* Asus N61JQ Owners Lounge *

Sure. It's: Sony - VAIO Laptop with Intel® Core™ i7 Processor - Black
Model: VPCF115FM/B | SKU: 9705382

Thanks!

I just went to Best Buy again to take another look, and it seems like a really good system.

The specs are:
Intel® Core™ i7-720QM
6GB DDR3 memory
Blu-ray drive
16.4" 1920 x 1080 resolution display
500GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics 1GB
HDMI output

 

I have personally known two people with Sony notebooks that both lasted about a year and a half before they died. Not what I would call a good life, but then again it is a very small sample size. To me Sony has not made a good product in many years. What ever it is (TVs, other electronics and computers) they tend to look pretty and sleek, but they under perform and are over priced compared to other manufactures. Here is a link to a report that Square Trade did on laptop failure rates.

SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

Interestingly Sony is ranked 3rd on the list, but behind Asus and Toshiba. I am currently writing this on an 8-year-old Toshiba P25 while I wait for my N61JQ-A1 to come in.

And your link is not working for me either so I’m not sure which Sony you are looking at. Whichever one it is I can tell you from my personal experiences I wouldn’t get it.

And if you are worried about reliability the Sonys only come with 1 year standard warranty (unless I missed something) where as the N61JQ-A1 comes with a 2 year warranty and 1 year accidental warranty and the –X1 comes with 1 year warranty and 1 year accidental warranty.

Hopefully someone else has a more positive view of Sony products and can give you a different perspective.

 

Hey now. It is fine to say "computer product" but, those of us with PS3's or PSP's think Sony made at least one awesome product! Don't start a riot here. ;-)

 

I just had to reflow the gpu and cpu on my first playstation 3 that got a ylod. Don't think it's owner would tend to agree that it was an awesome product. Sure it's a good product in theory but it fails just like anything else.

But it is working agian now.

 

Yes, I updated the ATI 5730 graphics driver (to 8.692) and I erased some of the bloatware. I kept the ASUS hotkey program (and 12 other ASUS programs), which is what I thought controlled the FN keys. Am I missing some program that controlls only the F8 - F12 keys? Thanks for the response!

 

When I tried to look around, it seems that superg615 was right. SONY has poor quality product (at least for their laptop) according to this review http://www.amazon.com/review/R2K5DN1BSKHZTZ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm from amazon.com. One of my friend also had SONY and his laptop has been crashed few times and needed to restore his OS. Those cases might be just a coincidence, but nonetheless, I think SONY is little bit overpriced. The only thing that interest me was the screen resolution which is higher than the ASUS. Other than that, you can pretty much upgrade ASUS to the same spec for about $150:
- Add additional RAM of 2GB for about $50
- Replace the HD with 500GB for under $150. You might be able to get some of your money back by selling your old HD in eBay

It also has lower graphic card than ATI 5730. GeForce 330M has 3DMark05 score of 12621, whereas ATI 5730 has the score of 14023. Plus, SONY has the fan issue that people has been talking about.

Well...my suggestion is to keep looking around, since you need laptop that has higher resolution than the ASUS.

 

Anyone know what would cause an issue with hdmi audio. It sounds like everyone has a lisp. Unsure if this can be resolved with a driver update. Not sure when this started happening because last night was the first time I used HDMI for watching anything. Anyone else notice this issue? Using the catalyst 10.3 tweaked drivers

 

I overlooked the blu-ray drive. With the addition of this drive, the price is actually pretty competitive. So other than SONY's reputation and lower graphic card, this laptop is not so bad. What do you guys think?

 

I am very upset. I just got my laptop back from ASUS for repair. They had to change out my screen...well now under the screen you can see pieces of trash that must of been flying around in the repair shop. How the hell can this pass any type of check list. I am very very very pissed. I have barely had the chance to even use the laptop since I have bought it.

 

I can relate to what you are going through. Before I purchased my N61 I was trying real hard to talk myself into buying the Sony F series. I disagree about the general poor quality of Sonys products. But I could not gloss over the fan noise issue. You can go to the F series thread in notebook review and read all about it. The problem was so bad that they pulled them off the Sony website for a couple of weeks. I settled on the N61 and I would recommend it over the F series but I think you should make that call on your own after checking them both out.

 

damn! sorry to hear that.. 3rd times a charm i guess.

 

Not for me, they better get it right when they send back mine. I ensured that they knew I was abroad and sending the laptop back in less than perfect condition would entail me spending money on shipping.

Sorry to hear they screwed with your screen man. I hope you are getting free ground shipping with all this, otherwise I'd just return it and get my money back.

 

If it was me I would try restoring and leave all the bloatware on it. If it works then you will know you are deleting something that you need.

 

That is just not right. Have you called them and read them the riot act yet?

I would request expedited shipping both ways.

 

2NMY and Adamal, Thank's for the suggestion on Firefox. I will have to admit it is a better browser than IE8. Now that I have admitted that I will recommend Bing as a better search engine than Google.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbrocato
I am very upset. I just got my laptop back from ASUS for repair. They had to change out my screen...well now under the screen you can see pieces of trash that must of been flying around in the repair shop. How the hell can this pass any type of check list. I am very very very pissed. I have barely had the chance to even use the laptop since I have bought it.

Donald, tbrocato seems to have purchased this Laptop through you. He is a real contributor to this owners lounge. And he has gone out of his way to recommend buying through you many times here. Maybe you can also call ASUS and read them the riot act and request they expedite this for him.
I'm just sayin.....

 

Sad to hear about this Bro,
To go from the #2 post in this lounge with all the time you have invested in this. It's just not right! I put links to the 3 posts you have submitted on this in the returns section of the first page.

 

I am starting a gaming review section on the first page of this Owners Lounge.
Please provide me with some reviews to post. Also if you have an old review that you already submitted it would be helpful if you give me the post # as I am not going to go back through 247 pages.
Thanks, Greg

 

I have already submitted it to the senior manager at ASUS. We will see what Monday brings.

 

Thank you Donald. Don't forget to get me that graphic.

tbrocato: Sorry to hear what you are going through. I think if it needs to be returned again, I know I would be yelling at ASUS about quality control and screaming for another one.

WSR: There are people questioning Sony's quality. There are also many people discussing the lower quality in ASUS products. The N61JQ has been noted as feeling cheap even though it is also noted as being sturdy. Yes, Sony has a fan issue. The N61 has peeling issues and display issues. I still recommend the N61JQ but, the ASUS and Sony are pretty even in my eyes. There are pro's and con's on both sides.

The only thing I can recommend is a quality reseller. Where you purchase your laptop is just as import as choosing the right laptop. If you have issues with peeling, fan noise, returns, etc, make sure you purchase the laptop from a company that will help you. I purchased my N61JQ from newegg and do fear that any issues I may have, I am alone. Newegg will do nothing to help me past their own warranty. I can not speak for the the resellers that are in this forum but, the fact that they are in this forum and helping people that are not even their customers says a lot about how they run their business and take care of their customers.

 

Thanks LordDavon! I appreciate the advice!

I went and bought the Sony earlier today, but haven't opened it until I did more research. After conducting this research, I believe I'm going to crack it open and take the plunge. It really is a nice system with nice specs, but I really thought I was going to buy the N61 until today; hence my hesitancy. Hearing your thoughts is truly helpful though, as I KNOW you know your laptops after having read nearly every page of this thread.

I will let you guys know how it goes tomorrow. Thanks a bunch!

 

Greg, I noticed you put a 12-cell battery as an optional battery pack on the first page. Where did you find/see this battery?

 

Thanks for all the help Donald and everyone on the board. I will give them a call first thing Monday and see what happens. Thanks again guys.

 

one of my N61JQ-A1 died, due to overheating. now waiting for RMA...

 

Sigh.....a update. I went to windows experience test and started to run the test and BAM BSOD....now the screen does not work at all. The laptop will power up and you can hear it loading windows but the screen does not work. The BSOD was releated to the ATI card from what I could see before the screen stopped working. I guess I should of loaded the newest drivers before I ran anything.

 

What is funny is ...I am using my Work Dell Vostro 1000 laptop and I can throw this thing against the wall....drop it....spill stuff on it....and it has never failed me over the last couple years.

 

Did the palm rests feel hot before this happened?

Also, were the environments of the laptop that died different to the environment of the one that is still working?

 

seems same problem here.

both N61 are in same room, but the dead one with CPU max temp at 90C. most likely it's video card problem.

 

Hmmm....seems to be an issue with a batch of their ATI cards. Hope this isn't going to be an issue overall.

 

Anyone have any luck with some stylish bags?

It's kinda tall... which sucks because it seems it won't fit into many bags, including the Timbuk2 Commute 2.0 which I was wanting.

Tried some Diesel bags yesterday and they fit inside but not in the laptop padded area.

Looking for a waterproof one since it rains all the time here in Tokyo. Also needs to be stylish and go with suit/biz casual

 

I have a new appreciation for this laptop. I plugged in one of my PS3 controllers, put it in XBox Emulation Mode and first up Crysis. Wow, that game is much better now. The laptop is almost like having a portable PS3.

I am using the controller in USB mode right now but am going to use an ASUS (I had one anyway) bluetooth dongle for bluetooth connection. It disables the bluetooth adapters functions, so I will use my little bluetooth nub for it.

Man, this is pretty cool.

 

This laptop will run any game out right now...at high level! You just need one that functions in order to do that lol.

 

How are you getting the PS3 to run via bluetooth? This system runs 64bit, so I have not seen any drivers for it?

 

Thanks for catching that. Those Specs were a version from Amazon and I deleted the 12 cell reference.The only Battery option we currently have is the 6 cell. The sunken screen hinge seems to be prohibiting an upgrade so far. Who knows if they will find a solution for this in the future. If ASUS starts using this hinge on other models then you would think they will have to address this.

 

Works like a champ and has both 64 and 32 bit drivers: http://www.motioninjoy.com/

It also has an Xbox controller emulation mode for games like Crysis that only run with them.

The instructions are a little outdated as the drivers now install both the USB and Bluetooth drivers when installed. I had to uninstall the Bluetooth drivers to get my Bluetooth adapter to work with the Windows OS again.

 

David, I need some comprehensive reviews of gaming on the N61 to post on the first page.I have a Gaming review section empty and waiting for some reviews, Like other owners you have posted many short gaming observations.
I would rather not post a bunch of small reviews. I nominate you, tag your it.

 

Greg, you know I love to help. I would love to write a bunch of gaming reviews but besides Crysis and WoW, I only have Oblivion. I will get the Starcraft 2 beta and some other things.

I am more then happy to accept any games that people want reviewed. ;-)

 

Cheers will give it a go, already have a xbox controller but want a bluetooth controller so no wires needed.

 

David, I Don't need one review of many games. But if you and others could post some more extensive and technical reviews of the games you have. Similar to the reviews of the laptop as a whole. I just don't want to post a bunch of 3 sentence reviews. How this thing performs on gaming is important to many checking out this forum so I would like to get some quality reviews on the first page to help people decide. Just put down the information about gaming performance that you would want to know if you were considering buying this laptop.
If anyone has posted a good review before in this forum please point it out to me so I don't have to go back through 250 pages.

 

Greg, I will get something together. I really haven't played much for PC games so, I will most likely be comparing it to me PS3. That is actually not a bad comparison since that is how this should be compared. Even though ASUS doesn't promote the N61 as a gaming machine, it does have comparable hardware to many of the gaming systems that are out there.

-----------------------------------

< VENT >

Oh, I just wanted to share this. I think I have mentioned it before but, I restore and collect classic arcade machines. Its a fun hobby to have. I have a Gyruss machine in my bedroom. Tekken Tag, Stun Runner, Deluxe Space Invaders, Paperboy, etc. out in the garage. It is like a mini-arcade out there.

Well, I took Abi, my 10-year-old daughter, and her friend to the Arcade last night and they played about $40 worth of tokens. They even played a Tekken Tag and Paperboy at the arcade. I kept telling her that we have those at home and she said, "It's not the same, daddy!".

When did having an arcade in your own home not be cool?! Kids!

< /VENT >

 

What were you doing at the time software-wise?

 

did anyone undervolt this? or know how to for a quad core? every tutorial online is for like core2 and the tuner program doesn't support quad...

 

ive tried finding out if u can but the bios is locked. most prebuilt lappys they disable all the undervolting overvolting options in the bios to stop nubs burning them out.

 

did intel burn testing.

 

just bought this but its 2-4 week wait from amazon + the week to get to singapore >.<

 

You are thinking overvolting. I've never heard of anyone burning out a chip by giving it less voltage. If anything it just makes the chip a bit unstable and prone to crashing. You can undervolt most processors using software that allows you to create custom p-state voltages.

It's my understanding that the complicated nature of power management on the recent Intel CPUs has made software undervolting too difficult to implement.

@vostro1400user
Scary. I was planning to run a burn test first thing after re-installing windows to check temps and system stability. Now, I'm not so sure if it's a good idea to push the N61 to its limits.

 

I'm beginning wonder if this overheating problem is fairly isolated. My CPU and GPU temps never go over 86 degrees, even with some fairly heaving gaming (l4d2, global agenda, crysis), but then again i only check by alt-tabbing out of the game to check my temp gadgets. Has anyone else had overheating problems?

 

I've run the burn test and a bunch of other stability tests on this laptop without issue. I'd recommend running them so you know if you have a defective notebook.

 

I tried to find where to put this, but only found a header, so I will post this here.

Starcraft 2

I did a ton of research on which laptop to buy, and decided that the N61JQ(-X1) was the best option. For $1000, you get one of the top processors (i7 720QM) and the usual other specs. The other option for gaming was the Asus G73, but for $600 less, I can upgrade my ram and HDD (later at a cheaper price). Also, I can purchase a larger external monitor.
*The final decider - reading about external graphics cards* There have been external graphics cards for laptops. My opinion (however ignorant, and yes, I understand the "no switchable graphics" debate) is that in the upcoming year or two, this will be solved. Thus, I will be able to upgrade the card for cheap, all the while keeping equivalent components to a desktop. The possibility of connection through USB 3.0 or the other connectors (which the Asus N series has, but Asus G series doesnt) sealed the deal.
I purchased a cooling mat (Cooling Master, $25, aluminum with movable ultra quiet fans) and a 22" BenQ E2220.

I did not like the low resolution of the laptop screen for productivity and browsing, but it was fine for Starcraft 2. Still wanted the larger screen so I went with the smallest external monitor with 1920x1080 and HDMI connector. Smaller screens are easier for gaming, anything larger than 22" (and some may say 22" is too big) and you have to move your head to see the minimap in the bottom left. The HDMI connection to the monitor works great!
Problem - the audio on this laptop (hopefully just the speakers) is greatly lacking. I am going to hook it up to my Klipsch 4.1 system ASAP. My 3.5 year old Toshiba satelite with Harmon Karden Speakers is much better.

Starcraft 2 automatically suggests the best graphics settings. Most get set to medium. The game runs silky smooth at the suggested level. Once hooked up to the monitor, the game is running at 1920x1080 and it makes a huge difference in the ability to micro; and still smooth gameplay. On the external monitor, it is also easier to distinguish between the different unit colours (been owned not knowing which zergy was mine, my partners or my enemies).
Heat - the computer runs so much cooler than my other laptop, yet I still purchased a cooler anyway because 1 year down the road any heat generation could deteriorate the product.

I will be testing the laptop at higher settings later, but am having too much fun currently that I dont want to waste time playing around, I just wanna play! I have read that the shading is the setting that causes the most GPU strain, so I will probably keep that at low, regardless of the other settings.
I have yet to upgrade to the 10.3 driver, I dont want to ruin a good thing.

I also hooked this laptop up to my 40" TV and it runs the replays beautifully, I wont be playing the game on the TV though, just wanted to check out the ability to drive the large screen.

Overall, yes I just bought a new $1000 laptop solely to play a $50 game, and I dont regret it one bit!

If it matters, in Bnet
username = Testate.cyo
you may have already kicked my a$$ (currently only in bronze division)
...
Normally a lurking, but decided to put this up because a post like this would have saved me 1 week of research (which equals more work done at work). Sorry for being long winded. Thanks for everybody elses input in this forum.

 

Here is my small contribution to the gaming review: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=6061959#post6061959

I hope it helps.