ASUS N71JQ Owners Lounge

Yes, I advice you to clone your operating system onto the other drive and contact ASUS. If you wait it could be too late.
The ASUS support told me that it seems like a hardware issue with my hard disk. He adviced me to send it back and backup my data as soon as possible, becuase if hard disk starts to make such noises it usually is an indication of trouble coming your way.

The Seagate used to be great, but in the last times it has given me nothing but trouble.
Not only the laptop drives, but also desktop are having problems.

I had 4 750GB desktop Seagate drives from the 7200.11 series and they were all affected by this firmware bug which made two of them hang and become unresponsive.
I revived these two using some information from internet, but then the third one failed a few months later.

It was lucky for me that I had Raid1 on these dektop drives which saved my data.

 

Is it all right if all the info on both drives is saved to my 500 GB external? I have 3 partitions, and I saved all of them onto that. The primary drive is C and D and the secondary is E. Or do I need to transfer all of my C and D over to E?

 

The data on C and D could be also put on the external drive.

I suggest you make an image of C partition and restore the image onto secandory HDD after you have moved your important data from the secondary drive E to external drive.

In this way you could continue using the laptop while the primary HDD is RMAed and you will not lose time reinstalling all the stuff when the new Hard disk arrives.

When the new HDD arrives then you can put the image of C on to the new drive. In this way you will have exactly the same setup as you have currently.

If you want you can also continue later using the secandory drive as the primary, but putting back an image of your current operating system onto primary would be better, as ASUS will create again a recovery partition on the drive they send back to you.

 

Yea, there are lots of reports of those seagate drives to be defective, make clicking sounds, etc. I've removed one of the drives because i don't need the space yet. It i do need more space, i probably will buy a SSD and use the 320gb for storage if their price go down.

One of my drives(that i removed) did a ticking sound but it's random, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

Im getting crappy battery life ! like 1h -1h20max.. watching some divx or just surfing the web. i've got power4gear installed and all atk drivers. Duno what the problem is really. What are u guyes getting, im sure there is some leak somewhere because when i first got it, it had like 1h50-2h10. Maybe it's that listen to device i did to fix the cpu whine.

 

What is the difference between the primary and secondary drive ? They're both seagate 7200.4. I don't think it really makes any difference which drive you use for the os(correct me if im wrong). Maybe the slot makes a difference but that would'nt make sense because it would mean they would purposely slow down the 2nd hdd.

 

The only reason why I said to use the drive Reicheru gets from ASUS as the primary drive, it's because it would have the hidden recovery partition on it. By primary I mean the drive that has operating system on it. There is no difference with respect to wish of the two slots he will use. They both are the same. You just have to select in the bios from which one you want to boot.

Reicheru wants to RMA his primary drive which has the recovery partition on it.
If he tells ASUS his primary drive is having problems and ask them to intall operating system on it. Then he will get back an HDD that has operating system + recovery partition on it.

 

Ahhh, i understand what u mean now .. Just use Paragon Partition manager to copy the entire hdd, all partitions, etc

 

What i did is use Paragon Partition manager to make a exact copy of my primary hdd to the secondary hdd. This will copy the exact hdd structure on the secondary hdd.

Good luck

 

I do the same thing using Acronis True Image.

 

All right, so just use those to make a full image of the primary, put it on the secondary, and then when I get the new primary back from Asus, all I have to do is put my personal stuff on it and go from there, then just delete the image I had put on the secondary?

 

Thanks for the video! It's just what I was looking for before committing to this notebook.

On a side note, you and I have the exact same couch - Ashley Furniture Durapella in Sage - I only know this because we just bought ours lol

Sorry for the OT comment, just found it ironic.

--------------

So, is there any reason to avoid companies like newegg or amazon for the purchase of this notebook? Amazon lists the warranty as the standard 1 year global limited, 30 day dead-pixel warranty and 1 year accidental damage protection.

I'm looking at the X1 model, as I intend to add my own second HDD and I don't need Bluray, a backpack or mouse, etc. Anything I'm missing?

EDIT: Does the X1 ship with 2x 250GB HDD's or 1x 500GB HDD? I'd like to grab a second HDD if that slot is open..

EDIT2: Just put in my order for one Asus N71JQ-X1 from Amazon! I should have it in less than 36 hours

 

Yes, you can clone the primary onto secondary, but don't forget to take all the data from the secondary before you clone otherwise data on the secondary would be lost.

Don't forget to mention clearly in the RMA that the drive you are sending back has the operating system on it. Otherwise, ASUS may forget to put operating system on it before they send you back the new drive.

 

The laptop is doing that thing where the fan stops and goes fast on 20second cycles. I've installed those ATK drivers + Power4gear but it still does it.
Any ideas ?

 

How do the speakers/sub sound on this model? I'm used to a Toshiba L305D-S5934, where there are just two little headphone-style speakers that can barely be heard unless the room is dead silent.

I really like how loud Macbooks get without distortion, is this at all comparable?

How's the battery life on it? I think I read earlier in the thread somewhere around 1.5 hours? Is there an extended battery option available? If so, where would I find it?

 

Haha yes I believe so....I know mine is sage but actually looks more gray in my house 90% of the time since my colors are all grays/blacks/reds.

Grats on your new purchase.....loving mine still!

 

Mine appear to be more of a brownish color in dim lighting, but we have loads of wood accents.

Thanks! Amazon says it's being prepped for shipping, and I should receive it tomorrow morning

 

Hy guys. Although i do not have a N71jv ( i am one of those people who decided that the i3-m350 is enough for what i do) i have a N71jv fresh out of the box

question: Where can i get a 2nd hdd caddy + connection ? I have just received it from new egg and boy i was surprised to see that the 2nd bay is blank. I have ordered with the 500 gb single hdd configuration thinking that i should install the x25-m in the first and the 500 one in the secondary


Many thanks in advance

 

There's no connection in the second HDD bay for another HDD?!!? Can you take a picture for me, please?

If that's the case, and I can't easily put the connection in myself, mine is going back tomorrow when I get it

 

I got this computer from Xotic PC the day it shipped and everything was great except my second harddrive would not detect.

Xotic PC said it was a hardware problem and I sent back the 500gb drive to them and they replaced it with a new one.

I just placed the new one in my Laptop and I get the same exact error. I attached a screen shot of the error.

I can not assign a drive letter to the 2nd drive, I can not format the 2nd drive?

It shows up fine in device manger by I can never format it to the point where it shows up for use?

My primary harddrive is a SSD and works fine.

Anyone have any idea what is causing this conflict? Is there something else that needs to be done in Windows 7?

Any help would be great since its been a month now and I have not gotten my 2nd harddrive to work and that is the main reason I bought this laptop.

 

I would try to format that second HDD with GParted LiveCD.
Windows doesn't have the most reliable formatting utility.

I'm guessing you have the A1, then? edit: Nevermind, just saw your signature..

 

i did not have the camera handy but as i said, there there is no caddy or connection there. Any solutions anybody else?


I really do not want to send it back especially after the long hours of work on it and the results obtained both speed-wise and battery wise - 3 hours and 54 minutes of battery life in usage

 

Anyone else is having the "fan on - fan off" problem? It only does it when plugged in. The fan will go fast, then go off completely, then fast... etc but on battery it goes in the middle but does not stop. i find this Way better since it makes less noise and still cools down the laptop.

 

Hello Jovani,

No I don't have this problem anymore. I don't know what fixed it.
In the beginning when I bought this notebook, the fan was turning off and then going up to 3300rpm every few seconds.
After I installed Win7 Ultimate and all the latest drivers and Power4Gear Hybrid now it runs constantly at 3300 rpm when plugged in.
I am using modified High Performance Mode of Power4Gear. Instead of having minimum processor state to 100% in High Performance Mode, I am using 20% but I don't think that has anything to do with the fan running constantly without producing this ON/OFF noise.

I really don't know why it did it in the beginning and does not do it anymore.

 

i have just emailed Asus inquiring about the secondary hard drive connection and caddy. Now the wait begins.



Later edit:

Item Detail Item Detail
Name:
N71-1A HDD BRK ASSY
Item#:
13GNX01AM010-1
Price/ea.
$18.50

would this be what i need?

 

@ Jovani

I did further testing concerning this ON/OFF of the fan.

It seems my notebook has it also.

If I do not use the notebook for 15 minutes or so and I leave it running without doing anything then the fan start to turn OFF and ON every few minutes.

If I am using it even for simple task like browsing, then the fan runs constantly at 3300 rpm.

I guess it also depends at the room temperature. At time of testing the room temperature was 23.5°C. If I am sitting in a cooler place like on the balcony where it is -8°C today then maybe it will turn ON and OFF every few minutes when using it for simple tasks.

 

If there isn't a SATA connection for the hdd already in the bay, the braket will be useless since you'll have nothing to plug the hdd in to.

Unless there is a connection built in to the bracket that somehow links up to a proprietary connection on the mobo.. but I doubt it

 

well then i'll just rma it....... i 'd really hate to do that though..

 

Give me a few hours, mine will be here soon and I'll have a look to see how well go about adding a second drive safely..

 

I've got mine now, what a beautiful machine!

I'll review it later, for now I wanted to let you know that not only are we missing the SATA plug, we're missing the entire SATA board/module that would enable us to add a second HDD.

I'm going to all ASUS Tech. Support and see if they can provide the needed parts. If they can, I'll write up a DIY on how to do it. If they can't, we may be SOL - I'll look more into it tomorrow after I've had a chance to play with my new machine

 

last minute decision............ should i go for the n71jq-x1 from amazon or a n71jq-a1 from xoticpc?

 

The A1 has Bluray and 2x 320GB HDD's. The X1 has DVD-/+R/RW and 1x 500GB HDD.

I went for the X1 from Amazon, I don't need Bluray and eventually we'll find a way to throw in another HDD.

 

For the second hard disk you are missing the Hard Disk Board.
Here is a link from the asusparts.eu site and this looks like the HDD Board for the N71-series that you are missing:
http://www.asusparts.eu/index.php?cPath=67674_75578_137884_137885_137899

Unfortunately, they do not have a picture of it. Maybe email them and ask them if this is the part needed to plug in the second drive.

They also have the HDD Bracket that you need: http://www.asusparts.eu/index.php?cPath=67674_75578_137884_137885_137900

Besides that, you will also need to disassemble the notebook completely in order to reach the place where you can install the board.
So far there are no disassembly guides for N71-series. If you achieve that successfully, please don't forget to share the disassembly procedure with us.

 

All N71J(x) has this missing 2nd hdd bay connectors problem. The only version with both connectors is the JQ.
I originally wanted the JA with i5-520 processor, but luckily I was mean enough to make the shopboy open the HDD bay for me. I was kinda shocked when I saw the hole where the connectors are supposed to be... Anyway, I can confirm the same issue for the JA version with i5-430 as well (ye, forced guy in another shop to do the same, heh).

I eventually ended up paying 150 € more for overkill processor (i7 - really, who can fully use that? When I run plenty of ****, its usage doest go above 30% on all cores in average) and made my dream come true with replacing one of the HDDs with 128 GB SSD...

P.S.: Still having heating issue. Processor temperatures passing 80°C. GPU as well, actually. Oh and the SSD is running at 43°C while HDD in 2nd bay at 33°C, heh.

 

Probably the easiest without hassle thing to be done is attaching the 500 gb one in an e-sata 2.5 rack but then again knowing that i have a huge empty hole in the laptop makes me wonder why i went with a 17 inch ( aside the screen of course)

It is a wonderful machine from a lot of points of view - last night i played a blu-ray disc image for 2 hours an 10 minutes and i still had 45 minutes left on the battery timer - but the disadvantage of not having a 2ndary hdd is pretty big for me.

I'm still waiting for a sensible solution from Asus tech ; for now the e-mail that i have sent was not even read.

 

what the heck? is that part what we need really? If yes why does it have the price of a second hand Mercedes-Benz?

 

Oh, I just noticed that also.
I think they have a problem with the displayed price. Most probably it's a typo.
It seems that this is the adapter for the secondary HDD.
If you want to confirm it you can write an email to them here: http://www.asusparts.eu/contact_us.php

Ask them also why it is priced at 10,999.89€.

 

mailed the already. thanks a lot.


on a side note....i have just discovered 6 dead pixels with the aid of this

http://www.gdargaud.net/Hack/DeadPixels.html#LCD


starting to question my purchasing decision...

 

I have a N71jq and I also noticed a "bad" pixel but only one. A pixel that remains green but not always.

So, not so disturbing.

 

The second HDD is a big no-go. Asus won't even tell me where to buy the board. They also went on to tell me that I'd void the warranty if I found a way to connect a second HDD.

They also stated (3 different reps) that if I change the existing HDD or RAM that I'll be voiding my warranty through them - what the hell?

Looks like I'll be getting an RMA number from Amazon and finding a new notebook..

 

Yes as I said above adding the second hard disk connector board is not easy. You have to take the whole notebook apart.
But if you do it then everytime you send the notebook back for repair you have to remove it, and they will never know.
But putting it inside is hard enough then taking it out next time would require you to go through the whole process again.

There is no " Warranty Void if removed" seal on the RAM and HDD screws so there is no way that ASUS can void your warranty if you use a different Hard disk or RAM.
The downside for using different ram could be if you have to send the notebook for repair then you may have to put the original ram in.

For HDD there is no problem at all. I have sent my older ASUS notebooks for repair more than once, and I usually send it without HDD and they never complained.

I always upgraded Hard drives on all my ASUS notebooks including N71JQ. With N71JQ I have replaced one 320GB and replaced it with 500GB.

 

I appreciate your response, and I'm aware of these things fully. What bothered me is that Asus - a company that will send you a replacement HDD by mail if yours is defective, rather than requiring you to send in the entire notebook - says they don't condone the changing of the included HDD and RAM.

Is there a 'Warranty void if removed' sticker that disables me from taking the notebook apart and adding that second SATA board? If not, I'll keep the notebook until one of these parts surface so I can add it myself. I don't have a problem with removing it if the notebook needs repair through Asus.

On a side note, is anyone else finding it reeeeeaallly annoying having the UP arrow key indented into the right SHIFT button? I can't understand why they didn't go with a .75" wider keyboard to avoid squishing it in there like that


EDIT: I just ran CPU-Z and found that I have PC3-10700 RAM (1333Mhz), nice freebie there

 

No there is no "Warranty void if removed" sticker on any of the screws that allows you to take the notebook apart.
They have only "Warranty void if removed" sticker on the CPU and GPU heatsink. So if you remove the heatsink then you will lose warranty.

I was looking at ASUS eStore, but I don't find this N71JQ there, but it seems that asusparts has it.
I am not sure as asusparts has the n71VG which is the older model that had PM45 chipset mainboard.
I suppose the Hard Disk Board is the same.
I emailed asusparts some time ago as I am looking for German Keyboard to replace the English Keyboard on my N71JQ.
The link they sent me was from the N71VG section.
After I asked them they confirmed that the N71JQ and N71VG shares same principle design and has many parts in common.

 

Can you link me to the N71VG section? I searched their site, but the only N71 part I could find is the HDD Bracket Assembly for $18.50, which I think is just the HDD caddy.

 

Yes, I think this is the link for the HDD board:
http://www.asusparts.eu/index.php?cPath=67674_75578_137884_137885_137899

You have to email them concerning the price.
I suppose it should be 10.99 euros and not 10,999.89 euros.

 

Oops! Sorry, I saw that link earlier in the thread. I'll email them and ask if they can update their pricing.

Will they ship that to the US? I wonder how much that would cost..

 

From the information on following page it seems they ship to USA.
http://www.asusparts.eu/shipping.php

On the main page of their site ( http://www.asusparts.eu/) they write that they charge 14 euros for shipping, but I don't know if this is only for europe or worldwide.

 

That's about $20USD, kind of expensive for a $20 part (assuming they mean 11 euro and not 11k euro), oh well.. still interested!

I've emailed them for more info and for a price adjustment on that item. Hopefully it's what we're looking for!

 

You have to also consider that the prices they display there are without VAT.
I don't know for USA, but for shipment to Germany I think they will add extra 19% of VAT to the price.

That is the reason why I did not buy the German keyboard for my N71JQ until now. It will cost me around 90 euros.

 

19% VAT on a $20 item isn't bad, it's around $4.00.. I guess if you take into account the second HDD cost, this part and the HDD caddy you're already close to the A1's price tag.

I'm not sure I want to bother with RMA'ing this and waiting up to a week for my funds back, then another day or two for the A1 to arrive.. I guess I'll wait to see if/when those SATA boards come in stock in the US.

 

I already did. I hate to see a 17 incher with one hdd in place. For crying out loud, a 12 incher will give me the same amount of storage ....will see how newegg deals with it. Any information if the n71jq on their website - the one with i7 and radeon 5730 that has a 500 gb single hdd config also comes with a huge empty space in the secondary hdd?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0702&cm_re=asus_laptop-_-34-220-702-_-Product