ASUS N71JQ Owners Lounge

K I posted in the N61 thread to see if we can get a few people to verify if their bios shows raid or not.....any other N71 guys able to peek at their bios to see if I'm just blind

 

I got update from Gentech. My N71JQ-A1 is going to ship today.
If I am lucky then it will arrive to Germany in one week. In worst cases it could take up to three weeks.

 

well my n71 will be here fairly soon. a few questions:

1. does this come with a mouse, and if so what are people's impressions of it? i have a basic 2 button/scroll wheel optical mouse around somewhere i believe if this doesnt come with one.

2. what are people's impressions of the stock wireless card if that is what they are using? i saw at least one person complain about the card for the n61jq in that lounge.

3. anyone using a cooler that they are pleased with compatibility-wise with this machine, or have recommendations for one that would be good for this model?

4. what are people's thoughts on undervolting this?

 

Yup I have a N61JQ and I have the RAID option. I'm using the latest BIOS.

 

Congrats on your new toy arriving soon!!

1. Nope no mouse Asus just gives that stuff away for its Republic of Gaming laptops so no freebies.

2. I kept the stock wireless card and the only issue I had was with my router only letting me connect at 65 mbps but after messing for hours last night I found the option I needed and now I'm connected at 150 mbps so all good there....connects fast...no disconnects...no issues but I hear alot of it depends on the combo of your wireless card and your router and if at all possible to match up the chipsets as they will communicate much better.

3. No cooler for me as this thing runs plenty cool on its own...if you got one all ready by all means use it but I dont see the point in spending the money as I dont see a need for it.

4. Haven't looked into it at all yet....have only OC'd the GPU so far.

 

@ tarlay

Can you check again if you have the RAID option in the bios?

Adamal who says he has it in the bios of N61JQ has posted the complete steps to check for it here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5871187#post5871187

If it is not there then it would be very strange.

 

Sure here is a pic and agreed I find it very odd:

 

Well I will try to confirm from other owners of N61JQ model.
Otherwise I will have a call to ASUS support once I get the notebook to clear this out.

Somehow it does not make sense to have RAID enabled in a notebook that supports single hard disk and not have it enabled in a notebook where you can have two hard disks.

 

Completely agree

I dont want to use it but I understand there are many people that do.

 

Here is my screenshot.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruggles/4350026182/

I wonder if you took out one of the hard drives if it would display the RAID option. It would be funny and not so funny at the same time.

 

Which bios version your N61JQ has?

On the download page there are two v202 and updated v204.

 

tarlyn,

I went the Amazon route with the X1, received it today. All specs appear correct per Amazon EXCEPT it does not have a BluRay combo dvd player, just a multi-read/write. That's a deal killer for me as I sold this purchase to the wife as both a laptop upgrade and secondary bluray player. The A1 at Amazon has the identical specs except for the HDD size, so who knows what that actually comes with..

 

I was wondering about that as most of the newegg/amazon models dont include the blu-ray so I was a bit suprised to see that in the specs.....thats too bad that it is a deal breaker. You can add one but that jumps the cost of course.

 

tarlyn, have you updated the bios to see if you can enable raid?

 

I have the most recent bios now.

 

Maybe somebody who is interested in getting Raid working could ask the ASUS support about this and point it out to them that there is an option for that in N61JQ.

I could have asked here in Germany. But as N71JQ is not yet available in the market, I don't know if the support will know anything about it.

 

v204, it's the one that came on the laptop.

 

Adamal thanks for helping in the investigation.

I will ask Ken next week. This week he is too busy.
Maybe it's a bug. If it is a bug then maybe Ken will report it to ASUS and then it could be fixed.

 

I have a N61JQ-X1. The bios is the one shipped with with it dated 10/30/09. I do have RAID listed as the 3rd option. I don't know why that option is included in a laptop with 1 hard drive?

 

Maybe we can use it with the eSATA port or the USB 3.0 port.

 

EDITED: I posted this at the N71JQ Lounges, but for the info I will post it here also.

I had a look for the intel HM55 Chipset, and I think it does not support RAID. It only support AHCI mode.

Only PM55 chipset has a support for RAID.

So this means either the N61JQ comes with PM55 which is highly unlikely or if it has HM55 as ASUS specs says then the RAID option in the bios does not make any sense.
Except if ASUS adds separate RAID controller in the N61JQ.

Here is a link from Tomshardware comparing all the chipsets: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mobile-core-i5-arrandale,2522-4.html

If you have a look at the intel website, you will also see that HM55 specs do not mention RAID where as PM55 mentions it.

Intel webpage with PM55 specs: http://www.intel.com/products/notebook/chipsets/pm55/pm55-overview.htm

Intel webpage with HM55 specs: http://www.intel.com/products/notebook/chipsets/hm55/hm55-overview.htm

 

Got mine with my laptop bought in France.
This is a mouse as you describe. You can also tie the cable around the mouse and clip the usb under the mouse.
I don't use it because it doesn't have a third button under the thumb.

There's also a huge bag provided with.

 

I think the USA model does not come with bag.
I order mine from USA as this model is not available in Germany so far.

I would be intrested in buying original bag from ASUS.
I have seen some on ebay. The sellers only say 17", and I am not sure if 17.3" notebook will fit these.

If you have any photo (or product number) of the bag can you provide a link?

 

Unfortunately you can go by the primary chipset alone. If you look at the intel specs you won't see USB 3.0 anywhere yet our systems have it. If you want to know for sure you'll have to contact ASUS, and pray that you get lucky enough to talk to someone that knows what they are talking about.

 

USB3.0 is not done over the intel chipset.
ASUS uses a third party controller for that. I will assume they are using USB3.0 controller from NEC as on the desktop motherboards from ASUS.

 

That was my point. There could be another 3rd party controller for RAID on the motherboard.

 

It is most unlikely that there is a third party RAID controller. If there was one you would find at the N61JQ download site some drivers for that.
Furthermore, when they implement extra feature they will advertise it. This would be another selling point over the competition and because they spent extra money on integrating another controller.

Well the only way to find out is to look into the bios of N61JQ and see if you find some options to setup a RAID.
If there is a bios menu allowing you to do RAID settings then there is a RAID, otherwise it could be some mistake in the bios that it shows RAID option.

 

I set the SATA setting to RAID and no additional configuration options were displayed. So it looks like you're right, just a mistake in the bios for the N61JQ.

 

Thanks for the info... I know Windows 7 can do software RAID, but I'm thinking it's probably not worth it... Now I'm looking into the G51JX. Asus has way too many options. ha

 

When checking the gentech site. I only see the UK listed as european country to ship to. How did you get it to ship to germany? I would like to customize the laptop and then this site might be the best option to buy from but i can't select the netherlands to ship to.

 

I faced the same problem when I tried to create an account at Gentech. There was no option for Germany there.
Ken Lee guided me with creation of the account.
Here is what Ken Lee told me to do:
For the state just enter outside of US and at other state enter German and leave the country as US.

During placement of order there was a field for comments. There I wrote my correct address and asked them to ship to that address.

The other thing you have to take into account is that usually Gentech accepts only eCheck from non-USA, non-Canadian and non-UK orders.

If you want to use some other payment method, I advice you to contact Gentech before you place order.
They will tell you if it would be possible or not.

 

well I Ordered my N71 yesterday and already got a tracking number and its supposed to get to me by tuesday. I can't wait. The only thing I don't like about it is it doesn't come with a modem. That really sucks since I'm unfortunately still stuck using dial up since high speed isn't available where I live except via wild blue or hughes net. Rightnow I have a Acer 6920 and its not bad but it can't hold a candle to the N71.

 

Ouch dialup eh?

The only real thing I can get is crappy dsl from my phone company and I dont even use a landline phone so I have to pay basic phone on top of the dsl fees just to get access so $80 a month for crappy dsl that doesnt hold a candle to my old comcast cable internet.

 

Is this notebook equiped with the new Intel Arrandale cpu or is it still using the old one ?

 

Arrandales are dual cores processors with integrated graphics.
This notebook comes with Clarksfield i7 720qm which is quad core CPU.

 

Oke
Is there any performance difference between the Clarksfield and the Arrandale cpu ?
And also do you know if Asus is going to release a n71 with the new Arrandale cpu ?

thanks

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=400999

 

I have read the thread Tarlyn the only thing i wonder is ....
Asus now has the n71ja notebook and this one has a core i5 430m with Arrandale cpu but the n71jq is still with the "old" Clarksfield.
So i'm curious if Asus will come with the core i7 620m Arrandale.
Maybe you guys know because i can't read anything about it on the Asus website.

 

Well I wouldnt call any of the i7 laptops "old" as these are all brand new....as far as when/if they will add other processor options to them as time goes by sure they constantly do refreshes of popular models so if you want an i7 620 then you are more then welcome to sit around and wait for a laptop that meets your needs with that processor.

 

i7 720qm is not an old processor. It is still the state of the art mobile quad core based on 45nm technology. There is currently no 32nm quad core mobile processor available. Intel will make these but I think around 4th quarter of 2010.
i7 620m is a dual core processor with integrated graphics (the integrated graphics is based on 45nm technology).
As far as I know i7 620m costs very similar to i7 720qm.
I think in performance 720qm will beat it. So I think it is still not too interesting for notebook producers like ASUS.
Same like i7 820qm which is beaten by 720qm in the Price-Performance and that's why it is also not very often offered.

 

The TRC is freaking high.

 

Oke, that makes things more clear, i'm sure also that the i7 720qm will beat the i7 620m.
one more question... What about the heat the i7 720qm produces, i've read that it generates a lot of head when stressed.
Is this true ?

 

I read in the threads that the notebook runs quite cool, but at the moment I am not sure.
I will receive my N71JQ hopefully by end of next week. I will run it into some stress tests then.

USPS indicates that it has been shipped out of US already. I don't know how many more days it will take.

 

Looking forward to the stress test results.
Let's hope it arrives soon. Have fun with it.

 

No idea if you guys care but just got done playing about 7 hours of Bioshock at Native and the highest settings......GPU never went above 75....no OC at all......lots of hot exhaust but the keyboard and palm rests are cool as can be.

 

Bioshock 2 or 1?
I am thinking of getting Bioshock 2. The first one I finished long time ago.
Mostly, I do gaming on my Desktop gaming machine, but maybe I will also try to play bioschok 2 and some other games on N71JQ.

What was the maximum temperature of the CPU you got?
How loud does it get during gaming (heavy GPU load) and heavy CPU load?

 

Just 1....never played it yet so figured for $20 on steam it was a good time

High 70's on the CPU Cores a bit higher then the GPU but nothing to worry about for sure.

Wasnt very loud at all...compared to my Tosh P105 which sounded like a jet engine when running WoW it was quiet at a mouse

 

The temperatures for a quad core looks good.
I like the recent ASUS notebooks as they are very quiet.

I once had a Fujitsu-Siemens notebook and under heavy load it always sounded like a jet engine.

I once played Call of Duty Modern Warfare on my M50Vm that has Nvidia GS 9600m (with lower resolution). There I was also amazed how quiet and cool to touch it stayed during about 4 hours of continuous gaming.

 

Yay just recieved mine today does anyone else find the touchpad a bit jumpy? apart from that nice looking machine very happy

 

Hrmm nope no issues here but I havent even tried adjusting it yet....I use a mouse 99% of the time so wasnt too concerned with it to be honest heh