ASUS N71JQ Owners Lounge

I posted this in the N61 forum but I think this is a better place:

To those wanting switchable graphics:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220706

There's an N71 with a Core i3 and GT325 switchable for $899. Maybe later revisions of the N61 and N71 with Core i5 and dual Core i7 are coming with switchable graphics.

 

Just looked at Amazon and found out that the weight for N71 is about 9.3lbs, while N61 is around 6.5lbs. I am going to play with the laptop really on my lap, while sitting on my couch after work to relax. Do you guys do the same thing? is it too heavy?

just had a 14' old dell and have no problem to do that.

 

The correct weight for the N71 is 7.9 lbs. See the below link and click on the specs tab. Donald weighed the N71 on a digital scale to verify this.

http://www.powernotebooks.com/ASUS-N71JQ-gaming-laptops-notebooks-sys-3152.html

 

How's the sound of this laptop? I mean does the subwoofer really produce bass?

 

Not that deep, but a little better than "classical" notebook.

When comparing to the sound delivered by a 15 years old mini hifi system , there is no doubt the subwoofer of the N71JQ is just a commercial aspect, not a real plus.

 

Hello, is it just "quiet" when idle or "quiet" all the time? Specifically, can you hear the fan in a quiet room (for instance at night or in a library):
1. When doing regular surfing (reading news, going through this thread...) ?
2. When using Flash in your browser, particularly watching videos?
3. When using a Flash-enabled reader to play Flash videos?
This is a quite a decisive factor for me.

 

is there somewhere a full review of this laptop?

 

Were is the best place to buy this labtop? Can someone leave a direct link please. Also can you customize it? thanks

 

I have not seen so far any full review of this model, but if you read the 24 pages here you will get some more info about it.

 

I ordered mine at the Gentech PC. They also do customization.
Here is the link: http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchan...e=N71JQ-A1&Category_Code=AS17&Product_Count=6

 

thanks turbogear appreciate it. So you can't customize the pc from there own site like dell does?

 

No ASUS does not sell notebooks directly to customers.
They use resellers.
But there are a couple of authorized resellers like Genetech through which you can customize the laptop.

 

Quick question out off all labtops mentioned in my thread which one is honestly my best bet?

1- Toshiba L550 with Intel® Core™ i5-520M Processor 2.40 GHz (2.93 GHz with Turbo

2- N61 is 16" and has a core i5 430M(2.26GHz (2.533GHz with turbo)

3- Studio 17...way to expensive.

4-N71 ?

 

Places are starting to put them on their stock list in the UK at last! As usual we are getting boned on the price, and only 1066 ram as opposed to 1333.


ASUS N71JQ-TY013V
Intel Core i7-720M 4GB (2048x2) DDRII 1066 RAM
1TB Hard Drive 17.3"HD+ TFT (1600 x 900, Colour Shine)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 1GB DDR3 dedicated graphics memory
Blu-Ray Combo
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Window 7 Home Premium 64bit

http://www.morecomputers.com/techdesc.asp?pn=N71JQ-TY013V

 

Looking at the specs of all the above mentioned models, the N71JQ has the best features.

 

What bag did you guys buy for your N71JQ?

I went for Dicota Take.Off Smart XL.
http://www.dicota.com/start.php?office=42&page=page_productDetails&ds=1356

Review will come later once I have both the notebook and the bag available.
Hopefully, I will receive both this week.

The notebook seems now on its way towards customs office in the city where I live.

 

Hey Turbo, just wondering can you check if this laptop throttles down on battery when you get it? I read it sticks at 1ghz? Also is the 90W adapter enough, does it get hot? Oh and does it throttle on AC? I realise this is not Dell but just concerned!

 

I will do some testing once I get it.
I think I could get some hints on the proper testing procedure from the thread made by the users of G51J. They are currently investigating this on their machines.

 

Throttles on battery or could just be the power settings....dont care much as I would never game unplugged anyway.
Yes 90w battery seems fine
No it does not get hot at all even when OC'd
No it does not throttle on AC

 

So how good is the screen? Is it bright and very evenly backlit? How in comparison to XPS 16, etc?

 

I just received mine today.
It arrived in one peace though it traveled for over two weeks.
It looks great.
I will do more review over it later.

The first impressions are:
- It came with 120W supply and not 90W.
- DDR3 1333MHz ram.

 

Cheers, does the multiplier stay locked on battery or increase on load?

Yay! How much tax did you get charged in the end?

 

Did your N71JQ come with 120W supply or 90W supply?

Mine came with 120W.

 

I think mine came with 120W too, but I'm not sure? What is the code on yours?

Also, I did get 1333 RAM It was a very nice surprise!

 

Anyone fancy putting up some videos of it running some games on youtube?

 

The code for the 120W power supply is: ADP-120ZB

 

if you want to know which power supply you have, just multiply output volt by intensity
for instance, I have 120W= 19V*6.32A

I managed to undervolt a little the core i7 720QM, but it seems that ASUS has blocked the posibilities of undervolting.
In load, I managed to reduce Power consumption from 55W to 45W (according to HWMonitor)

Did anyone tried also ?

Max temps dropped approx. 10°C for CPU and 4°C for GPU (Since the GPU is located near the cpu)

Didn't tried to undervolt the gpu (wainting first for official catalyst for mobile)

 

Did someone tried the new BIOS ??

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

 

Where do you go to find the power information?
EDIT- Never mind I got it.

 

The notebook already comes with the latest version of bios.

 

All right, then I definitely got the 120 power supply. Very cool, another unexpected!

What are you guys using to monitor temps, etc? I have a CPU usage gadget, but it doesn't read temp or anything. Also, how are you undervolting? I am a little new to working around these computers, so I could use some tips.

 

Hey guys, I have my N71JQ for a week now and so far its ok with a few flaws.
My main concern is pretty high temperatures when under load.
CPU cores peak at 85°C
GPU peaks at 83°C
and ACPI at 85°C as well.
I am only using HWinfo to track temperatures, so far its been only one reliable (with previous notebooks).
The notebook itself is pretty cold, but the left top quarter is really hot (you can feel it on keyboard quite a lot when gaming). The vented air is extremely hot as well...

I went throught this thread and all mentioned temperatures were about 75°C, but measured with CPU-Z in which I dont trust. Could someone confirm my temperatures, please?
Thank you

 

I use Everest to measure the temperatures.
In my notebook the maximum CPU temperature that I got was 80°C.
That was when I ran stress test for 15min using Everest System Stability Test.

The maximum temperature for the GPU I got so far was about 75°C.

The left quarter of the keyboard gets hot for me also. I looked under the keyboard and I saw that ASUS is using the keyboard as heat spreader for a chip which is located directly underneath the keyboard. I could not see which chip it is as it was covered by heat dissipating tape.

 

How is the LCD on the N71? What are the viewing angles like, and does it have a blue tint like the N61?

 

Actually had never even looked but 120

 

I dont know if its normal but under load or on battery mode, rmclock shows a steady 1.6ghz for my core i7.

Does anyone encounter the same problem ?

 

Quote from this thread : http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=452169&page=4

 

I saw exactly the same thing. If you pull out the plug during load, the CPU frequency drops down 930MHz.
I think under battery mode the maximum power to CPU is limited even if I set the power4gear at performance mode.

By the way you can use this nice Intel sidebar gadget to see the Turbo Boost in action.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18353

 

So finally I have finished setting up my N71JQ.
It took many hours to set it up to my liking.
What I have changed is as follows:
- The primary HDD is swapped with 320GB Seagate which was in the secondary slot before.
- I installed Win7 Ultimate.
- Instead of secondary 320GB Seagate, I have put a 500GB seagate 7200rpm drive.

With the original Windows installation from ASUS the fan was spinning up and down all the time in all the modes of power4gear even when the notebook was idle.
Now the fan does not do that anymore. It runs smooth at one speed most of the time, which is much less noisy and annoying.

I think this was due to power4gear or maybe the ATK drivers.
All of these has been replaced with more recent versions.

 

Where did you get these latest versions?
On the asus website there are only old versions

thx !!

Edit: I found the latest power4gear hybrid but which ATK did you update ? (there are lots of them

 

Hi,
I have newer versions for all the drivers than the ones that are found on ASUS website.

They came from www.asustreiber.de which is a website operated by persons working for ASUS support in Germany.

The Power4Gear Hybrid driver they uploaded on their website is newer than what is found on ASUS support site; it is v1.1.32:
http://www.asustreiber.de/downloads/tools/asus-tools/1665-p4ghybrid-64bit

They also provide on their website a link for a combined ASUS ATK package, which contains all the ATK stuff with newer versions than found on ASUS support website.

This driver package contains the following:
(1)ATK0100 driver: v1043.2.15.101 (XP), v1043.2.31.102 (Vista 32), v1043.2.15.73 (Vista 64), v1043.2.31.105 (Win7 32), v1043.2.15.75 (Win7 64)
(2)ATK Generic Function Service: v1.0.0010
(3)ATK Hotkey: v1.0.0055
(4)ATKOSD2: v7.0.0009
(5)ATK Media: v2.0.0007

Here is the link: http://www.asustreiber.de/downloads/asus-atk-komponenten/1624-atk-package

 

Could more ppl reply to this and post their temperatures, please?
I find it troubling, sorry for being annoying.

 

@ Turbogear: thx !! excellent

@Jinee : My temps don't reach these levels. CPU peaks at 78° (sometimes 80 when playing for hours) GPU peaks at 75-77

 

I posted this info in N61JQ Lounge, but I repeat it here as it interesting for all.

ASUS has uploaded on 23/02/2010 a new driver for our ATI 5730 graphic cards.

Here is the link:
http://support.asus.com/download/do...me=VGA_ATI_Win7_64_z869210.zip&f_type=1&os=30

From the name of the file in the list Version V8.692.1.0 it's not clear, but when you start downloading you will see VGA_ATI_Win7_64_z869210.zip.

The driver version for ATI 5730 is 8.692.1.0 and dated to 22/01/2010.

 

Hey turbo, how do you find the screen on this laptop? Would you say it has any backlight bleed, and does it looked washed out like I have been hearing?

 

Hi Risco,
Well I don't find the screen that bad. I have not observed any blue tint some others described.
It is actually brighter than my old M50VM screen. With M50VM I found that the brightness was more limited.

The following two things I find minus points about it.

If I observe a complete black page, I see the lower side of the screen is not that dark but looks more gray. It seems that the screen is lit from the bottom side.

The vertical viewing angle is limited. It seem that the glass or plastic cover ASUS uses to cover the whole screen reflects more light if ones views it little bit from above or below.

 

Thanks for starting this Owner's Lounge! I added it to the Info Booth and the Reviews & Owner's Lounges Index.

 

Can you tell us how "quiet" is "quiet"? On a scale of 1 to 5, "1" being the quieter (+/-30dB).
From your comment, I take it that the fan can be heard in a quiet room (for instance at night or in a library) when idle or surfing (reading news, going through this thread...).
What about doing more processor-intensive tasks (except gaming) like:
2. Using Flash in your browser (youtube videos, animations...)?
3. Playing Flash videos?
Thanks. Like you, I find fan noise quite distracting.

 

If I compare it to my M50VM, I would say it is much louder.

Well if I want to put it on this scale then I would put it at 3.

To be exact I did testing in the high performance mode.
With respect to fan rpms it runs constantly at around 3300rpm most of the time with normal load like browsing and playing music or video. Only few times it goes down to around 100rpm.

When running at 3300 rpm it is not very loud but you hear the sound all the time when sitting in a quiet room like at night.
When doing CPU intensive task (like simulations) then the fan goes up and runs at speed higher than 4000rpm. Then it is louder and can be annoying if you are sitting in quiet room.

I knew this machine will be louder than my M50VM, but I can live with it. One has to make some compromise, if you go to higher performance system.
It has the high performance that I need for my work.

If you really want a very quiet system then maybe i5 system would be more suitable for you.

 

i was just wondering how brown is the top b/c from one video i saw the glossy back looked very black indeed.