* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

lord davon, amazing information! first in 219 pages on this laptops capabilities with 1920 x 1080. thanks a bunch!

looks like i will be ordering one aswell, i hope they start shipping soon.

i can live with it playing 1920 x 1080 mostly high settings, turning shades and AA to medium is no problem...

i dont game much, i just using game as the comparison to the power of the gpu, i have some games, but mostly i will use this with 3-4 other monitors for work and multi media...

i heard someone say they will create a driver for this laptop so it can change gpu in the future....

 

davon did u ever own a desktop?

 

If you don't game much the graphics card in this notebook will be a great fit for you and possibly overkill. Why would you care how fast the GPU is if you aren't going to be gaming much on this laptop?

This notebook only has 2 monitor out cables, one VGA and one HDMI. Using 2 external monitors, the internal LCD will not function. In order to add a 3rd or 4th monitor you will need to buy additional adapters such as the vibook. Multi-monitor gaming for this notebook is out of the question.

The GPU is soldered onto the motherboard and is not meant to be replaceable. You can not remove it without irreparably breaking the motherboard.

From what you have said so far it seems that you wouldbe far better suited with a desktop PC. You could probably throw one together on the cheap with the same or better performance as this laptop and still have some cash left over to buy a netbook.

 

Need a laptop bag for my motorbike. Has anyone got a Targus Crave and if so what do you think? Only it I hate is the bubblewrap look but it's functions are good!

http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.aspx?sku=TSB158US

 

So there is a chance he does not test the functionality of the battery and then asks for $189 of our money? Please, there has to be more to this story. Not saying that you didn't give what could be an accurate account. But you don't charge that money for a battery knowing how the lid opens, not test that, and then put it up as an option.

I've asked Justin from Xoticpc about the ability for the lid to open as he has told me the battery can be ordered from them as well. Hopefully by Monday we'll get his response (as well as I get my laptop )

 

Audio is automatically output via HDMI when it is connected.

The GPU is a beast at the laptops native res, and I've overclocked mine with MSI Afterburner to 750mhz GPU and 900mhz ram and it doesn't even bat an eyelid. Every game I've tried run at high settings at the res of 1366x768 with no problems.

1080p is not quite so good and you will have to turn off and AA and lower settings but they will run. GTA4 at mostly medium settings is very playable at 1080p for instance.

ATI have excellent GPU scaling which is as good as I've seen, so you can select 720p in game and the GPU will scale it to 1080p whilst still retaining a excellent quality.

GTA4 at 720p scaled to 1080p at high settings ABSOLUTELY BLOWS AWAY what the current consoles (PS3/360) manage to produce.

 

Question about the overclocking. Won't overclocking to that level lower the lifespan of the graphics card? Also, if the graphics card is overclocked, is it still covered by warranty?

 

Adding too much voltage and therefore heat will affect the life of the chip maybe. I've been overclocking PC hardware for the last 10 years and I'm yet to be affected by this.

Those clocks are without changing the voltage though so all is good, the only thing that may happen is system instability if you push the clocks too far. I use default clocks for normal use and only overclock when gaming as with Afterburner this is easy to do.

Afterburner will not overclock the chip by default, you have to edit the cfg file in the progams folder to enable unofficial overclocking. (Set the value to 1.)

Question, I will use the battery saving power mode when on battery but its default desktop background is bright white and garish and the taskbar is set to hide itself which I find annoying. Is there anyway to change this without it reverting back to its default settings after changing power mode?

 

All,

Has anybody removed the 3 stickers on the right palm rest? I want to remove them but am concerned about the rubbery material underneath. Let me know if you think it's safe to remove them.

Casey

 

Yes. They were all dual CPU systems. My last one was a dual Athlon MP 2800+ system. It was a review system I reviewed back in 2003. I gave it to my nephew (along with the $50 a month it added to my electric bill) when he went to college. It was back then that I decided I would convert all of my systems to laptops. I replaced the Athlon system with a Dell XPS M1710 w/nvidia 7900GTX. It was great for its day.

 

I use the automatic setting selection on Crysis. I have no idea if AA was on. I don't think it was selected. At native resolution, I don't know if it is needed at all. I will look today.

Update: Nope. No AA set in any testing.

 

Overclocking anything has the potential to limit it's intended lifespan. On the other hand, minor overclocks are often safe and within the devices specifications. When produced, chips are bined for performance. Those with few defects perform well and are sold as high-end models. Those with more defects perform worse and become value products. As the manufacturing process improves defects decrease and high performance parts are sold as value parts to keep up with demand. Thus, value parts can often be safely overclocked to high-end or near-high-end levels while staying within chip specifications.

I did a little research into the mobility 5730 chip aka. Madison GPU. ATI lists 650mhz as the top GPU core speed and 800mhz for the gddr3 memory on the notebook Madison GPUs. The desktop version of Madison maxes out at 775mhz core(ATI Radeon™ HD 5670) and 900mhz memory(gddr3 HD 5570). These chips are bined for stable operation at low voltages (26w mobile vs. 38w desktop @650mhz) so I assume they are relatively defect free and should be able to handle high clock speeds as well. Assuming the memory is the same as the desktop models, the mobility 5730 gddr3 should OC to 900mhz easily.

Put into perspective, I doubt the single fan in the N61 is capable of adequately cooling a 100mhz GPU overclock for any extended period of time. @kitch what are your CPU and GPU temps like? I would also expect that the power required for an overclock of this level is putting an undue strain on the 90w power supply. The desktop HD 5670 board has a maximum 64w power draw. I'd estimate at 750mhz the mobility 5730 is drawing around 44w of power. Combined with the CPU TDP of 45w, the two chips alone already hit 90w.

Unless ASUS offers their own overclocking tools with the N61JQ, overclocking will void the warranty. That being said, component failure from software overclocking is indistinguishable from everyday component failure and I have no doubt you would be able to RMA a machine that died from overclocking. In the end it's a matter of morals.

 

I will admit that when I run the test on the laptop monitor, I left the TV mirrored. It looked fantasic running in 720p. My TV does a great job at scaling. I don't agree that it is better then a 1080p non-ported PS3 game. The PS3 is still king when games are written properly. For all else, do it this way!

 

If you raise the heat of the chip, then yes, it will die faster. Heat = Corrosion in processing units. If the heat is barely raised, then it is barely an issue.

 

Sounds like a bug in Windows themes, lots of talk on the net about these, no solutions yet. You could try creating different themes for your various power settings. I'd also suggest uninstalling any ASUS power management applications as the built-in Windows 7 power management seems to work better.

 

Hey guys, ive browsed through this thread and Im kind of a computer noobie, but what is with the 2 separate hard drives on the X1?
How do I get the laptop to use the 200+ gb hd as opposed to saving everything on the smaller one?
After transferring all my music and such the 1st hd is already full...

 

Don't worry about peeling off the palm rest stickers; they came off easily.

The problems with the rubbery material peeling happen at the edges/corners of the laptop.

 

GTA4 is rendered at around 600p on the PS3 and is then scaled to 1080p with smaller view distances and quality settings. (No dynamic shadows for instance.)

MW2 is rendered at around 600p and upscaled too on the consoles with much lower quality textures as well.

The laptop does so much more than this.

I'm running Unigine Heaven benchmark on a loop now and temps are around 65-70c for the GPU. I'll leave it running for 30-40 mins or so and post a screenshot. I don't think the GPU will be pulling 44W at all if its previous max was 28W at 650mhz it will be more like 31-33W if voltage remains untouched.

 

Kitch, did ya try that colour profile? I assume you are the same Kitch from FM forums!

 

The laptop comes with a single Hard Drive. The 2 drives you see are what are refered to as partitions. Your best bet would be to resize the partition you already have your data on. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/

Backup any files you might have on the 200gb volume as you'll need to clear space before you do the resize. Now that your files are backed up, delete the 200gb partition using the "Delete Volume" option in the Disk Management window. The area should now say something like Unpartitioned Space. You can now expand your C: drive using the guide above.

 

Yes mate I am!! I ended using my Blu Ray essentials calibration disc, things now are much better!!

Pic of my overclock temps, not too shabby!

 

kitch9 and lord davon, thanks again for the very great information, and whoever said id be better with desktop thanks for the input as well i just totally forgot ur name and too lazy to go pack pages as im typing this..


ii think i will need this laptop because i will need its power, on the go as i go to different places connecting this to different monitors.

i mostly day trade, and with the my day trading platform they have just beta'd their platform with multi core usage technology, so basically the i7 quad will be very handy...

the gpu will be more than enough for work and multimedia. and is just enough to run games mostly at high settings.

kitch9, ur gta4 720p rendering at 1080p running flawless is a great confirmation of the power and capabilities of this mobile gpu, because gta 4 has some of the worse gpu usage, a lot of people know that gta 4 needs a super computer to run everything high and smooth, but if this little n61jq can run it at 720p (rendered to 1080p) or 1080p with medium settings than that is very good and tellls us a lot about the strength of the gpu.

the gpu is the only thing i was wondering about this, i know the screen is small but thats what external monitors are for, i know the cpu is strong, i7 mobile quad is excellent, the ddr3 1333mhz ram is also a strong point in this lappy, i know everything else about it, i just wanted some feedback on the gpu. which i got and am please with what im hearing, i will pull the trigger tonight and put in my pre order to amazon.

thanks all for the marvelous information!

 

Both of those games are ports. If you reread what I wrote, I did specify that non-ported games on the PS3 look better and for all else to use the TV-out.

Ported games are usually written for 480 and 720p and then some larger textures are used to do 1080p, if they even support 1080p. Games that are ported are written for multiple game systems and usually are ported from the Xbox 360 which means the PS3 looks no better then an Xbox 360.

GTA4 and MW2 are both ported games. An example of a non-ported 1080p game is Metal Gear Solid 4.

 

lord davon can u tell me a comparison in power and performance wise with this n61jq laptop to ur dual cpu desktops?

do you feel this lappy is strong enough to do the things you did on the dual cpu desktop?


and would you say the dual cpu desktop only bests this laptop by a smidget? (small amount)

thanks lord davon!

 

Even that only runs 960x1080 and uses the PS3's vertical scaler. It has excellent art direction and looks great I grant you that though.

 

I appreciate the effort though I don't think just a graphics benchmark adequately mirrors gaming conditions. In a game, especially ones like Crysis that do a lot of physics and a.i., the CPU will be equally stressed. Since the CPU and GPU are cooled off of the same heatpipe and fan, temps from just a stressed GPU, won't be accurate to actual gaming conditions. Try running Orthos and Unigine at the same time for an hour or two and post those temps.

 

2mny, very true, thats why to get the best performance conditions and enjoyment from the 2 hours of testing, is to just open up that game and start fragging people =]

but guyssss we already know the power of this thingggg, look wat lord davon and kitch9 just wrote...

this baby can run gta 4 on a 1920 x 1080 with medium.mostly high settings smoothly...that says so much!!! i dont think u guys understand how bad gta4 is at using hard ware!

any gpu on laptop that can run gta 4 1920 x 1080 medium mostly high settings and smoothly is for me personally because i know how bad the game is at using hardware, is enough to prove the strength of this laptops gpu!

 

There is no game out there that will be like running Orthos either.

I'm just installing 3d mark Vantage as that is a more balanced benchmark. I'll run that on a loop for a bit.

 

Exactly. Look at what a game written to take advantage of specific PS3 technology can do. I love my PS3. Can you tell?! HA!

I have a JVC LT-42X579. I have had it for about a year and a half. It has an excellent picture with everything except for computers. That was squashed last night when I was testing the ATI HD5730. It was amazing on my TV. Crysis was better looking on the TV then the laptop and I thought it looked great on the laptop. When I saw it, my jaw hit the floor.

So, now I have been playing with the TV all morning. I just found that there is a firmware update for it so, I am going to flash my TV next and see if the picture improves even more! Muhahaha

 

K, I've just checked afterburners temp logs and the highest my GPU has ever been is 82c whilst running Furmark for a couple of hours.

Its all good.

 

nice kitch 9! i dont know too much about those tests and those numbers, can u also make a side note for the noobies like me, when u get the numbers in if its a good thing or bad? or even a comparison to some other gpu's mobile/desktop

all i know is that the gpu is a class 2, which is right next to class 1 and it ranks better than several lower class ones! so basically this can be a class 1 mobile gpu!


thanks all!

thanks!!!!!

 

Temps after an hour of Dirt 2

Plays at 1366x768 High settings 2xaa at around 30-40 fps......

 

77 high not bad at all...

what room temp?

laptop cooler?

location?

 

if you choose the automatic settings (optimal settings) there will be no aa on. But the rest will set to high. Everything high with no aa. It's a system crysis use to determine the best settings you can use with your hardware. I managed. 4x aa 2 very highs and the rest high. Some lags here and there but still very playable. 4x aa with all high should be ok

 

I am pulling battery upgade off the first page until we get this settled. I am leaning towards the opinion that there currently is no 9 cell battery that will fit this. I love the sunken screen hinge design on the N61's. But I think this might prevent it from ever getting a 9 cell battery. Unless they make the battery thicker and provide another cover.
I am still waiting to hear back from ASUS and GenTech. I did get a response from Donald at PowerNotebooks which you can see below.
I am asking others that are interested in a 9 cell to ask around and post any responses that you get. As a group we can collect all the information that we can and then its up to each individual to decide who to believe if we come up with conflicting answers. I will not post anything on the first page on this unless we come up with a concrete answer.

Originally Posted by allyw123
Donald, Could you settle the issue of wether there is a 9 cell battery that can work in the N61JQ-A1? If you have one I will post it on the first page of the N61JQ lounge. GenTech is selling one but we cannot figure out how it could possibly work as it sicks out the back an inch and it seems it would prevent the sunken hinge screen from opening. http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...postcount=2172

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Greg,

ASUS only offers a 6 cell battery for the ASUS N61JQ-A1. If GenTech is offering a "stick out" 9 cell battery, they are using a different model's battery that may fit in the slot. However I agree that it won't work so well with the ASUS N61JQ-A1 for the reason you state.
Thanks, Greg
_________________
Donald Stratton
PowerNotebooks.com + [email protected]
Sager, PowerPro and ASUS Laptop computers
ResellerRatings.com Lifetime Customer Satisfaction Rating = 9.95

 

I just had to restore my os with a backup image i had on another partition. My touchpad just stopped working. device manager said it was fine but it just kept showing a red 'x' in the task bar. It stopped responding when my notebook froze playing dirt2 for awile. It may have overheated.

 

This is a call to our resellers to help us resolve if there is or will be a 9 cell battery that works on the N61's. Donald, Justin, Ken, you all have customers in this lounge that have or will order an N61 from you. Your customers would like an answer to this question. You have all been very helpfull to us. Can you please look in to this and give us a firm answer.
Thank's, Greg

 

my av reciever recognises the hdmi out fine. I get video and 5.1 surround through my HT.

 

Alright, so I deleted the volume and now it says 200gb+ "Free space." I read the guide, but I dont understand where to go from here. I cant "Extend volume." Do i delete the 200gb free space partition? Then do i extend the volume of C? Thanks for the quick response!

 

It's monday, went to DSE to replace my N61JQ with 1 dead pixel, came home and started it up and a cluster of dead pixels was staring at me. so off i went again back to DSE, they said it was out of stock but they directed me to a nearby branch, went there and got the second one replaced. now im on my third and im happy to say no dead pixels! but then again this time around i noticed that there were significantly more flex in the middle of the keyboard. this i can live with, i suppose..
differences: this set had no recovery cd, but the charger came with a velcro strap! all in all very very happy =) dse service was efficient, and they were kinda friendly. well i totally understand, its monday...

 

Go to the start menu enter create in the search window. Scroll down and select create and format hard disk partitions. Delete anything that is to the right of the C drive. After there is nothing to the right of C drive you can extend the C drive. Do not delete the small partition to the left of the C drive as it is your recovery partition and might come in handy someday. Unless you need that 15gb of space just keep it.

 

Right click on the Free Space and delete it also. It needs to read Unpartitioned in order to allow for resizing.

 

Far out that scares me to order this laptop online! Retailers say you get 1/500 that has a dead/bright pixel, but here you are, hitting two in a roll! So DSE was happy to exchange for just one pixel problem? Cool.

 

Does upgrading the ram void the warranty? (specifically if one is computer knowledgeable and does not mess around with anything not needed)

 

It does not void the warranty.

 

Thank you Adamal.

 

No it does not.

 

No. RAM, HDD, Wifi, and ODD are user serviceable. In general, anything under the back panels you can replace without removing a warranty sticker is considered user serviceable and is covered under warranty. CPU and other upgrades WILL void your warranty unless done by a technician at an authorized ASUS dealer.

 

Wow you guys are so awesome with all of the quick responses. Thank you so much! Everything is good to go.

Oh.

And i love this laptop and forum

 

Yup! its within 14 days so its all good. the 2nd set is worst, a cluster of 6 near the upper left corner, and 1 somewhere in the middle. its troublesome no doubt, not that the 3rd one is perfect, my keyboard is smack right against the left, leaving a 1mm gap on the right, so i can see the metal case thats beneath. wonder if this is normal, anyone else? ill wait for a N61 teardown video before doing some realignment love.

well, imho retail for expensive stuffs' the way to go. that way you can be sure of the condition. i mean sure there are loads of people who had great experiences shopping online, but then this happened to me, im glad i bought it in a store and not having to ship the dam* thing here and there etc.. if you do order online, i really hope you get it in a perfect condition! =)