Asus N550JV - user review and owners lounge

it is Normal. And i have dell vostro, so i can compare. i'm a little bit disappointed..
i think asus also lacks brightness

 

If these benchmarks are correct, ~31 fps on low, ~21 fps on medium

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

As the drivers get better performance will probably improve though. It was only released a month ago, there hasn't been much time for Nvidia to optimize for it.

 

The CoH2 benchmarks are awful and don't make any sense compared to the rest. I agree with Rapture, they will get much better with time.

 

I bought mine from Microcenter, and have a serious problem and I hope that someone can help me. Was running perfectly for a couple weeks and then in the middle of a game, the screen flashed black, and then my game crashed. I got kind of confused and went into my device manager to see what had happened. and I saw that under the properties of the Nvidia card there was this message "windows has turned off this device because an error occurred. code 43" Also when I tried to open my graphic card control panel a message popped up saying "You are not currently using a display attached to an Nvidia GPU" I checked all the drivers to make sure they were up to date and they all were... so if anyone can help me with this problem that would be great! Thank you

 

I think the 24gb ssd was one of the specs the stores got wrong.

 

For those of you that have registered your notebook did you get an email from web storage that was in Chinese. I assume it had my username and password info but I couldn't read any of the email except it had to do with asus web storage. Just wondering if anybody else had that happen. Thanks for your info.

 

Notebookcheck.net's gaming benchmarks don't make sense, ~31fps on low is on 1024x768 resoultion with everything on low. I never scale down the native resolution, but I scale down some of the eye candy. I don't expect much from 750M but I think at native resolution 1980x1080 & with low-medium settings I will get ~25-30 fps

 

That is to bad. It also does not have WiDi. I am thinking of returning. ASUS has done a horrible job communicating specks about the laptop.

 

I have a dell Vostro too. Asus is super bright compared to my vostro. I had an upgraded screen on Vostro but this is better in terms of colors and brightness

 

So I heard there is a 6-cell for this thing, is that going to released later ?

Also for those who ordered from Adoarama did you get the i7-4702 ? Specs seems all over the place . I can't find a 1080p Touch with a 4700mq .

 

I ordered from adorama and mine came with 4700hq not the 4702. Even when I called asus before I got my computer they said all of the n550 notebooks came with the 4702 processor and the screen was only 1366/768. They seriously screwed up the spec listing on this computer. If ASUS got it wrong its no wonder the various retailers have conflicting specs. I just hope asus clears up the specs because I wonder how it will work if it comes with ADP or you buy and extended warranty and you were to damage the screen and they had to replace it are they going to replace it with a 1366/768 screen because that is what is listed on their master specs. I certainly hope not. That would seriously me off.

 

Yeah, I'm sort of waiting for these to pop up in retail stores, none of the MCs in Texas have any in stock .

Another question, has anyone tried to swap out the wireless card ? I wanted to put a AC / Widi intel card into one of these things but am kinda put off if they have strict white-listing like the Lenovos .

 

Do replacing the internal HDD will void your warranty ? How about replacing BD/DVD Rom with HDD caddy will also void warranty ?

 

No, as long as for warranty you send it with all the original parts (HDD & ODD). Or at least this is how things are for Europe.

 

Correct, as long as you ship it to them in the configuration it was shipped to you the warranty still applies regardless. Same in the US.

 

So do we know what sku's have the FHD? And is the 24GB SSD hybrid drive just compleyely MIA? Thanks.

Bump! Do we know what sku is 1080p touch w/4702?

 

Did you order from Adorama? How'd that turn out for you? 1080p Touch?

 

I just ordered one of these from prostar and can't wait to receive this thing. Kept it stock except old hd is replaced with 512 gb samsung 840. And I also updated the wireless card to AC. They said it would probably come in either wednesday or thursday of this week. Once it comes in I'll try and do somewhat of a review.

 

What is the stock wireless card on this laptop? On one site it says its single-band but on a review it said it was double band. If it is single band, is there a spare antenna to upgrade it to double-band? Thanks.

 

Notebookcheck has posted a review:
Review Asus N550JV-CN201H Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

 

About the screen they say mostly word for word what I've said so far. Poor sRGB coverage, warm tones, colors are a bit off.

Just like my sample is and temps are about right when it comes to places where it gets hot.

Mine does not, even when I had Prime+Furmark, the GPU would go down first and lower, the CPU would still offer quite good performance at 2.6 GHz (GPU had 400Mhz from ~950 nominal value, no boost and that is a big drop).

So mine does the opposite.

I have played Hitman: Absolution and it works very well with mids in FHD. Same goes for Metro: Last light.

Battery performance looks more or less tha same as mine.

Only if you do not compare to better ones.

 

i ordered from bh.. its a full hd 1080p display.. no widi. it does not have an intel wireless card..

 

Question for you guys. I was playing a game and getting framerate drops occasionally. I decided to investigate the clock rate that the 750M was running at and used GPU-Z on my N550JV-DB71. Temperatures easily hit 80C and the GPU's frequency will boost for only a couple seconds before dropping below the base clock around 960mhz to ~800mhz. Does anyone else have high temperatures like that? For reference... my CPU temps barely graze 70C when light gaming.

Fiddling in Sketchup does the same thing. It will quickly throttle the GPU (starts off with 1100mhz GPU boost then backs off around 80C with a lower clock). Within 20 seconds, it could reach 80C from an idle of 45C.

It looks to be bad thermal paste for the GPU, and I will probably re paste as soon as I can get the bottom panel off.


EDIT:
Problem solved. The workers at Asus forgot to remove the pink insulating rubber protector on the GPU and applied thermal paste on top of that. A bit of a fail, but that's the cause of the problem. Insulating rubber is not good for heat transfer and thus the GPU throttled. I removed the rubber and repasted with IC Diamond. Temperatures are looking normal with the GPU boost functioning properly at ~1163mhz during games.

 

lol dat fail asus. I will get mine in two days, i will check on that. I always repaste as a rule anyway.

 

Hey guys!

I received mine two days ago and replaced the HDD with a Samsung SSD.
However, it does not let me install Windows 7. Windows 8, as well as the 8.1 preview version are installable.
Anybody encountered this specific problem?

 

U have to change the boot settings from "UEFI" to "legacy support" in the bios to be able to install W7.

 

Looks like it's dual band :
http://www.notebookcheck.net/typo3temp/_processed_/csm_N550_UnterseiteOffen_b9df1aca99.jpg

It's Atheros though, i have a spare intel wifi N2230 card that i will try to put in the Asus cause i want to try Widi by curiosity. Should work pretty well on Haswell with reduced latency and all.

 

I just noticed on rewiew pictures that the cpu is soldered. I don't like that lol. Anyway i wasn't planning on upgrading the cpu, it's already far too powerfull for my needs.

 

Thanks mate, it does work now.
Do you happen if the Asus N550 fully supports Windows 7? Do I face any drawbacks by installing Windows 7 insetad of just using Windows 8?

 

Didn't try it myself yet but there should no issues installing W7, drivers should be available for all components. afaic, i will just install classic shell on W8 to get the classic desktop and start menu back like on my lenovo. It's like having good old W7 so i will not bother with a W7 reinstall.
I did install W7 on my Lenovo that comed with W8 and it was working perfectly. No problem but it wasn't working better, just the same as W8.

 

Read my OP.

There is no 100% coverage for W7.

I cannot turn off the WF or BT with fn+f2.

There is still one problem with USB controller. It might need USB 3.0 drivers, but since I have no device with USB 3.0 all I see is that a USB controller is missing. I found no drivers for USB 3.0 for Haswell. I had some on my previous Asus laptops so there must be a driver for this.

The IRST_Intel_Win8_64_VER12601033 driver will not work and will block the entire system as it will not boot. So do not try it, the laptop will not start in any mode. At least mine did the same a couple of times right after this driver and works great without it.

There is no Asus Console for W7.

If you want a LAN driver, you need to use LAN_Install_Win7_7072_05222013 (for Realtek from Realtek's site). Those from Asus did not work for me.

If you want P4G use Power4Gear_Hybrid_WIN7_64_Z122.

For InstantOn use InstantOn_Win7_64_VER233. This and P4G are not listed under N550 as you will only get W8 programs there.

Other than these I had no problems using the laptop. Performance is good, games play well.

 

How's everyone doing? Got a question for N550JV current owners, does it have keyboard ghosting, can you tell me if these 3 key combo works when you get a chance? All three combo should light up green when all pressed simultaneously. Thanks


Q+W+D or Q+W+Spacebar and W+E+Spacebar

Microsoft Applied Sciences Group


Another question, is the matte display grainy/smudgy especially on white backgrounds or is it very clear and colorful? Does it have a yellowish tint or oversaturated color temperature or everything looks fine??

 

Images are warm, colors are a bit off, complex gradients have banding due to color space. No yellowish stuff in my eyes.

Display is clean.

Keyboard works well, no problems.

 

For those who are pissed by the yellowish screen color, just uninstall "asus splendid video enhancements", your colors will be back to normal. Thanx Asus for ur useless softwares.

And those who don't care about a full hd screen, i have the 768p model, it's also a mat screen, not bad at all.

 

The wifi/bluetooth card is a power sucker, i'm at 16W with wifi on and fall to 12W in airplane mode. Never seen that. Usually it sucks 1,5-2W max.

How to keep XTU undervolting settings running ? it is always reinitializing for whatever reasons (sleep mode, reboot etc...)
I gan go safe at -130mv, crash at -150mv.

Power consumption at full load went from 50W to 40W with cpu turbo off ( so 2,4 ghz on 4 cores), crazy low temps.

What the heck with those screws haha ? i can't dismount that with my regular screwdrivers

 

They are torx (T5 on the unit). Highly spread these days, from phones to cars.

 

Just bought a cheap screwdrivers set, this lap is a piece of cake to dissassemble once you got the right screwdriver. Just put my spare wifi N2230 card in it, works perfectly, no whitelist like Lenovo notebooks. That's cool. I will see if idling power consumption with wifi on gets better and i will try Widi also.

Will check the pasting on cpu and gpu also.

Other than that, damn fine laptop, keyboard is awesome, i wanted absolutely a backlight keyboard but funny thing is it's not very usefull on this one cause the keyboard is clear grey and even with screen brightness on minimum we still see the keyboard enough to be able to type lol.

Damn, it is surfing faster with intel wifi card. Responsiveness seems better.

 

Now I wish I had a spare card like that.

Yep, feel the same about the keyboard light.

 

F... me guys. I went from 17-18W to solid 12W at idle with full brightness and wifi on by putting the intel wifi card and only one stick of ram instead of two. I can get to 10W with still decent screen brightness !!! Dual channel is useless anyway. I will next put a 250GB 840 EVO ssd in that and here comes the almost ultrabook power consumption lol

The atheros wifi card is huge cr*p !!!!

Also a good tip to surf with minimum power consumption is to get ad block plus firefox plugin. Those friggin' ads are huge power suckers.

 

Kallogan, can we turn off the keyboard backlighting???

Is your display matte and is it grainy or is it clear and colorful??

Can you also test your keyboard if it has keyboard ghosting from the link i posted above the current page of this thread??


Thanks

 

My display is matte yes, i have the 768p model and it seems very decent to me. Don't really know what u mean by grainy. Colors were yellow-ish in the first place thx to "asus splendid video enhancements" software but it's now back to normal since i uninstalled this cr*p.

As for keyboard ghosting, the first two combinaisons, all keys were green, the last one (W+E+Spacebar), only W and E were green not spacebar. I have an azerty keyboard so i don't know if it changes anything

You can turn off backlight keyboard by pressing Fn+F3

 

Mine works fine, all green. Hm...

 

So Kallogan you have keyboard ghosting with W+E+Spacebar????

What you mean AZERTY? Is that mean u don't have the standard and normal QWERTY keyboard?

If it is keyboard ghosting on that AZERTY, that means it will be fine with the QWERTY since c_man said he has no ghosting?


Grainy is when the display looks dirty and cloudy and usually happens with anti-glare or matte coatings and is mostly seen on white backgrounds.




Another question and confusion, Why is BHPhotoVideo's version of Asus N550JV-DB71 has a i7-4702 cpu when all N550JV-DB71 from other resellers have it listed as 4700HQ?? Is this a typo or what?

 

I DON'T KNOW. I DON'T GIVE A F... ABOUT KEYBOARD GHOSTING. DOES IT REALLY MATTER ?????

Other than that, the i7 4702HQ seems to be available only available on the touchscreen version of the N550JV.

 

hey guys i've been looking around the web for a correct spec sheet but to no avail. I've contacted and called like 5 different retailers/resellers and everyone is giving me conflicting information.

two questions:

is there anywhere that actually sells the n550 with the aforementioned 24gb ssd? some retailers say that they sell the laptop with a hybrid harddrive, while xotic pc says that asus screwed up and it actually doesnt have one on any models. if possible, could you give me your hard drive model number and where you got it from?

also, is the touchscreen/glossy/glass worth an extra 60 or so dollars? i'm not quite sure whether it's that necessary to navigate with windows 8, and i understand both arguments for matte vs glossy, either is fine for me. and if you do have the touch version, do you have a full hd screen (where'd you get it from?).

i'm currently looking at: Asus N550JV-DB71 15.6" LED Notebook, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD N550JV-DB71 , XOTIC PC | ASUS N550JV-DB71, ASUS i7-4700HQ/8GB/1TB/W864/15.6"T/ ALUMN550JV-DB72T B&H, etc.

thanks so much guys, i really appreciate it.

 

touchscreen is absolutely useless on a laptop. It's only usefull for convertible devices that can detached and used as a tablet.

i don't like m-sata ssd and prefer to buy a big regular ssd aftermarket but it's just me. 250 GB is enough and affordable. and i use an external 1TB HDD via usb 3 for stocking big mkvs. I bought the hdd usb 3 case on ebay for peanuts.

 

There is no 24GB SSD. I saw no room it, no place to connect. Some say at a later time we might be able to do a double with the actual HDD. I have no extended info on this and how it would work on the same SATA interface. Lots of N550's specs are wrong.

If you want a SSD in it, go with 840 Pro, as big as you can buy.

Put that extra 60$ into the SSD. From my point of view I would not want extra weight, glossy and fingers on my screen. Never ever.

 

i feel nauseous by just thinking about fingerprints all over that glossy screen. Yuck. Seriously, touchscreen laptop is the worst marketing idea EVER.

 

I just ordered the matte version from Amazon, which also says it comes with a 24gb ssd. I'll have it by tomorrow and will report if it actually has it or not. I plan on putting in the Samsung SSD in the future, so it doesn't really matter to me either way and it is fairly typical for Asus to have problems with incorrectly listed specs.

I am gambling on the matte screen. I really do not like matte as I feel manufacturers tend to use a matte that is much too strong. The glare on glossy has never bothered me and all the matte does is make it less sharp, but the glare is still there. I just like the way it pops with a glossy screen. Hopefully it is not too strong on this laptop. I agree that touch is so ridiculous and I lost a lot of respect for Windows trying to push us all towards that. We see with their failed Surface that they are moving the opposite direction of progress when it comes to hardware and OS. Ballmer seems like a moron with all the missteps MS is making since he was placed at the helm.

 

Personally I got the non-touchscreen version since I never want to touch the screen. The touch pad itself is very responsive so even if you don't have a mouse, it will be good enough for navigation in Windows 8. Without the touchscreen you don't have the glossy panel which in my opinion is superior since you don't get glare or reflections. Not exactly sure about the 'grainy' screen aspect. My 1080p screen feels very good to read text from and is very clear.

While the 1TB 5400RPM hard drive is probably the slowest consumer hard drive out there right now... surprisingly enough it's not a bad choice for Windows 8. Boot times are about 15 seconds to login screen and 5 seconds more to login and get to the desktop.
And 1TB is also a wonderful amount of space to abuse.

Keyboard ghosting. Yes there is ghosting if you hold certain key configurations down at the same time (such as p, [, ] keys down at the same time). The 3 configurations that you requested work just fine though.