Asus N50 Owners/Buyers Thread

Did you overclocked the GeForce 9650m GT or CPU?

I'm quite surprised about DDR2 can be OC.

 

the 750 core/550 mem is a no go. It locked up during the run.

lucky: the 9650 is OC.

With Stock settings, I get 4547 3Dmarks.
SM 2: 1933
HDR/SM 3: 1742
CPU:1720

Now that that's that, I can get back to BioShock

 

Thanks for taking the time to post the results and your findings.
I'm not sure how much the T9400 has over the T5800 and was this Vista 32?
Maybe i could expect a little under 6000 3Dmarks,which still sounds fairly respectable.

Did you end up finding any software to overclock the FSB or CPU?

As for the masterpiece that is Bioshock, it's about the only decent game i have played in the last 3 years. Enjoy!!!!

 

I tried setFSB, but I had no idea how to work it, so I tried random settings. BSoD quickly followed, so I'm not doing that again .

Yeah bioshock is freaking amazing. I started playing today at noon, and I got to the third level. at this pace, I should get around 3-4 weeks of playtime out of this game, since I never play this much all at once. I usually only play 2-3 hours a day. I was playing call of duty 4, and it lasted a whopping 4 days. It was good, but very short. I could probably finish it in one sitting if I had the time.

 

Thanks yeah i decided against it too, but i read about other Asus users using another program with a bit of success, but i cannot find the thread... Doh!

Bioshock didn't seem to last me long enough, but unlike almost every FPS i wanted to explore every bit of the levels, and not rush because it's just such a cool atmosphere. I never used the regenerator thinggys, just because i liked dying so much i would reload everytime just to do that bit over again.
It's truly a masterpiece..... Did you harvest? "Get em, Mr. Bubble, Get em"
I may go back and play it again myself soon enough.

 

nope, I saved the little sisters. I want the good ending

 

any1 find a fix for the stupid spacebar not working

 

Sweet, I will have to be good next time too...I tried to turn good halfway through, which was acknowledged, but alas not all was forgiven...

@Texanman
I have had issues with backspace and any Ctrl + anything... Like Undo = Ctrl+Z or cut paste etc, it can take 10 goes to do it correctly sometimes @#$@##@#$

Most Asus notebooks have had a keyboard lag issue plague them for sometime, according to zlot it's the synaptics touchpad driver that has caused the issues. So unless it's a hardware fault with the spacebar, then synaptics driver would be my first guess.. (go back and read over zlots posts) My problem seems to be intermittent. And isn't a problems right now as CtrlZ and CtrlV work fine. But a driver issue is still my suspected cause.

My keyboard also kind of bubbles towards the right side of the spacebar, but it works fine, i will take a photo one day to see if everyone elses looks similar.

PS.. GESTURES These modified Acer Synaptics touchpad drivers have gestures, chiral motion and pinch and work on most laptops... http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=218872

Edit2: I tried these drivers and they do have lots more options than the initial Vista x64 version i was using.
Chiralmotion and others work, although it doesn't seem to work well in Firefox (as noted in that thread) but it has a fair few more features than the 10.18 I was using. Momentum is Cool!

 

Cool, what's speed of your CPU? I'm sorry if any misses.

I believe that 3Dmarks is varies based on CPU and GPU.

 

It's a 2GHz core 2 duo T5800. I might upgrade to a cheap quad core or the P9600 some day (most likely after the warranty is done)

I'm going to go overboard with virtual machines. I'm going to have vista be the host OS, and then have virtual machines of:
XP pro
Windows 7 Beta
Hackintosh OSX tiger
and Ubuntu

I don't think they'll all run at the same time

 

CPU is upgradable on N50 and N80? That's interesting and they get socket CPU?

 

It should be. It's in a socket, and there's different spec'd N50s with different CPUs. As long as the CPU you choose is available in another model, I don't think there would be too much of a problem switching it out. I'm not sure if the laptop's cooling system can handle the quad core though, since only 1 heatpipe/fan cool both GPU and CPU.

Whenever I play Bioshock, there's a faint buzzing noise coming from the upper left corner of the computer(where the fan is) It only happens when I have bioshock as the active window. I put it on windowed mode, and switched to firefox. No buzzing. Immediately afterward, alt-tab to bioshock and the buzzing begins again. It's not coming from the speakers since I had headphones plugged in, and it's not the headphones, because they're noise sealing, and I can't hear the buzzing when the headphones are in my ears. Anybody know what's up with this?

 

Oh interesting, thanks for answer.

I want know about how GTA IV is run on GeForce 9650m GT?

 

I don't have it, and frankly, I don't think I want it. My dad didn't want me to play call of duty 4 when I got it a few weeks ago(still did though hehe), so if my parents saw me playing GTA, they'd go on a rampage.

I found someone with a 9650 playing it:

so that answers that.

Edit: I tried out the new synaptics driver to enable multi-touch. Most of the stuff works great, but I don't see an option for Chiral motion or pinch zoom. freakish, do these work for you?

2nd edit: I saw your post in the driver thread, and it doesn't work for me. Like I can get into the control panel, but there are no settings in the utility itself. Any ideas?

 

Hey if any1 is haveing a small issue with the space bar not picking up on either side ( mine was the right side ) i fixed mine

All i did was thinking maybe there was dirt underneath the key i got a small Flathead screw driver and tried to pop the key off But instead of it coming off i herd a loud click and i was like CRAP i think i broke it but i pressed the key and randomly my space bar was fixed

 

It's possible the bars weren't inserted properly. If you had pulled it off, there are about four things which have to be lined up properly. Mine was also placed wrong on the right side, however it worked around 80% of the time while I was typing.

 

In Device Settings -> Virtual Scrolling: You should have Vertical Scrolling, Horizontal Scrolling and Chiralmotion checkboxes. I don't believe that pinch is currently supported.

 

Another quick question... is the 9650 in this version of laptop (ddr2) SLOWER then the 8600gt ddr3 ??

 

Not exactly. It may be that your CPU can't run GTA so well, but my N50 is a T9400 and runs GTA at ~25 fps (no oc) with 180.84 DOX drivers. I had to go to 1280x800 to play it at this framerate, but I didn't turn the texture or render quality down and didn't mess too much from the detail settings.

edit: Does this modded synaptics driver cause keyboard lag?

 

Yes and no. While the 9650 clock speeds are slower than the 8600, the 9650 performs similarly to the 8600 due to the smaller and more efficient 55nm architecture as opposed to the 80nm in the 8600.

 

so its kinda the same then?

 

Hmm it doesn't appear to have the chiralmotion checkbox. oh well. If firefox hates it, it's practically useless to me.

I wouldn't say that the 8600 and the 9650 are the same. Not by a stretch. The 8600 is roughly equivalent to the 9500m GS, and the 9650 beats it, weather it's DDR3 or 2. Bring overclocking into the equation, and the 8600 can't hold a candle to the 9650. The 8600 is a very hot card, so it can't OC as well as the cooler 9650.

 

its funny then because i get a better vista rating with the 8600 then the 9550 and whats bringing it down is the areo interface graphics

 

Yeah i already disabled it, but i do like the other extra config options it provided me. Did you uninstall the previous driver? Does it say 10.24?

Agreed...

Still cannot confirm, I'm typing this message without any issues, but sometimes my Ctrl+Anykey still causes me much aggravation. I could just have a faulty unit... I will give it a few days to confirm.

I also posted about this issue... I have an older desktop 2Ghz AMD x2 with Geforce 6800GS that gets a better WEI score on Aero, than the pic i posted on page 1 of 5.0 for my 9650GT.

I posted a post on the graphics forums, but most just say who cares about WEI anyway as it's always unreliable, but i still want to know exactly what test the 9650 is falling down on in WEI. Alpha Blending or something? Or is it a simple Mhz trigger.

To me it seems a little strange like there is some kind of flag slowing a certain area of it down. Even more interesting however, I noticed that Avanish11 scores did make quite a big jump on that score when he overclocked. His Aero score went from 4.9 to 5.9.... Yet Gaming graphics only jumped from 5.3 to 5.5. I guess it proves that WEI is rubbish though..

 

Also as i noted a few pages back the N51 has been announced, (i noticed it Asus support website) it included the Ati4600.. I wonder if a GPU swap could be possible at some point, Although i doubt the chance for Nvidia to Ati would be feasible.

 

its still pretty weird


Anyways I decided to oc the video card a little bit to see if my score would change so i bumped everything up about 5% and what do you know... my score went from 5 to 5.8

 

Thanks for testing that for me, I figured that might just happen..

 

I got VMware workstation today. I already have Mac OS X tiger installed. It works, but it's slightly laggy. I gave it both cores of my CPU and 2 gigs of RAM, so I don't see why it would lag. Oh well. I'm just happy that I got it working at all. (please don't ask how I got it working. I'm pretty sure that it's against the end user agreement of OSX, hence discussion is not allowed by NBR.)

Win 7 beta here I come!

 

GAHHH my stupid spacebars once again acting up....

 

Take a screwdriver and pop it off completely, then line it up and push it back down.

 

im sacred of breaking it lolz

 

ok i did BUT i found out the real problem.... the little button in the center that detects when the button is pressed...well its a little off center thus the reason why if u just barely press down it wont pick up but if u actually press down hard it will pick up on the left side


Edit: oops sorry for double post

 

Finally i found a site discussing this laptop. Anyways i need a quick opinion from you guys before i rush into a decision. Originally i was going to buy the M50VM-A1, but today last minute they tell me that its totally sold out and discontinued and that i should get the N50VN-A1B. Supposedly they are practically the same and the same price, the n50 being 3 dollars more expensive, but i`ve noticed that the processor is less powerfu on the n50 but the guy said that with more cache it actually makes the processor better. Anyways i dont know a lot about laptop hardware because this is going to be my first, but i have a bad feeling he might be trying to just push this model on me cuz he doesnt have the old one. could someone just do an overall comparison between the 2 models, especially with the battery life and the screen. FYI i`m using this laptop for programming but i`ll most likely be playing some games and watching some videos in class as well.

 

The processor is fine. The core 2 duo T5800 is good for just about everything you'd want. If you're gaming, then the 9650GT in the N50 is going to be more useful than the 9600GS in the M50.

Get the N50. You won't be disappointed.

 

It would seem the M50-A1 has the P8600 CPU, 320Gb, 4GB and 1440x900 LCD.

The N50 model you were quoted has the T5800 which only has 2Mb L2 cache and 800mhz FSB the P8600 should be actually better with 3Mb L3 cache, 1066Mhz FSB and lower power consumption and higher clock speed. It wouldn't be a huge difference, but likely noticeable.

The Screen on the N50 is slightly smaller resolution, 1200x800 compared to 1440x990. However the N50 has an LED backlit display, which does make it better on battery as well as being more vivid, bright and easily readable in direct sunlight.

Spec wise i would prefer the M50 that you were original getting. The N50Vn-A1B is lesser spec wise, the N50vn-B1B is far more comparable to the M50Vm-A1, unfortunately it's likely a few hundred dollars more for the N50 model equiv.

But it also has the p8600, 320Gb and 1440x900 display, The N50's 9650GT is a better card than the 9600GT it will be faster and is based on a better fab process, so should run slightly cooler and with less power.

 

crap this is a pretty tough decision both laptops seem to be very similar in terms of performance with the m50 slightly better... well since its sold out i guess i have no choice in getting the n50. just a quick question, does the battery really only last up to 2.5 hours even if i`m only using it for word processing with a dimmed screen

 

oh and also would i be getting ripped off in purchasing the laptop for $1196 cad

 

I'd say so. You can get the N80Vn-x1 for $1098 CAD from newegg. It's the same exact laptop as the N50vN-a1b, but it has a 14" screen.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220389

 

would you recommend the M50Vm-X1 from newegg for 1280. also is newegg a trusworthy site to buy from

 

I don't see the M50Vm-x1 on newegg. Could you give me a link?

I'd say that newegg is the most trustworthy website that I've ever bought from.

 

You can get the one I got off newegg for 1099 And it has a P8600 and 9650... the only thing you don't get a 320gb hdd its 250gb

 

which one did you get

 

It will vary but i can get a real 3+ hours without problems with the correct settings on my N50Vn. Windows will often report over 4hours, but 3 is doable.
Which considering the dedicated Nvidia card is fairly decent for a 6 cell battery. I have a T9400 CPU, which is slightly worse on battery than the P8600.

I believe texanman purchased this model.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220461

I agree that does seem like a good buy, in comparison to the $1280 of the M50. HDD can always be upgraded or external, and everything else on that model is quite good really.

 

Ya that is what I have.... And for what your doing I don't think the hdd size is going to be a limiting factor since you can just grab a flash drive to store many word docs and other data.... But what I can say that is great about this thing is that The thing is really quite and heat effective for what It can do...also Because on my old dell if I was to play a game on just battery the life would be arround 40mins before I needed a recharge (xps 1530) BUT with this laptop I was playing vegas2 during my tech aid class at high school (I just assist the head tech guy with tech stuff for 2hrs a day as a class) and while playing i was at 90% maxed graphics and when i was done i had about 1 hr 20mins left over to Finnish up m mutisim stuff the next period.

 

Does N50 offers 9 cell battery? I can't find from ASUS estore website and what's model number for battery?

 

The models page on the asus site says it has the 9 cell options but I can not find the battery anywhere on the net

Edit: For out of curiousity But can you slip some Intel Turbo Memory into this laptop?

 

I'm not currently aware of any 9 cell battery for the N series at this time. I hope they do eventually get released however.

As for Intel Turbo Memory, check the manual... My model specified Non-Intel Memory model, but I'm not sure if it means we are missing a The turbo memory, or the Minipcie slot that Turbo memory uses. There is a driver on the Asus N50 website.

 

screw the turbo memory. It is absolutely useless if you have more than 1GB of RAM. Some people have actually noticed a slowdown from having the turbo memory along with 4GB of RAM.

 

humm... makes seance to me

 

So what is the program to use if I were to overclock my N50 9650mGT? Say if I'm just going to overclock it at about 5% more than stock to see if that boosts up my Vista Experience score, would you keep the laptop constantly overclocked at this speed, or only overclock it when I want to play a game?