*** ASUS TUF A15 FA506/FX506 Owner's Lounge ***

These little powerhouses deserve their own thread.

There are many questions unanswered yet:

What is the highest ram speed they can achieve? Someone tried this:
Crucial Ballistix SODIMM 16GB Kit (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Gaming Memory (Black) BL2K8G32C16S4B
as it is CL16 latency only, but it would not run stable at 3200MHz as it only runs at that speed through it's XMP profile.

Important: at this particular cpu+chipset, moving from single-channel memory handling to double-channel does double the throughput, so it is highly recommended to get another 8GB of ram if your model came with only 1 8GB module.

Can a 48Whr battery be replaced by a 90Whr battery? The screwholes are there, except for one, but the backplate of the laptop might have plastic tabs designed to keep the smaller battery in place, and they might be in the way of the bigger battery - and the backplate has lots of "48Whr" texts on it around the battery area, as of reminding the person what the backplate belongs to. Needs someone to test this further.

Models coming with the smaller battery leave space for a 2.5" SATA drive - what the manual won't tell you though that only a 7mm thick HDD/SSD will fit. No regular 9mm thick drives would work, as far as I can tell. The screwholes of the drive and the HDD cage wouldn't line up.

Any successful ways to improve cooling? Although repasting voids your warranty - as there is a warranty sticker on of the screws.

Can 2 NVMe SSD-s be put in Raid?

Also, I did not find enough information to determine if the Space Grey and Bonfire Black covers have different model numbers or not, or actually where is the difference in numberings/stickers on the box. Many webshop have them confused in my country.

The Space Grey cover is said to be made of aluminium in several Youtube videos - it's NOT. It's plastic the same way as the Bonfire Black.

Any input is very welcome! Owner's rejoice!

 

Hello guys I have one Asus TX/TUF 506IV

 

Warranty void stickers aren't necessarily enforcable. In some jurisdictions they are technically illegal. I'm considering returning mine due to the issues mentioned below. If I end up not returning it, I'm going with Conductonaut liquid metal "paste".

There's no raid-support in BIOS, so any raid would be pure software raid.


My issues with 506IV (90Wh, upgraded with 32GB ram and 1TB M.2) so far:

* Wifi/Bluetooth sucks.. I've ordered an Intel AX-card to replace the horrid Realtek crap.
* Booting from USB only appears to work some times. I struggled for a long time to install windows (I replaced the 512GB with a 1TB M.2 before powering up the first time).
* The keyboard layout is... non-optimal. PGup/dn keys are part of the numpad, and you have to toggle numlock to use them. FN+home/end/pgup/pgdn does not work. Insert is FN+Delete.
FN+arrow keys control the keyboard backlighting. If someone figures out a way to override that, I'd love to know.
* And the most annoying bit for me... If you enable SVM (virtualization) in BIOS, the screen flickers. No amount of fiddling with drivers and settings has fixed this for me. I do unfortunately require some virtualization, and having to reboot and toggle a bios setting every time is infuriating.

 

ximinez, thank you for your input! Yes, an Intel AX card is a much better choice. Yes, the keyboard changes are crazy, recently many laptop manufacturers started to change the good old keyboard layouts, which kills productivity, I'm wondering wtf they are thinking??? But Asus is not alone in this crime.
SVM resulting in screen flickering is new to me, that is a serious problem. I would be good to get other's input on that too.
If you try liquid metal paste, please let us know your results.
I had another bug: after updating to the latest AMD Graphics drivers from AMD's website, the screen would not always "wake up" after hibernation, also going to hibernation would be very slow. Changed back to the ASUS recommended drivers, now it's snappy again.
FN+arrow keys override: what if you uninstall Armoury Crate? I guess some software defines these key combos, it's probably not HW based.

 

Took advantage of the Best Buy deal for $899 and ordered another 8gb 3200 ram stick. Will have thermal pads on the copper lines. I think this is the best value at present with the full wattage GTX 2060 and 4800h CPU. It'd funny that Intel has recently tried to create the illusion that they still had the superior CPUs. Panicking?

 

I also had issues with a Realtek device with a TUF A17, I had to replace the WiFi module. For others considering, note that it is the m.2 form factor, not the old Mini-PCIe. I failed to get a 3165NGW module on the first try and got a Broadcom to work. Both replacements were attempted with a used module. Based on internet comments, an Intel 9260 AC and AX200 work. Asus does not do BIOS blacklisting.
I have activated SVM and have noticed anything. Have you tried updating the BIOS? Asus provides the latest one on their website. If the problem persists, I really suggest contacting Asus support.
The keyboard layout for the A17 has the same questionable choices. To control the shortcuts, you may be able to use this excellent software: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/asus-notebook-keys-v1-3.150016 (Note: Use at your own risk)

For Linux users, please note that I failed to find drivers that control the keyboard backlight. The latest Nvidia drivers support offloading out of the box. To get the best support (and much better battery life) you need to get the bleeding edge Linux drivers (Linux 5.8rc5). I am currently using Linux 5.7 waiting for 5.8 to reach its stable release. For now, I am dealing with a few hours of battery life. But expect extremely poor GPU performance with anything earlier than Linux 5.7.

 

I need more storage and memory. The 506 comes with one ssd installed and one empty slot. I want to add another. Can I? If yes, how easy is it? There is an open memory slot for another stick. Should I buy one to add to what i have or buy 2 new identical sticks? Thanks for the Help.

 

Hy all.

Just bought a fa506qm , and the transparent wasd keys are getting on my nerves really really bad. I just want the whole keyboard standard one color,no fancy transparent keys

Was wondering if you guys know any normal replacements...tried online,no information anywhere.

I believe the fx506 keycaps models with the red outline might work, since the key cap look almost the same, but was hoping if anyone knows anything.

Alternative is taking them off and painting them...which would be ...less than ideal.

Anyone has any ideas?

 

Quick update:

I bought fx503 red keyboard and they work perfectly!
Ok,the font is a little off but wow. It works nice!

Final story of the matter is.....keep trying,some things work fine.