. Does it happen on yours?
Thanks for your advice!

 

Can anyone help me to answer these about the ASUS N56VZ-DS71

1) How efficient is the battery life?

2) What multi touch gestures can be made on the touchpad?

3) How good is the webcam?

Thanks in advance

 

Mine scaled differently in boarderlands. At 1600x1400 it actually scaled to full screen, as I remember, but some 4:3 I got in a box. I think it might have got something to do with windows as well. My old asus did the bars in 4:3 on win7 with 3dMark03, but stretched it in xp. Not that it helps you, if you want everything stretched, but 1600x1400 is 16:10, where your screen and mine is 16:9, so there you should get the bars, for the right measures of the picture.

Anyone with the new n-model, that can tap the body around the keys and touch-pad, and tell whether it is aluminium or just look-alike?

 

1) 3:30/4:00 hours.

2) zoom in and out in images and browser, go to next image/previous image, rotate images, go to windows with 3 fingers down and 3 fingers up you can see all windows in cascade, maybe one or two more gestures that i can't remember. I don't really use touchpad a lot, i use mouse lol.

3) i never try it.

it's all aliminium except the bottom of the laptop

 

can anyone tell me if the same problem happens on your Asus when not plugged (posted above)? its really disturbing...

 

This could be because of either the CPU or GPU that is throttling. Try playing it again in a cooler place.

 

i think when you unplug it, it automatically switch to a more power efficient mode, thus the drop in your FPS. Even if you are at highest performance, the laptop will perform better when plugged in

 

I'm happy to be able to add one more positive N56 review to this thread. This is by far the best notebook I've ever owned. The build quality is top rate and the performance remarkable for the price. As the OP mentioned, it runs diablo 3 smoothly at 1920 x 1080 on high settings. More impressive, it stays cool while doing so. I played for two solid hours the other night with my N56 sitting comfortably on my lap. My prior hp dv5t would have melted my pants to my legs if I tried that.

This is noteworthy contrast to the reports in the Samsung Series 7 threads where users are reporting uncomfortably hot keyboards. Asus did the thermal management right on this machine - and it appears to have been the right call to go with the ddr3 version of the 650m from a heat standpoint.

The OP is also dead on in stating that the screen is excellent on this laptop. It doesn't quite equal the matte screen on my wife's macbook ultimate, but it comes damn close. When I spoke with Gentech about possible customizations, they actually advised me to skip the screen upgrade. Big props to Gentech for such honest sales practices - and to Asus for putting a good stock panel in this machine.

The cons: a slow stock hard drive and Asus' bloat ware. For example, I tried Asus' backup utility straight out of the box, and it crashed... Seriously? In any event, I just dropped in an SSD, and following a clean win 7 install off an oem disk, my machine is flying.

One question for any of you super users out there - have you figured out how to make the windows experience index see your 650m following a clean install? The 650m works perfectly when I am running games, but my graphics score in WEI went down from 7.1 (out of the box) to 6.7 because it is only picking up the integrated graphics card. Even though this has no actual impact on performance, I've wasted a couple of hours today fighting with it and would be extremely grateful if anyone has a solution.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Exactly !
There's nothing strange about that .
When on battery (unplugged) the laptop switches to integrated graphics.
That means lower graphics performance, and that's why you get lower fps.
It's normal, it's meant for saving the battery.

 

I didnt have this problem before on other laptops, i want to have all the power i can have even if the battery will drain very fast.
I would understand this issue better if i hadnt that strange lagging fast-slow-fast-slow, if it changed to only integrated graphics it would run all the time slow, but here its kind of interchanging between both maybe.
Just to say it CAN run fast on battery.

 

I just did this. Completely wiped all the crap off it....honestly the machine was useless as it sat it was slow, lagging and buggy (I couldnt even keep a connection with Wifi - it would drop every 10 seconds). My wifes UX31 blew it out of the water with the Microsoft Signature settings so I just oped for a fresh install to kill the bloatware. This will take you a LONG time but its worth it. After the OEM install you will have to call in the activation and none of your drivers will be installed. Use the included driver disk to install you LAN wireless driver and get internet access (but for goodness sake dont let it re install all that crap on your computer!) The driver disk has all the necessary drivers to get the back light and function keys working.

Reinstalling Windows 7 - Windows 7 Forums