Asus N73JQ Owners' Lounge

Mine never worked "outside" the Windows environment. I know exactly what you mean. If I mute sounds within Windows via point and click, no problem. I also attend silence-only library areas, but every morning, I hear Windows startup sounds all over the place.

About the keyboard. If I don't look at it while typing (or listen to the hollow thudding of my typing), it feels ok. But I am aggravated by how cheap Asus went with it, and Asus needs to get the message. I'd say for anybody who types a lot, be wary.

As for the touchpad, I guess I have some kind of grounding issue. Very, very frustrating, but I cannot afford to send this off right now. I can generally get it working, or just use a mouse many times. There are times when I want to set up at school where there isn't room for the mouse, or I'm just going to use it for 20 minutes, and the thing freezes up or goes haywire. In those situations, I feel like picking the thing up and slamming it into the floor. But, like I said, I can't afford to be without my laptop right now.

I do have a nagging concern that the touchpad problem might grow into something else.

And while I was happy at first to get a laptop with a real metal palmrest, now I'm thinking that, at least on mine, the static electricity passing through my hands to the palmrest is making the Elan touchpad act crazy.

Maybe at the end of the semester, I'll take this apart at the PC shop at school and see if there is anywhere I can insulate to stop this erratic touchpad problem.

If anybody else is having the issue, let me know.

Not much time to do anything on the computer I'd call fun...C++ gets complicated fast, eh? :confused2:

 

Thanks, again. Brody!

Gotta love product forums!!!!!

 

hey guys if you are not using n wireless disable it you will get over 2h on battery win battery saver. I got 2:20 this morning.

 

Just curious what other N73JQ owners think about the new N73SV with the new Sandy Bridge chipset and 1920x1080 display? had you to do it over again would you spend the additional $400 for this notebook? personally i like the aesthetics of our N73JQ much better but it's hard to argue against the performance gains of the i7-2630QM equipped N73SV so is it worth the additional expense in your opinion?


ASUS N53SV / N73SV: Price, Specs and Release Date for Sandy Bridge Laptops | Pinoytutorial Techtorial

 

Hi All

Does anyone have details about the best way to add a second drive to an N73JQ-XV1? Apparenty the brackets are still not available.

Thanks in adavance.....

 

If it had been available when I was looking, I would have considered it. But whatever performance advantage it offers wouldn't have mattered to me. Honestly, every computer I've had since about the Core Duo era has had all the performance I need, and there does come a point where it's more about numbers on paper than real-life differences. For the average computer user who doesn't game or do highly graphic-intensive work, I think we're at that point. I think I would have been perfectly content with a Core i5 laptop, but it quickly became apparent that the array of features I wanted are found mostly in "high-end" models, and those tend to have i7s.

So, it would have come down to those other features that matter to me. Does one offer a better, dual-band WLAN card? A better display? Better keyboard and/or touchpad? Those are the immediate features that impact everyday use for me, so I would have based my decision on which offered the best out-of-box features. The $400 isn't relevant...especially considering that I've put almost that much into upgrades for my N73.

EDIT: I just looked closely at those photos in your link. If that's the machine, it appears to use the exact same keyboard as ours. Hmm....no advantage there. Touchpad looks a little different....I'd want to know whether it's Elan or Synaptic. Looks like it comes down to the display (if it's actually Full HD) and the video card.

Several of us have done this. Try searching this thread for descriptions of the various approaches we've taken. (The search words "bracket" or "drive caddy" would probably pull up the pertinent posts.) Essentially, you just need to add a little padding around the drive to secure it in the drive bay.

 

Damn, new temperature record - 87 degrees after 5 minutes of Half life 2 which is not really that CPU hungry... not good.

 

Apparently that was just a stock photo in the link, the N73SV shares the very same design as our N73JQ (as one assumes they would) you can see it depicted here in the latest press release from ASUS... http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/551001-asus-world-magazine-jan-feb-2011-a.html

 

Thanks for the link. So it basically appears to be an N73 variant that differs from the JQ in processor and video card. (The specs don't necessarily suggest that it's FULL HD any more than ours is....I'll be curious to see how it actually ships.) Neither of those differences would have been enough to sell me on it, since I'd still be doing all the same upgrades. But the one thing that would matter is if has a standard 1920x1080 display. I was disappointed that the FULL HD "option" for the JQ isn't really an option at all here in the U.S.

 

Very good point about the FULL HD, if it's only the faster cpu and graphics card i don't feel that alone justifies the $400 price hike over the JQ....now if it truely is FULL HD in addition to the above mentioned upgrades than i may have been a buyer at $1,700 had i not already bought my JQ, i too will be interested to see how the SV ships.

 

how do you do CPU upgrade on this thing, I was kind of disappointed that it cant be access from the bottom like it is in few Asus laptops I have seen

 

You have to take the keyboard off to access the insides of the N73JQ, but you upgrade the CPU when you first order it.

 

Accessing the CPU....to replace or upgrade it, or to apply new thermal paste.....requires significant dissassembly of the laptop. As far as we know, there's still no disassembly guide readily available for the N73 series.

I've never seen a laptop where accessing the CPU was as easy as popping open an access panel. Laptop cooling systems generally have an integrated heatsink/heatpipe/fan assembly that has to be completely removed to get at the CPU, and that typically requires disassembly all the way down to the motherboard.

 

I was also considering that, long term, and the fastest CPU that fits (on paper) into N73JQ is the 840QM (1,86Ghz, 8MB Cache. PGA988 socket), which isn´t an option when you buy the N73.

But it´s not wothout problems (replacing with any mobile CPU):
-you wil certainly void the warranty
-the power increase may not be that big
-there is almost no official way to buy these laptop CPUs, at least here (noone sells them as separate for consumers), although they can be found on ebay for aprox. 400 dollars at least.
-the bios may not allow the CPU to work and there is/will be no official upgrade for that.
-although all of CPUs that fit here, seem to have 45W power consumption, you can probably run into problems when it comes to cooling, and since there´s no way to enhacne the internal mechanism, you´ll probably end up with overheating and unusable laptop.

all an all - it´s not worth it in my opinion,though it will be when the i7 becomes older and cheaper

I did upgrade my old laptop´s CPU (Pentium M 1,6Ghz for a 2,0Ghz) and it worked like a charm. But the new processor is more power hungry so the temperature raised up about 5 degrees. Then, after a few years it started to go up gradually and no matter what paste was there, how clean the cooler was, it just went up and up and stopped averiging about 15°C more than in the begining. The only thing keeping it alive and under 90 is undervolting software.
But stil, it works perfectly correctly and stable and I must say, for a 6 year old Acer, it´s almost a mirracle! And it´s not a slow computer either (Singel core 2,0, 2GB ram, X600 graphic card, plenty power for office use, even for watching HD video) I wouldn´t change it, but it doesn´t support 64 bit systems which i need for Adobe premiere cs5

Not nescesarilly true - my old Acer:
-2 screws holding the plastic plate on the bottom of the laptop.
-4 screws holding the heatsink and cooler to the motherboard
-pull the CPU leaver and it pops out, simple as that, takes about 2 minutes

It´s Asus fault that they can´t do a design like that...
But let´s be honest, how many users are going to change the CPU on a laptop?

 

I said that I have never seen one that makes it that easy, which is true. But I didn't say it's universally true....just that most laptop designs do not make it easy to access the CPU.

All of your caveats about upgrading the CPU are excellent points. I've done a couple minor laptop CPU upgrades (moving a faster one between two similar models, for example), but I wouldn't bother trying to upgrade something like the N73's i7...as you say, there are too many potential pitfalls to make it worth the time or expense. I do still want the disassembly guide so that I can take it apart once in awhile to give it a good cleaning and apply new thermal paste.

 

F3Sv and another 2 Asuses I worked, you open the backplate, unscrew the heat sink and there it is, in F3Sv you have only to unscrew 4 screws holding heat sink on the CPU and that is all.

 

I hear you on that

 

Brody said: "I do still want the disassembly guide so that I can take it apart once in awhile to give it a good cleaning and apply new thermal paste. "

I third the motion! I want to get in and out quick to insulate my touchpad!

Where o where...Asus?

 

Well, these materials are not alowed to be viewed by public, only by authorized services. At least it seems like that.
This is general practice - car service manuals, cell phone dissasembly guides etc.
So if you get the guide, it´s very likely that someone who leaked the guide could be fined or even prosecuted for revealing company´s know how.

 

this european site sells lots of N73 parts including the HDD brackets
Asus N73.. Series

 

Yes, but the shipping costs more than the bracket! Really, you can get by without the bracket....it's not that big a deal. Especially if it's an SSD you're installing, because they have practically no weight. But I've installed both types of drives in my N73 without a bracket and it was very easy.

 

hello everybody...
I'm back with a problem a bluetooth problem.
I want to instal bluesoleil and when I wanna start it, it tells me that the bluetooth adapter can't be found... I think I tried about 10 versions of this program.
Can somebody help me with some advices? I need this program or if it's there an alternative I'm open to anything...

 

On the other hand, it seems that GenTech has posted these kinds of materials around here before.....so I'm hoping they'll put up an N73 guide as well. This is my first Asus, but with previous laptops...Toshibas, HPs, and a Sony....I was always able to find disassembly guides online. (HP posts all that stuff for its products....nice touch, I think.) I suspect an N73 guide will turn up at some point.

You're positive that your model includes a Bluetooth module? WHich model do you have?

Why not just use the Windows BT driver, or the one Asus provides?

 

yes I have a bluetooth module (n73jq-xv1)...
I need this because I want to use my windows mobile phone as a remote control through bluetooth ... can somebody show me some alternatives? i don't need funny stuff like seeing the desktop on my phone... just a few options like remote control Itunes or winamp....

 

If I recall correctly, you did a clean Windows 7 installation, right? Windows should have detected the BT device and installed a generic driver. Do you remember checking the Device Manager after installing the OS to see what devices were installed and working? The BT module should be listed in under "Bluetooth Radios" and also under "Network Adapters." Does the adapter show up there? Is it listed as functioning, or does it have the warning or disabled icon?

It sounds like you've tried a variety of drivers, which in itself can become a problem. I would try to completely uninstall all of those and remove all traces of them from the registry. With no other driver onboard, Windows should detect the device and install a driver. Or alternately, you could download the one from Asus and install it. But do remove all those failed drivers first.

 

I did a clean instal several times and now I am after one... so you say that if I find a remote control app suitable for my phone it should work with what windows instal for me? all those driver updates...
Did anyone use an app for remote control btw ?

 

Just a heads up for anyone interested Newegg has 15% of all notebook RAM between today and sunday.

 

Once you have a working BT driver on your N73, I think the phone apps should work just fine. But I would start with the basics.....just making sure the laptop device is working and detectable by other BT devices.

(Note that in "Bluetooth settings," you have to actually check the box to "Allow Bluetooth devices to find this computer." That's disabled by default.)


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EDIT: I just have the generic BT driver installed. To test, I went in and checked that box, then turned my iPhone's Bluetooth on. When I went to "Add a Bluetooth device" in the N73, they found each other right away. So I'm sure a properly-written app could use that functionality.

 

I connected the phone to the computer and i found that I can use the laptop speakers as output for mobile so now I can do what I wished... kind of... I stil want to find a "remote" app to control the music inside my notebook...

If it's not possible with bluetooth (for now) do you know how to do this over wifi? I mean the wifi from the laptop not the router one. For example I used GRemote (from GBM i think) but it work through the wifi network in my house. Is there any way to connect directly to the wifi adapter from the laptop? I mean if I take it to a party and I can't connect it to a router... ( I think I'm talking about an ad-hoc connection but I'm not sure