N56vz review and owners lounge - Techno Art

Hi

Thank you for sharing your experience with the new laptop.I must admit that im slightly put off buying the ASUS N56VZ -S4242 after reading your very honest review. I'm not really in a rush to buy at the moment and i understand that there may be a new processor which Intel are releasing early next year so i think i may take your advise and wait.
Thank you again for your help.

 

Your welcome, I hope it helped you figure out the right option for you. I always say, if you don't need it yet for a while and can wait, then why not? Things are always getting better/more advanced, or going down in price.
If you're waiting for the new hardware, then just remember that Intel and probably nvidia are only releasing it in late spring/early summer, so the first models will only start to trickle in the following weeks and bigger quantities maybe only at the end of summer/start of autumn. And of course the price premium on that, since it's brand new stuff that's easy to differentiate from the existing stuff marketing-wise.

Also, we're being a bit negative here (on the Internet in general) and really picking on every detail, both big and small. That's the case for any semi-popular product. We're kind of starting off on the assumption that everything should be great, so only the things that aren't great need mentioning. I repeat, from my perspective the laptop isn't perfect, there are things that could be better, but it's still a damn good laptop, no doubt.

 

yeah. Objectively speaking, you have a very large amount of popular laptops being sold right now that really are extremely bad designs. They have good specs, parts of the design can be really good - such as the battery(samsung), the keyboard(lenovo), or the optional screens (LG/Clevos/Gorilla glass frames on Vaio with ips, etc).

But at the same time they skirt on the details to save money. Even the most expensive Z-series from Sony, for example, struggles with that. Because solutions from the rest of the laptop line carries over, with the way the cooling is fitted, or how the modules for graphics cards are added on, the way the sata speeds are different between the ports, how the hdd setups work, etc.

Specially with the cooling, you generally have a better level overall now than you did five years ago. A lot of cooling solutions now actually are good enough to never cause an overheat (even if the fans whine like crazy all the time, etc). But you generally don't see cooling solutions that are dimensioned to actually be used at peak speed for any length of time outside the really good gaming laptops (like the g55, etc).

So overall, what you get with this laptop -- if you skip past the entire thing with the locked bios, the standard hdd (specially the 7200rpm drives) heating up the keyboard, and so on -- is an unbelievably well balanced laptop compared to literally everything else you can buy. Being lighter than the gaming laptops, smaller in frame than the competition as well - but still having a good screen and adequate cooling (that also keeps the chassis cool), etc. Extremely solid build, good hinges, lid that doesn't tilt in the bag, that sort of thing..

In other words, it's probably one of the better laptops you can buy right now, in general. There's also no new kepler+ architecture in the pipeline, haswell will be the new intel push the next year - which is the same chip as the current i7s, just with better power profiles.. Not a joke - they're underclocking the processors, and putting in routines for different ways to use boost. Otherwise, very minor design changes.

Only thing that might be interesting as an alternative is if you have wondered about an amd/apu system. Then there is a range of new chips coming out with quad-core, etc. accompanied by a more powerful set of radeon cards. These in tandem will be even better than the current Trinity+dedicated card combos already out there. And possibly, in a year or so, we're going to see these with very slim chassis options better fitted to the smaller heat-envelope some of these systems will fit in. Say, with lithium polymer battery packs, full hd screens, flat coated screen and low keyboard, 1.5cm or so high. That can give you 3-4h gaming on battery, 7-8h film playback, etc.

But the thing is that there's nothing really interesting happening in the sub 60w category when it comes to laptops right now. There's tegra4, and there's z-60 for tablets. But we're apparently not going to see any more laptop cards with increased transistor density and number of cores, and so on, at the same low power-draw that would make it a "sub-gaming laptop".

So like I've said a few times. The win7 version of the n56vz and the n46vz (win8 has the funny locked EFI boot, since Asus and everyone else wants to be like Apple or something)... that win7 version with ddr3 ram/650m is going to be some sort of limited collector's item. At the time, a nearly perfect design with the hardware that was available. Sadly, it was sabotaged every step of the way by imbeciles at Asus, of course. And it really seems to have been a fluke, and not good planning, that there was 1600Mhz ram, sata3 all round, and ddr3 instead of gddr5 in the design in the first place.

 

Slight update after more testing.

Uninstalled McAfee after lunch today and I'm not sure if it's related but during the entire day today Windows has been running smoothly with no freezes. Just remember not to leave the computer unprotected.

Did some video playback of some movies, didn't notice anything wrong with the speakers/sound but the movies weren't very loud either, so maybe it wasn't the best test of the speakers' limit in terms of quality/volume. What I did the test for was because I wanted to make sure that video playback was fine for videos and software that I knew should work, so I installed VLC and watched bits and pieces of some movie files, no problem what so ever. Confirmed it on WMP.
It was then that I noticed that, behind Win8's extension-hiding was a .exe file and not a video file, for the mentioned "Asus Product Demo Movie". * Siiiigh *
You know what, Asus? I'm not even going to bother with this anymore. Why would you make an executable for playing a video in WMP? It doesn't make any sense. Idk, maybe they're sitting there reading this thread in their lab coats right now, laughing and calling me an idiot for "not doing it right". But then I ask you, dear sirs; The only reason why you have shipped these laptops with that executable was to give a good first impression of the media capabilities of the laptop, you have even named it "movie" even though it's for some reason not a video file, so how much have you not failed on that task if the result gives a much much crappier experience of your multimedia laptop than any _normal_ media file? Don't answer, that's a rhetorical question...

Moving on, the scores on 3DMark '06, 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark '11 were more or less the expected for this hardware, with other words, depending on the type of work it's the about equivalent to the entry gaming card in Nvidia's last generation line-up, the 560M GTX (or a 2 generations old top-of-the-line 480M GTX). Not too shabby. And that's at stock frequencies, as has been shown they can be overclocked quite nicely.
But what I actually wanted to comment on was the cooling solution that nipsen has been talking about, and I agree fully. After running everything and not getting over 82 for the CPU and 75 at most for the GPU, I decided to run some Furmark and Prime95.
I started off with prime and let it run for 15-20min, but running at 100% and 3.2GHz wasn't enough, the CPU temps settled around 80 again. I started up a 600 second Furmark test at the same time, and noticed how the CPU was immediately limited to about 50% actual load, being limited to half its base frequency, 1.2GHz. It has been discussed in the thread before, so it was not a complete surprise, I guess something like Throttlestop is needed to test it to its theoretical limits. Remind me, did you guys come to some conclusion/theory of the cause, was it based on GPU-load or power draw? Obviously, that helped keeping the temperature down on the CPU (it went down to 70-73 before stabilizing) while the 650M got up to 78-79 max. Right when the Furmark test ended, the CPU was released up to 100% plus Turbo Boost again, helping it go all the way up to 85-87 on one core and 83-85 on the rest. That only lasted briefly though, soon all the cores were going down and stabilizing at 80-82 again.
To some extent in this type of CPU+GPU load, they both increase each other's temperatures, especially when it comes to the CPU increasing the temperature on the GPU. In several tests in 3DMark, using HD4000, the temperature of the 650M would increase to about 55-60 even though it wasn't being used, all because of the CPU being under load (80). The same thing happens here. Running a 240 seconds Furmark burn on its own after letting the laptop cool off meant that the 650M didn't even pass 70, having clearly stabilized it's temperature around 69-70 by the last 20% of the test.

I'm quite impressed with the cooling on this thing actually, I'm sure the cooling system can be pushed further with Throttlestop, and with the CPU burning at 3.2GHz as well, I can see 95-ish being within its grasp, but without it at least the laptop's cooling solution handles itself very well. Not sure if this also occurs in heavy games or if it's limited to this type of load-benchmarking, I guess I might have to give that a try in the near future.

Ps. By the end of 30 minutes of Prime and 10+ minutes of Furmark in parallel, the temperature of the chassi around the keyboard had increased to about body temperature or just above it. If I hadn't written down to check, I probably wouldn't have noticed much.

 

Hi

Thank you for the update , it looks as though the McAfee theory may be right then?

I am now seriously now thinking, after reading your latest views and updates of just buying this ASUS laptop now as both are not negative about this one and seem to be giving it a thumbs up, It looked good in the showroom.

You will no doubt be aware already that im just an average buyer hoping not to make a silly mistake in buying something without talking to the experts first ( experts are obviously what you both are ).

Again , thank so much for your time and help , best wishes for Christmas.

 

Aye, best wishes.

I guess one problem is that "experts" sort of expect people to figure out a bunch of things themselves. That we generally don't explain. While the entire thing with McAfee interrupting the realtek/soundcard daemon, or constantly causing slow-downs by halting io, and so on -- is something we don't see anyway, and don't think is a real problem, because we ignore the windows "danger!" popups and just disable it. Then there's the default screensaver blaring out the Asus product showcase tune, that we all suppress the memory of once it happens once.

But out of the box, there's the pre-installed bloatware. You can ignore those, or be a bit selective. Replace McAfee with Ad-Aware, for example. And then you have a perfectly well-functioning laptop that gets you 2100 3dmarks, runs cool, has perfectly on par battery, nice silent backlit keyboard, etc.

You don't have to install the newest bios or drivers, run throttlestop for underclocks, afterburner for gpu overclocks, uninstall all the bloat, reinstall windows, etc. - to get the laptop up to "average", or anything like that. And if you play games, you likely will open the Nvidia panel and get a prompt for the profile downloads. And that's really all you need to do.

(Still - it does suck more than usual that Asus couldn't have done a few things with their aftermarket support on doing proper updates on the driver packages, instead of sending us these horrible "smart"-programs, with the jittery settings for the touchpad, etc. While just having someone who knows what a bios is make a few adjustments, so we can put in different ram, while the laptop could do dynamic underclocking, and so on. Because it's so unusually close to being an incredibly good laptop. Really, it's like a country just got built 1000km worth of four-lane highways - and you bought a new sportscar, only to find out the factory actually welded an out of tune trumpet to the manifold so it goes off when you push the pedal all the way to the floor. Sort of suspect it's trolling on a very high level going on here).

@Lord: I think it's that way in furmark for all Optimus cards. Don't think there's an update in the pipeline either with the furmark dev. Not sure, but I think it has to do with the way the frames are generated/a specific direct addressing trick that doesn't work well with the indirect scheme on the optimus cards.

 

Hi,

I don't know if I have to post in this thread or to an other place, feel free to move my post.

I just bought a N56VZ (S4244H) in France.
15,6'' Full HD - Intel Core i7-3630QM (2,4 GHz) - HDD 750 Go + SSD 8 Go - RAM 16 Go - NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - Graveur Blu-ray - Windows 8 + subwoofer

I'm trying to find the SSD 8 Go, can't find it anywhere (nothing in BIOS, nothing with dxdiag, nothing in device manager, nothing in disk management). So I'm wondering if there is a 8 Go SSD somewhere. If someone has an idea ?

Also, the BIOS is N56VZ.215 and it seems to be UEFI only, I have no option to disable UEFI anywhere. I would like to boot normal USB stick or a DVD, there are not recognized as bootable.

Thanks for your help.
Cheers.

 

This sounds more like a "hybrid drive". A HDD that has a small capacity of flash memory integrated into it, like the Seagate Momentus XT-series. So, it's not a separate SSD. You could confirm by just checking the model or serial number and try to find it on their site.

The second question I can't answer very accurately, as mine still came with v211 and I haven't bothered moving to v215.

 

Could you please tell us what ram sticks does your N56vz include, as there are many users here unsuccessfully trying to upgrade to 16 GB RAM.

Thanks!

 

After updating bios v.215, there is no keyboard backlight.
I uninstall and reinstall ATK Package, but there is nothing.
Other combinations are ok: fn+f1, fn+f2, fn+f5.....
But fn+f3 and fn+f4 is not working... What can I do about that??
Thank you!!

 

So the upper side of my touchpad is actually above the case, unlike the other three sides. I don't care much, but is this an easy fix or shouldi just ignore it.

 

Yes :
fonctionnalités: internal write-back unified
*-memory
description: Mémoire Système
identifiant matériel: b
emplacement: Carte mère
taille: 16GiB
*-bank:0
description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchrone 1600 MHz (0,6 ns)
produit: HMT41GS6MFR8C-PB
fabriquant: Hynix/Hyundai
identifiant matériel: 0
numéro de série: 0291B0C0
emplacement: ChannelA-DIMM0
taille: 8GiB
bits: 64 bits
horloge: 1600MHz (0.6ns)

It seems there are 4 banks, the DIMM are in bank 0 and 2, but I haven't check the hardware.

 

Thanks, in fact this is a Seagate Momentus XT :
ST750LX003-1AC15
Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 Hybrid 750GB Review - Overclockers Club

Do you think I can downgrade the BIOS ? with v211 can you switch UEFI mode / BIOS MBR mode ?

 

Thanks, in fact this is a Seagate Momentus XT :
ST750LX003-1AC15
Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 Hybrid 750GB Review - Overclockers Club

Do you think I can downgrade the BIOS ? with v211 can you switch UEFI mode / BIOS MBR mode ?

 

i gought myself a n56vz with this spec.

ASUS N56VZ
i5-3210M (2.50 GHz)
(15.6") FullHD LED (1920x1080)
ram 8 GB DDR3 1600mhz
hard drive 750 GB 7200rpm
NVIDIA GT 650M 2GB DDR3

is here someone with a n56vz with i5 procesor because i see here that all ppl have the i7 versions,but i didn't want to give 170€ more for the i7 version (and that was with 500gb 5600rpm hard drive and windows,my n56vz was with freeDOS)

i5 is enough for me,and i can play skyrim on high,fullHD ress,with 4x AA setings with no problems (i didnt try the ultra settings)

and is the i7 much better than my i5???

 

Okay,one question, should a fan be consistently on even if I'm just using the browser? There is some noise, not very loud but noticeable if no other noise in the house is going on. Im more worried about it being on for the past hour while all Im doing is being on the internet.

 

I find the magical option in the BIOS : enable CSM support. CSM stands for Compatibility Support Module "a part of the Intel Platform Innovation Framework for EFI providing the capability to support legacy BIOS interfaces" according to wikipedia. In BIOS, there is no help about what is CSM... I think I waste 7-8 hours trying to boot a USB key in UEFI mode... I'm a little angry against ASUS, this option is very unclear.

 

Are the N56's known to have a bad trackpad button experience? I went to Microcenter today to pick up my N56 and I went through FIVE of them. Each one had a problem with the bottom left trackpad button. About 20% of the trackpad going from the bottom left was barely useable because the click was so soft and muffled.

Sound familiar to you guys?

 

Yes - it's supposed to be that way. The sides of the pad are stuck, the middle goes down. I honestly don't use anything other than taps unless I use the right button, though. Still.. if I did, not sure if the buttons here wouldn't actually be more difficult to use if they were made differently..

@pdga76: I know what you mean.. If they just had a short manual saying you can hit esc at bootup to boot from other devices. Or kept the bootorder setup the ami-bioses have.. Wouldn't exactly have harmed anyone if they did that.

 

Hi guys,

I'm seriously considering buying the UK version of this laptop that has been mentioned over the last few pages - N56VZ-S4242 as available at PCWorld/Currys/Pixmania in the UK. (At least I think it's the only version available in the UK - please point me in the direction of any other variant available if you know of any!)

I've got a couple of questions that I was wondering if anyone might be able to help with?

Firstly, the UK model comes with the i7-3610QM processor. I'm sure this will suit my needs, but will it be possible in future to upgrade this to one of the faster quad core chips?

Secondly, how easy is it to get to the cooling fan in the laptop? I've had issues with previous laptops (none of them by Asus) collecting dust and running hot, so I've got into the habit of opening them up and cleaning the fan and intake with compressed air. Is this a simple task in the N56VZ?

Thirdly, are there any major issues with BIOS etc?

And finally, have you found anything with the laptop that would, in hindsight, have put you off buying it?


One other thing: If I were to buy this laptop, I'd be immediately replacing the stock HDD with a 500gb hybrid drive and a fresh install of Windows 7 (at least until I upgraded to an SSD); what Asus software would you recommend I install/avoid if I were to do this, and is there anything else I should know before doing so?

Sorry for the large number of questions, and thanks in advance for any answers, insight and advice.

Kind regards,


Steve

 

Well, after this great thread I never bothered with bad trackpad buttons, I only tap for left-clic, double-finger tap for right-clic and works great, better than many trackpads!

 

Well the right side of the trackpad functions properly and the floor model they had on display didn't have this issue, all of the newer ones did. It's very unusual if this is how it was designed. :/

I suppose I'll have to learn to "tap", although I never really liked it.

Gottcha, let the learning experience begin. I really love this laptop and I don't want a bad trackpad to spoil that. I may end up fixing it myself in the future if it gets really bothersome.

 

I always like having a nice quality synaptics touch pad, no obnoxious clicking when you tap on it and they always respond reliably, just make sure you get the sensitivity set up for the way you like it.

 

This is funny, my sixth N56VZ actually has a decent left click haha. I tried my luck at the Microcenter again and BAM I got the one I wanted. So happy, it isn't 100% but as you guys said the touch is much more useful and I happily agree. Now I just need to pop in my SSD and clean boot Windows 8.

I was curious to know if moving to BIOS 215 would be beneficial? I heard some problems occurred from users that updated to BIOS 215 vs 211.

 

While we still are talking about the touchpad; I just got a N56VZ and the touchpad is flush with the palmrest on the top and right side. The lower left corner is recessed about a millimetre, and the click doesn't work on 5-10% of the bottom left side.
Is it supposed to be like this, or have I got a bad touchpad? (It's an demonstration unit that was resold by the store at a quite hefty discount, so if it is a fault, it's not that big of a deal, but it would be nice to know in either case.)

 

No worries bud, mine is the same away and apparently its made this way (unusual design, why not have the entire thing click?).

 

A very strange design choice indeed... Well, the rest is prefect, and I mainly use an external mouse anyway. So I'm happy

 

So I get this laptop yesterday, impressed with it, especially the screen.

I do have some questions:

1) I checked the drivers disc that came with the laptop but according to the software on that disc all the drivers were already installed. How do I know these are the correct drivers (and not outdated ones?)? Is there a guide somewhere?

2) It sound like there's something loose inside the subwoofer (like a screw), is this normal? The subwoofer works well, except for a "humm", but I think this is a ground problem because I only have it on specific webpages (very bright ones for instance)

3) I setup the left upper button to start standby mode but when I click on it, it just loads a screen and I have to click on "appy" for the laptop to go in standby mode. Is there a way to go immediately into standby mode when I click the button?

Cheers

 

Hi,
So I am just basicaly copy pasting a question I posted on another n56 thread as this one is more active it seems like.

I have been reading lots of pages about the n56vz and I became a member to ask this questions.

So I ordered the N56VZ-S4195H which is as I can see the same as the DH71 and it has windows 8 pre installed. I should have the computer in a few days and when I get it I want to do a clean install of windows 8. Now I have read alot and I havent got any smarter (Im not that good with computers and windows as I have only been using macbooks until now).

So I want to keep the HDD that comes with the laptop and make a clean install of windows on it to remove all bloatwares etc. There is no product keys on these new laptops with windows 8 so I wont have that either. Also I dont have anybody who has a bought windows 8 disk.

I would really appreciate if someone could like write down in a simple way the steps I have to go throught to get a clean windows 8 on this and I appologize if my knowledge in this field is not so good.

Also thank u for the awsome thread...This and the other n56vz threads have helped me with my choice!

 

Also another question.

I was thinking about changing it for the samsung 700z7c and this question is mainly for Nipsen but anyone else too ofcourse...you seem to know ur stuff and u somewhere wrote that the samsung is not a good gaming laptop compared to the n56vz because of its thinness and heat.

Now if the laptop gets warm/hot on the outside during gaming it doesnt matter for me as I will use a controller but I was wondering if you guys think the internals get much hotter compared to the N56vz and if this would decresed the life of the laptop? I read on their forums and the temps can go up to 90 degrees but I also read on the n56 forums that some ppl also get those degrees with the n56.

MAny ppl complain that the samsung is not good due to heat but is this only a problem because the samsung gets warm on the outside that its a problem for ppl? I know the N56 stays relatvly cool on the outside but as I mentioned I dont care as long as the insides are not damaged in the long term!

Would appreciate some input!

 

So I bought a n56vz off amazon to replace my n56vm simply because of the 630m to 650m upgrade. I bought it used like new but I actually ended up with a refurbushed laptop with no noticable defects. I cant decide if I should keep it or not, because everything works. Ayone have experience with refurbished Asus laptops?

 

Yes, I'm also bought my N56VZ from Amazon Warehouse Deals (Germany) one week ago because it's one of the last unit with Win7 preinstalled (I don't want Win8). I planned to keep the preinstall configuration until the 30 day money-back guarantee expired while extensive testing. But everything is fine so far. I will order a ssd-drive, another wifi card and maybe 16gb ram in the next few days and set up my final configuration.

 

Have you figured out how to remove and replace the wireless card?

 

Good question. You don't automatically have a relationship between surface temps and good cooling, that's very true. And many of the Sager/Clevo builds over the years have had very good cooling with separate fans directly over the components on the heatsink, blowing the air off - even if the heat-sinks would also lead heat into the chassis, or blow hot air into the metal in the chassis. So very good question.

But what you have with the more current laptop chassis is that they have a contact point on the processor or the gpu - then there's a heat-pipe (a long strip of metal) leading to the cooling rib near the exhaust. If the heatsink material is good enough, and the setup is well made - then that heat-pipe won't lose heat into the chassis, or need to be extremely hot before leading heat optimally. So you don't store heat near the components, etc.

The problem you get on the samsung laptops (actually... I've tested one. So not extremely scientific to generalise that much... but still, assuming the cooling solution is similar or the same..), is that the cooling partially relies on passive throttling to stay below the dangerous temps. This isn't really a problem on "normal operation", or on battery. But when running games, you reach high temps over time, and the chassis, motherboard and the rest of the components start getting heated up (rather than what happens on the n56, where the heat is consistently vented out of the chassis).

This won't kill the processor, though - it will handle 105 degrees before it shuts down; there's nothing stopping a processor running constantly at 104 degrees to randomly survive 10 years. In fact the i7s are the last things that will break.. But the probability of suddenly having the heatsink tilting along with the motherboard supports, or the goop caking, etc. - this is something that suddenly is likely to happen sooner rather than later.

It is a point, though - that the kepler nvidia cards.. as well as the i7s now with integrated memory controller on the processor die, and so on -- they can take such a beating nowadays compared to what the earlier generations could handle -- that it's probably not a concern anyway.

But back to the .. whatever we started out with.. the n56vz cooling isn't relying on containing the heat, or anything like that. It actually keeps lower internal temps than all other laptop builds I've seen on "normal"/sub-synthetic runs on full speed. I.e., some 75-85 degrees. The materials they've used allow a generous overclock on the gpu without breaking a sweat. Heatsink temp is a straight line on work-temp, etc. Below alienware and the rog laptops, there really was no other model you can do that safely with.

 

Thx..I appreciate the nice long input. So basically you are saying that the 700z7c might get warm but it wont necessary affect the longevity of the laptop, however I might excpect some throttling. Now will the n56vz ever throttle during heavy gaming (when plugged in)? Has anybody ever excperienced throttling?

Anyway it seems like I will stick with the n56vz if the cooling is good but I remember somewhere you wrote that you were playing witcher 2 and u were suprised that u didnt have to do a repaste even though the temps were high. So I just had a question about repasting. Has anyone done it on this laptop? As I understand it is really hard to disassemble the n56 and wont a repasting be necessary in like 2-3 years? I want to keep the laptop for around 4 years and I will like I said not only use it for gaming but some during weekend and during some periods more and do you think a laptop can go 4 years without a repaste?

Also I want to do some benchmarks and check the temps and post them here to see if the results and temps are normal, but like I said I am not that good with laptops and windows in particullar. Could u or someone else write down excactly what benchmark programmes and temp monitor to download? I would like to test it and then post it to see if it is within the 'normal'.

Sorry for all these questions...its just a lot of money for me and I want to make sure I am doing the right choice!

 

Yeah, absolutely understand that.

The samsung thing - you can expect to have good performance for the first ten-fifteen minutes of constant runs. And then the passive trip-points start to go off. You won't notice it, though.. because 99% of what you do with graphics and so on doesn't really rely on cpu speed, or else won't actually run to peak cpu speed constantly. So odds are you won't notice. But the components around the heatsink do get hotter, and all the things that bring along with it.

And that will harm the longevity. Like I said the processor can take practically anything. The motherboard and the heatsink, angle of the gpu board, that sort of thing, how effective the cooling is over time, how many mm the heatsink is misplaced.. that will change faster on heavy use on the samsung..

Repastes - we don't really know yet. I'm guessing the way the n56vz cooling allows a flat curve and a max temp that is actually pretty low - is going to make it last 3-4 years. On heavy use. I know that a random dv6 and that samsung I tested won't last that long. Disassembly is always a problem on laptops. And it's really not much better or worse between the "ready-made" laptop chassis makers on that one. Clevo builds can be set up a bit different. I know lenovo have many fans because it's still got solid parts screwed together in order on the inside, and so on.

But that repaste job will be a pain (or a warranty, repair-shop job) in any case. I've built a lot of desktops, but I'm not really comfortable taking apart a laptop from a manufacturer brand I haven't practiced on a bit first. There's always this one screw, or a plastic shim of some sort with retractors on.. that sort of thing..

I mean.. the n56vz is a good laptop. It has problems, like any asus computer, with locked bios settings. It won't be a showstopper (and at least they managed to set sata3 detection on the bios this time - amazing they didn't lock this motherboard to sata2 as well, to be perfectly honest..). But changing ram is not really something you want to do until some reseller ships a custom/unlocked bios... by accident or something, and we manage to lift it before Asus sues them to oblivion. There's also the battery, of course. The lithium-ion/organic batteries will drop to a practically useless full charge capacity after a year or so.

Which is head-splittingly frustrating, of course, since changing either of those to the freely and/or immediately available solutions would not have COST ASUS A PENNY TO DO, while instantly increasing the market value of the kit!

But other than that, it's one of the better designs on the market. Just take a quick sweep over the samsung and hp "q&a" support channels, and you should understand how relative all of this is. And how, comparatively speaking, how successful this kit is.. You know.. nr. 1 concern: "popping sub-woofer".

 

Haha...Yeah you are absolutly right that the subwoofer thing seems to be the biggest concern for ppl. Im gonna stick with this laptop for sure than..thanks for helping me decide!

And what about the other parts about the benchmark. I wanted to do some benchmarks and check the temps and so on. You think you could write down what benchmark programmes and temp monitor to download? I would like to test it and then post it to see if it is within the 'normal...just dont know excactly which ones. Might be intrestnig for other ppl that want to buy the laptop...I think its good the more temperature and benchmark results there are. Also mine will come with the 3630qm processor which I dont think is the most common one for the n56.

Anyway Im sure I will be happy with this laptop...Haha anything is probably better then my old laptop from 2006 that throttles when I play a Youtube video

 

Mm. But the 3630qm still has the 45w tdp target, so shouldn't be a problem. Still, could be different boost durations, or something of that sort. Difficult to say..

You could use Hwinfo64. Good, lightweight, graphs, everything you need, free. Then.. prime95 maybe? Will get the processor to the passive trip point very fast. You should never reach that temp on a non-synthetic run.
3dmark11 is easy to use and compare with other computers - you see the results of an overclock very easily, can spot what will improve the score the most, how low you can throttle the cpu on battery before the gpu score drops, etc. You need to loop the demo-part of the benchmark a few times to see the absolute max temps you can reach, though, since the card will cool between the tests loading.. But it's a good indication of where you're at with performance, and where the temps should end up.

Other benchmarks like Furmark... doesn't work with optimus. Aida bench. Uninteresting. Might want to download Sisoft Sandra if you want to get an impression of where you rank compared to similar hardware, that sort of thing.

Use MSI Afterburner to overclock the 650m. Mentioned it in the review, a 100/100 overclock is actually safe. Only reason to downclock again is to avoid going past 60w effect drain, and the lockups that trigger then, when gaming on battery. (Not a concern when the power is plugged in, btw.. also happens on other laptops, including gaming laptops. Has something to do with the way the motherboard is set up.. there's no function for having an absolute limit on the power-drain - that can only be controlled indirectly..).

Throttlestop might be an idea to download as well. Use it to allow a downclock to 800Mhz, instead of having it end up at the 1200Mhz default. Saves battery. Can also disable some demotion states when running on cable - won't give you higher performance on specific tasks, but might give you better response when multitasking, etc.

 

Well, I am more concerned about heat in battery or motherboard capacitors. CPU/GPU I think can handle heat much better than other components.
Anyway, back to the topic I found something interesting at my N56. No matter what I do in settings when I pun external TV on HDMI internal panel is driven by Intel settings/resolutions and external panel by Nvidia. Of course in gaming Optimus works well, but I found that MPC-HC works better with LAV+DXVA2 settings than CUVID or Quicksync, especially for 4k sources like these
On Nvidia Video Engine load is maxed for 4k/Cuvid, if I choose DXVA2 I can't select Nvidia GPU for MPC-HC and Intel GPU is about 80%. With no hardware acceleration CPU is maxed... amazing.
No big problem, but from what I read even 1080p60 decoding is somehow problematic.

 

Does anyone know of anything like this for the N56?
My old Dell XPS M1530 (also with aluminium palmrest) got small holes and imperfections in the palmrest after extended use. I suppose it was dirt, heat and sweat that more or less corroded the surface. It didn't affect the computer other than looking bad, but I would like to prevent that as far as possible on my new laptop.

 

As long as you set the program to run on nvidia graphics in the nvidia profiles, you should get the instruction set decoded if there's support for the instruction set used in the codec. But yeah.. intel graphics is kind of a joke, isn't it. Just thinking about the amount of hype over the Sandy and Ivy Bridge chips... heh. Funny, isn't it. It's still hot **** too..

 

It should be quite easy. You can reach the wireless card after opening the service bay (HDD, RAM etc.).

 

I can't change the profile for MPC-HC or PowerDVD 10, it's only Integrated Graphics available. I put an external TV on HDMI and it's the same. Maybe after the last Intel driver update something changed, but it's strange that for other programs I can change profile and for these not.

 

I think that's because powerdvd uses it's own renderer, or something like that. That it runs a direct driver with it's own detection, that - very likely - skips anything else if it finds an intel GMA. Probably also has something to do with licensing.. such as that Nvidia refuses to implement specific calls or interfaces for one particular OEM. Along with how blu-ray playback and dvd playback in a player becomes.. limitless and region-breaking, massively expensive and not possible to buy for money, etc., if it's not "controlled" in the ways the louder segment of the industry wishes it.

 

Hi! I'm planning on buying the Windows 8 version of this computer, but I've read a lot of worrying things about the locked BIOS settings. My question is, is it possible ton Install Windows 7 from a DVD on this laptop?
I don't like windows 8 very much and also I would like a clean OS install, without all the ASUS bloatware

 

At the moment if you can install windows 8, you can install windows 7.

 

So I've been using the laptop on a daily basis over the holidays and I got two more things to add about mine;

1) I never really use the subwoofer, but when I left it plugged-in I noticed that it does kind of do this strange noise in some cases, say when you're scrolling in the browser or starting some applications and in some cases even when you're hovering over links. Not sure if there's any clear solution to that, it didn't seem so from what I read earlier in this thread.

2) This one actually bothers me a lot more. I guess it might not have been obvious from the get-go because I only noticed it the last couple of days. The extrernal PSU (the middle part of the power cable), whatever it's called for laptops, is doing a high-pitched whine. It's just on the edge of what I can hear and it's not constant either, as it can change tone and to some extent also change volume of the wine. I've tried squeezing it in different ways, hoping for some luck, but to no avail. It's not very high volume or anything, but it's really annoying in the long-run since it gets stuck in your head. Sometimes I'm not sure if it has temporarily stopped and I'm just imagining the wine or not.
Should I consider trying to get a replacement, will it 'cure' itself with time or what do you guys recommend in this case?

 

So I will finally get my laptop tomorrow

My laptop will come with windows 8 but I want to do a clean install to remove all bloatware and so on. One thing I was wondering about is this recovery partition thing. So I know I can use this create recovery media tool to make recovery disks or even asus has a tool for it too. But I read somewhere that the recovery partition is needed to be able to even use the disks. Is this true?

Now lets say that when I run the install I want to format every partition including asus recovery partition and then I for some reason in the future want it back to factory reset. How do I get the laptop back in the exact same state as when I bought it when I formatted the recovery partition? Would e.g these recovery disks I made be able to restore this partition by installing windows from them again?

Or maybe you guys think its better to just leave the partition alone. Could I in this case after installing Windows on another partition still just boot into asus recovery mode in this case when I want to restore the laptop to factory settings?

 

Oh and forgot to ask. Is it OK to format and remove this other 350 mb partition that I read comes with windows 8? Its called system reserved or something like that

 

Hi,

I decided to return this laptop and get another one.

This sample is just so much better: max voltage under prime is 1,086volt (vs 1,22!!) @ 3,2ghz. And guess what? Cpu temperature went down from 96c to 73!! Quite amazing. 20c + temperature drop...and it never throttles.

Plus, I also got a better TN panel: this sample has the LG-Philips, which has definitely better brightness. Old one had the samsung's.

It took almost a month to get my laptop replaced, but it was definitely worth it...the temperature difference is just insane!