Asus N50 Owners/Buyers Thread

I bought exactly the same model as yours on Boxing Day. I ordered a toslink to mini jack cable over the weekend but haven't got it yet so i can't try it out with my 5.1 logitch z55000. Any progress with your Marantz 6.1 amp yet? BTW, the laptop came with an extra cable which I'm sure you have got as well. I wonder what it is for???

 

Anyone got the drivers for webcam vista 64?

 

I just used the Windows update drivers, It's a standard UVC 2M Webcam driver from Microsoft. The problem being any application will show the Camera upside down (as it's installed that way), as the software needs to have a Flip-V option in it to be useful.

 

Who installs a web cam upside down anyways But anyways I think I will be putting x64 on the laptop when it gets here. Are all the important drivers on asus site? And could you techinicly put xp on this thing and if you can has anyone done it yet?

 

I believe everyone who makes laptops installs them upside down, still seems stupid to me, and at least provide a flip-v option in the driver, rather than the Asus Camera utility doing it. Google Chat for example is always upside down.

I don't believe XP or Linux is technically supported, but i don't think there would be any issues tracking down XP drivers. (Linux works fine) But only Vista 32/64 drivers on the disc and website.

Dell over here have phenomenal tech support with next day onsite warranty repair, Over here in Australia Asus cannot compete with this but a 2 year standard warranty is good, we don't get the accidental care over here.

Build quality is average to good... The parts chosen seem to be the cheapest Taiwan/Chinese manufactured pieces money can buy, Yuan TV Tuner, Optiarc Bluray, CMO LED Panel, but the build and finish is still alright.

Hope you enjoy the Notebook.

 

I tried to overclock the video card using RivaTuner. I did what you should NEVER do- I cranked up the sliders all the way. I was getting artifacts just running firefox, and nothing else was running.

I'm going to try to OC the CPU using setFSB.

 

I just installed the driver, no software, off of the driver CD and it works fine. Everything I've tested it on comes up without the need to flip vertical.

 

Well anyways I started to grab the xp drivers for this thing if anyone is interested. I have the chip set and wireless drivers. can anyone else tell me what i am missing (I don't have the notebook yet I am just preparing.) When I Finnish ill upload the pack somewhere

 

I uninstalled the Power4Gear Hybrid that came with the laptop, and installed the Power4Gear eXtreme included with the G50's that support overclocking. It installed fine (shocking I know), but I can't find any option of overclocking in the program. It must be something built into the G50's bios.

 

The G50 doesn't use p4g for overclocking, but instead uses direct console.

 

Are you using Asus Camera utility? Or which software?, I tried several including Google Chat and VLC media player and everyone is upside down. Google search shows it's quite normal for Asus laptops. My MS driver version is 21/06/06

Linux does the same thing however you can manually hack the device driver and fix it, however you cannot do this in Windows.

 

oh. I think you know what I'm gonna do now

 

I've used MSN, Yawcam and Media Player Classic. My driver is Sonix 4/1/2008, which I pulled off of the driver cd.

 

Just to reiterate something I wrote in a dead thread on these boards which helped me find the answer to a problem I had with my N50 regarding keyboard lagging, system-beeps when pressing keys and stuttering while playing games:

Sometimes I noticed chinese characters would appear in front of the game on the top-left in a vista-looking input window.

This input window is Vista's language bar. It seems that my Vista came installed with this thing called 'Microsoft Pinyin IME 2007', which runs at startup. This is a service connected to a Chinese keyboard layout in the 'Text services and Input Languages' control panel. Remove this service, and the random chinese text and beeping and lag during gaming will disappear.

It seems this service by default has a global keyboard combination of CTRL+SPACEBAR to bring up the convert-to-chinese language bar, which must be causing all the problems; especially when gaming. Sometimes however, this bar would show up simply by typing when the start button is pressed.

Also:
When I uninstalled the touchpad drivers that came installed and rebooted, windows didn't install a microsoft driver but the exact same synaptic driver that was on previously. Miraculously, this has fixed my keyboard lag problems, and it even kept all my touchpad settings like my tap-zones and tap-zone functions.

Maybe if your windows is installing a microsoft generic touchpad driver, try downloading the synaptics driver from the ASUS N50 support website, uninstalling your driver, and installing that one instead. Not sure if this will work, but I do know that the driver I'm using now that seems to have fixed the keyboard lag is the exact same version as the one you can download from the website.


Hope this helps.

By the way, I think I read earlier in this thread that Australians are excluded from the 1 year accidental warranty (coffee spills etc) that ASUS offer. Is this true?

 

Is this laptop main cooling fans on the bottom of the laptop?

 

yep. It sucks air through the bottom and vents it out the back end of the laptop.

On a side note, The G50's direct console installs, but it won't let me change anything in the program, so I'm trying GPU OCing again. Rivatuner and EVGA precision aren't doing anything, so I tried nTune. IT WORKS!!

Right now, it's running stable with a 100MHz OC on the Memory, and a 150MHz OC core, 375MHz OC on the Shaders. I'm going to try and push it as far as possible. I'll report back when I'm done.

 

so would getting a laptop cooler like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834997421 help with cooling the n50vn? just asking

 

SUCCESS!! I've managed to overclock the 9650 to 730 core/1825 shaders/525 memory, all while being stable. (stable=playing crysis for a good 2 hours.) I'll set it to loop nTune's stress tester tonight. This is up from 550/1375/400 stock.


And to answer your question, yes that cooler would work fine. I don't think that you should need it though. The laptop runs idle at 55C and load is at 76C, while being overclocked to the above settings.

 

well I had owned a xps 1530 (which i sold 2 days after Christmas to get my new asus and that things gpu would reach 70 idle and 90-98 load. I even had dell replace the motherboard and gpu and got same temps. I would like a thing that would prop up the laptop so I still thinking I am going with the cooler. Now is the power brick connecor 2 pins or three cause I really want to grab a set of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834999223 just to be safe....


Now on to another subject, on asus website they say there is a 9cell and a 6cell replacement pack for n50vn the issue is I cant find another battery or power supply anyware anyone have any luck on this issue...

and bdw nice job with the ocing.

 

Great! How did you manage to get nTune to work? I'm using 180.70 driver and I get BSOD with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION whenever I try to start it.

 

I'm using driver 180.48, with the modded INF from laptopvideo2go.com. I don't know how I got it to work. I installed, and it just worked.

I had it run the stress testing, and it worked flawlessly for 12 hours, and the temps never went above 75C.


And the power connector has 3 pins.

 

I am using 180.70 as well, but I do not receive a BSOD with nTune. Perhaps you should do a clean uninstall of your driver and reinstall?

I've seen very similar results with overclocking the GPU. Seems extremely stable from everything I've attempted so far.

 

Help!!! I can't launch express gate by hit express gate key when my machine is powered off. I've tried uninstalling and reinstall the express key software and the problem persists. Interestingly, when i hit the key in windows environment, it launches windows media centre. Any one can help me out here??? Many thanks in advance!!!

 

Here's the GPUz validation to the overclock: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/hq45u/

Have you tried updating the BIOS?

 

I thought the 9000 series cards had ddr3 memory? Or am I just reading that page wrong?


I was looking at a comparison to a 8600 gts for a desktop and After reading some articles and theoretically If you take to core to a min. of 680 then you surpass the desktop card

 

Hey Texanman, I ordered the same laptop as you from Newegg and should get it Tuesday. How do you like it so far?

Tim

 

Idk It comes in tomorrow

I had a xps and its not worth it compared to the epic specs of the asus machine we ordered



Quick question...Has anyone found replacement battery's or chargers for the n50vn yet?

 

9000 series comes in both DDR2 and DDR3, the 9650M in the N50/N80 is DDR2.

 

That seems a little on the lame side?

 

While for the price I believe it should be a little better and should be DDR3, the Notebook itself is a general/multimedia notebook and not a gaming series notebook, if gaming and videocard performance are paramount, then the G series are the Asus models that you should likely look at.

PS. Avanish11 nice overclock, thanks for sharing.... 33% improvement is not too shabby. (is this now 9700GT comparable?) Let me know if you find a way to OC and or undervolt the CPU.

@momos_lover
Sounds weird, I don't have EG loaded.... But have you used AsusNB Keys?
I press the express gate key in Windows and nothing happens, but i can change this with Asus NBkeys. Maybe you done this too? Otherwise i would reload the latest version of EG from the Asus website.

 

well i bought this laptop to be a replacement for my desktop at lanpartys


anyways I also use this thing to be nerdy on the go.

 

Anyone can help with my express gate problem???

 

Have you tried seeing if there is a later version to download? Website has listed: (27/10/08)

Have you tried powering down and holding the button for several seconds?
It would seem the button is working if it's loading Media Center. What Bios version are you using? Unfortunately i never tried Splashtop, so can't offer much advice. (But from memory the button does turn the machine on, telling me i need to load Splashtop) But it sounds like a Software issue.

It may be time to call Asus tech support...

 

EDIT: Thanks sorted, i used the Chicony driver from the CD (not sure why 64bit driver isn't available on the website) when it allowed me to update it does actually show Sonix as the driver maker.

And it does do the Auto flip in driver now, so everything is up the correct way now. Unfortunately VLC media player seems to have some color issues with this driver, but others like google chat are now fine.

Cheers!

PS. Does anyone have the wallpaper that came with the initial install they can upload somewhere or send me? The Asus background logo with the dots (like the notebook itself)

 

It turns on the machine when it's powered off and the screen takes me directly to windows intead of splashtop.

 

i just opened mine today. THIS laptop is amazing for the price... ill post vista's rating a little later tonight

 

Thanks for the compliments . I'm not sure if it's quite up to a 9700, or not. I doubt it, since the memory is holding it back. I still need to download 3Dmark06, so I'll let you know later. I'll keep you posted if I figure out how to OC/UV the proc.

BTW, here's the background, for who wants it.

 

It does sound like a setup issue with the software, if Splashtop was in the correct place then when pressing the button it should find the Splashtop OS and boot it, so it sounds like it's looking for Splashtop but doesn't know where to find it.

Did you do a default install, does it load it on the C:\ or the hidden EXT3 partition? I would imagine it should be installed on the EXT3 partition, What release was it, August or October?

You could always restore from the DVD, this should in theory have Splashtop already setup as it was when first installed. Otherwise it sounds like an issue that Asus support would be better of handling, as they have likely come across a similar problem with some Asus notebook and EG at somepoint.

 

Please do keep us updated, we don't want those elitist G series owners to think they are the only ones who can get more power... But yeah the 800Mhz memory speed on the 9700 i guess give it the edge still, My Unregistered 3DMark06 score @ completely stock settings, on Vista x32 was 4740. I'm fairly sure with some tweaking 5000 is attainable, with your OC, perhaps more. Has anyone tried SetFSB, ClockGen or other CPU OC utility?

Thanks for the background, I actually have a directory on my CD called Wallpaper but it fails to have that BG which was loaded when i first got my N50. Cheers!

PS. I also note there are now 2.8Ghz T9600's being shipped in some N50Vn's over here now.

 

EDIT - Double Post

 

I would also love to know your 3dmark06 scores with the 33% overclock increase!

Freakish123, when I run 3dmark06 with no particular tweaks, I get around 4600. I wonder how it could be so different from yours? Which nVidia drivers are you using? I'm using the latest nVidia ones from their official site, who have only recently added a section to download notebook-specific drivers (cards with the 'M' suffix).

 

The 3DMark06 was one of the first things i did when i got the laptop, (everything stock) It was the first time i had ever used it and because i was unregistered i wasn't really impressed. (web results etc) I didn't even run it 3 times and average the results, (as i do with my own 3D Render benchmarks) so for all i know the 120 discrepancy could of changed the very next run.

Overall = 4740
CPU = 2329
SM2 = 1929
SM3 = 1743

What were your shader and CPU scores?

I have not loaded it again since i loaded Vista x64 and now use 180.84 L2G drivers. (Are you using Vista x64?) So the drivers were the ones that shipped.
with my notebook at the time. Depending on Avanish11's results i may load it again with a few different driver versions, or 3DMarkVantage again when i try overclock. Sitting here in 35+ degrees Celsius i don't think i will do so until autumn....

On an unrelated note, has anyone tried playing a Bluray Disc?

I purchased Batman The Dark Knight over Christmas, but i get the message "“Create Overlay Failed” when trying to play it with the included WinDVD... I'm assuming it's either a Vista x64 or more likely Nvidia driver issue. I'm wondering if it works in the default setup with Vista 32 and the included driver. It really SUCKS!

PS Congrats Texasman, glad you like your new notebook!

 

Ahha, I changed some settings like anistropic filtering and antialias to application-controlled in the nVidia control panel and now I've finally got a decent score of 4782.

Regarding overclocking, are you sure this is a good idea from a warranty perspective? I haven't read the proper terms & conditions yet regarding warranty but I assume it will be voided if you overclock the GPU.

Deciding to overclock a PC video card can be fine as it can be worth the risk, but we're talking about a $2000+ laptop at stake here!

 

Ahhh, yes the Nvidia panel is certainly worth a visit for tweaking. Now I'm jealous.

Heheh, yeah as long as one keeps an eye on temps and doesn't over do it, their generally isn't much to worry about. Personally don't have a need, but curious as to what it's limits are. My desktop Quadcore has been happily overclocked by 800mhz while maintaining stock voltage for over 12months.
The Videocard is a factory overclock model, which i take higher when i pump the fans up a little more. Never had any issues as long as you monitor temps and voltages.

I decided not to overclock the N50 in Rivatuner, (although it looks like Avanish couldn't anyway)because of the dynamic change of the Mhz... But if Nvidias own Ntune can do it well now, than if a need arises in the future it's good to have the option. These days Asus software like P4G and DirectConsole support OC on the G series, and Nvidia's own software allows it, so i don't think Asus would or could really prove the GPU OC, nor care much, they may be suspicious if you kept returning with a videocard fault however...

Indeed Overclocking is always @ your own risk, and isn't advised for most people. As a user of PC's daily since the C-64 i think i can decide when it's appropriate and suitable for my PC's. But indeed your warning is a good one for almost everyone to listen too. I would only blame myself for any problems caused by my own stupidity... My N50 isn't really for games, my desktop still does that... So my GPU speeds aren't so important, i would like to OC my CPU to 2.8Ghz however....

 

I feel exactly the same way really, i don't NEED the extra speed at all, but I just want to know that it CAN

But then I remembered that one major reason I bought this lappy in the first place was because it comes with 2 years warranty default, and I would probably hang myself if something went wrong and they refused to fix it under warranty just so I could brag I got 5 extra fps in Crysis =)

On a completely other note, I've been trying to find information on Synaptics' Gestures and Multi-Touch functionality that apparently works with *some* touchpads. Gestures such as ChiralMotion, and the two-fingered pinch move from iPhones. I was wondering if anyone has found out if the N50 is capable of these multi-touch gestures? There is no mention of them in the Synaptics properties dialog.

 

I'm pretty sure that the warranty is void only if you permanently OC the card by flashing the BIOS. Software based OCing is fine. Don't take my word for it though, as I'm no lawyer. Besides, my N50 was only $950 (n50vn-a1b)

That would be awesome if we could activate multi-touch in the touchpad. My friend has a new macbook pro, and he's ALWAYS bragging that the touchpad is soooo much better. If the N50 supports it, then I can basicall tell him to GTFO

 

How do you like it so far? Mine is suppose to be here sometime today. Is there anything I should watch out for?

 

So far I am amazed at this thing. I had a 8600 gt ddr3 and that thing barely played Vegas 2. This thing can actually play it on 98% of the max settings!!!!

What I suggest doing is go ahead and after the first boot up of vista Just wipe it out and do a fresh install because for some reason my desktop crashed on me today for no reason and it never went back ( it was sooo weird ) and besides that it had sooo much crap installed like some lightscribe software which you don't need because you don't have burner that supports it on this model and you also have a bunch of other random stuff installed that I have no clue what it is and I help out with IT


you would also insted of useing laptopvideo2go's drivers go ahead and grab the official notebook drivers off of the nvidia website

also this thing is a pain in the butt when it comes to collecting finger prints. THEY GET EVERYWHERE but if you get past that and the smallish screen resolution this thing is truly worth the price!

As I am writing this post I am doing a clean install

I do have one question though.... For some reason one side of my spacebar is not working on the right side of it i can just genericly tap it and get a space but the other i have to press down a lot harder for it to make a space any help?

 

Before the OC, the vista performance scores were:
graphics: 4.9
gaming graphics: 5.3
After the OC, they are:
graphics: 5.9
gaming graphics: 5.5
Yeah, it went up a whole point in graphics. I've downloaded 3dmark06, so I'll have the scores with and without the OC up later.

Edit: with the OC, In 3Dmark06, I get...
5701 3DMarks!!!!
SM 2: 2557
HDR/SM 3: 2287
CPU(my Achilles's heel): 1714

MUCH better than I thought I could get. stock settings coming shortly, then I'll try pushing it to the maximum to see how much I get (this isn't the max OC I can get, it's just the highest that I felt safe. I can actually push the mem to 550 and the core to 750, though they're not entirely stable.)

According to Cnet's review on the G50v, the 9700m gets 6923 in 3Dmark06. this OC is nowhere near that.