All I did was get a can of compressed air and spray it into the side exhaust vent along with the vent on the bottom of the laptop. That's it. I wish I knew how to get into the real "guts" of this thing to actually properly dust out the heatsink and fan but I don't know how to get to it. I just removed the bottom screw that keeps the ram, hard drive, and wi-fi card protected and sprayed up in there with compressed air and into the side vent. That's all I can get to until someone figures out how to actually get access to the heatsink/fan itself.
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what are you using for a cooling pad?
my temperatures are 55C while surfing 76C while gaming (skyrim, 1600:900, medium) for CPU, are these temperatures ok?
When you use the can of compressed air, shouldn`t you block the fan?
Thanks -
Anyone which softwares from the ASUS drivers disc I need, and which I can uninstall? I don't want bloatware.
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Hi all,
This is my first post and I'd like to thank all those who have contributed to a very informative
thread. I have a very limited understanding of the technical performance discussion although
enough to spark up the imagination on occasions.
I expect to take delivery of a N56VZ-DS71 tomorrow and given the negative comments regarding
the (5400 rpm) HD installed, I'm considering purchasing a Intel 180gig SSD (Intel SSDSC2CT180A3K5)
which is available here in Thailand.
My question is; will I require additional hardware i.e. tray and are there any known compatibility issues?
with that model SSD? -
^ hahah
If only..
Personally haven't had very good experiences with Intel SSDs, though. Same problem as with the Sandisk, Crucial and OCZ drives -- they were careless with firmware updates, and didn't recall and update drives already in stock, basically saying that people should fix their drives "if they had issues"... you know.. "If" people happened to do something other than boot Windows and write Word-documents. They were, and still are also more costly for what you actually get. But they - specially Intel - get away with it, because the performance of any SSD is still a long way ahead of the best HDD. But you do have certain areas where suddenly the performance is mysteriously lower, as you hit the garbage collection routines and they actually do impact the performance of the drive, etc. And that can be a bit annoying.
So I'd recommend the Corsair GT/GS drives instead. Price is not that much higher. And they have people who actively test and maintain firmwares, and know how this stuff works, and where corners should not be cut. You can tell right away when you look at the drivers.. as well as their support forums, that they're not doing the "impersonal mass market vendor"/Apple/Asus approach. Where they can shave corners, and get away with it because "not a majority" of the people who buy it actually complain. -
I have also had great success with Samsung 830 SSD.
I would never touch OCZ again though after having an OCZ drive corrupt a windows install twice before I realised what the problem was. -
Thanks nipsen & bjammin for your input. I guess it's back to the drawing board, meanwhile I'll check prices in Thailand for the Corsair. My N56VZ arrived in one piece from the States
and after a brief ck things seem to be ok. I'll have a play with it over the next few days with the std HD while procrastinating, cheers. -
Hi,
Does anyone here have experience ordering an Asus N56vz notebook through Xoticpc.com where you can get some customizations (such as installing a 95% gamut panel, which is what I'm considering)? Like how is the quality of their customizations? -
Hey,
I bought an asus n56 a few days ago and everything seems to be okay other than a problem I have with audio. When i´m listening to music or watching a movie etc the audio sometimes randomly turns into a distorted robotic noise/screech for a second or two. Sometimes it´s random and sometimes it happens when I run programs(all the tasks i´m doing are very light, i´m not feeding the computer anything heavy or overwhelming). I have reinstalled the realtek hd audio driver but that didn´t change the situation, I still get the sound sometimes. I haven´t customized the pc at all other than deinstalling the default bloatware and programs I don´t need. Does anyone have any idea what´s going on?
Thanks in advance! -
For example:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/664468-asus-n56vz-ds71-first-impressions-44.html
Some said that problem could be solved by removing or re-configuring McAfee antivirus, look at this:
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- Sound problem
If you still have McAfee installed you could try that suggestion, although I don't know is this is enough to get rid of any N56 sound issue. -
I have a question. (I'm a computer newbie
) Amazon, the only retailer that sells this in my country comes only with a 5600rpm 750gb Seagate HDD. I'm guessing I could easily acquire a 7600rpm from the same manufactor but how do I go about installing this new HDD, as in do I simply switch the HDD and put in the Windows Install CD that comes with the box or some other complicated method. >.<
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It doesn't come with windows CD/DVD.
Easiest way it to go through the normal install when you first get it and then use the asus recovery tool to make recovery DVD's. Swap HDD and then install from the recovery DVD's you made.
The difference from 5400rpm HDD and 7200rpm HDD isn't that big, if you want better HDD performance you should go with an SSD. -
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Thanks for the information.
Looks like after a few hours of looking into it I shall be purchasing an 256gb SSD :O Hopefully I can just use this Windows 7 Install disk I got from my Alienware purchase. (Mhuhauhauha) Unfortunately It seems that they don't sell anywhere in all of europe except for in Germany which is shipped with a german keyboard. -_-
If its taking this long for a UK release i'm guessing it's never gonna happen? ;_; What should I dooooo? D: -
hi everyone, i want to replace my hard drive with an ssd and put the hard drive in a hdd caddy. so i have two questions:
1. should i buy an intel 330 or a crucial m4?
2. will this SATA to SATA 2nd HDD HD HARD DRIVE 12.7mm Universal Caddy CD/DVD-ROM Optical Bay | eBay work with our laptop? and will i be able to take the faceplate off my dvdrom and put it on the hdd caddy? -
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..ouch. I guess it's possible that the realtime inspection routines might do something to the windows sound component. It's.. basically a service running in an "admin" context that programs feed data to. The service then feeds the realtek "driver" -> that does the hardware translation.
So if the sound component isn't able to feed the hardware translator/driver in time (and the driver expects data to be there). Then you would get distortion and pops, and so on, since the buffer is garbled..
I didn't think it was possible that would happen with the new driver model they have had since Vista, though. ... -
I'm screwed. I finally (after waiting 3 months) recieved my new laptop. This Asus N56vz. Now I useally install bios passwords on my laptops as on this one.
Now the following happened: I installed my password and well that worked of course. After saving the changes and rebooting I was asked for my password (ofcourse!). Now the problem is, when typing in my password certain character won't show up. I can't type any character which uses the shift key (I.E. ^%$#@!) And those are in my password.
Now I called the helpdesk of where I bought my laptop and they say bios passwords won't be covered by warranty since I have to remember those myself... Well I remembered it. Now they gave me an option, send it back with a retour form or bring it a to a local repair shop pand have it fixed. ( I can do this probably myself). now they also said that warranty seals cannot be broken. (how can I bring it to a local shop then?!?)
Now I have to questions:
1. Does this laptop come with a bios battery? anything like as in a normal computer?
2. Are there warranty seals?
If there are no seals, is there a guide somewhere as to how to open this laptop? -
The sales rep., Josh, is communicative and patient, but the XoticPC team messed this one up, and XoticPC is not compensating me for my lost time and money. I had to pay $60 UPS ground shipping (with insurance) to return the unit to do an exchange. Now they're trying again, but I have no ETA on when the new unit will ship. I sent them a list of potential defects to check this time.
Xotic PC also sent a bad unit to another user on this forum. In his case it seems the production team accidentally used a wrong-size screw when upgrading the hard drive, which put a bump on the frame. He returned the unit for an exchange, and apparently XoticPC is taking better care of him than they are of me. See http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/664468-asus-n56vz-ds71-first-impressions-77.html (Smartician's post).
Regarding the upgraded screen option, the 95% color gamut screen looks great. The colors are amazing. However, the screen does not get as bright as most new laptops do. That worsens the contrast ratio, but overall, the color reproduction (including whites and blacks) is excellent. One qualification is that I opted for the calibrated color profile upgrade, which makes an appreciable difference. A problem that I encountered is that the color profile frequently flips on and off randomly when programs are opened and closed. Very annoying. If that issue can be fixed, then I would say the screen performance is worth the cost of both upgrades. If it can't be fixed, then the calibrated profile is overly frustrating, and the upgraded screen arguably isn't worth the upgrade fee without functioning calibration. You may have better luck with the calibration than I have had so far.
The notebook was speedy with an SSD. I opted for the Intel 520 for its fast read/write speeds. Boot up with a clean install took about 28 seconds, if I remember correctly, and I'm hoping that will be cut down with a Windows 8.
I'll report back on the condition of the new unit that XoticPC sends me, and on the overall level of service.
At this time I wouldn't advise against using XoticPC, but I cannot yet say I endorse going with them for this purchase, either. -
bump...so does anyone know? :X
"hi everyone, i want to replace my hard drive with an ssd and put the hard drive in a hdd caddy. so i have two questions:
1. should i buy an intel 330 or a crucial m4?
2. will this SATA to SATA 2nd HDD HD HARD DRIVE 12.7mm Universal Caddy CD/DVD-ROM Optical Bay | eBay work with our laptop? and will i be able to take the faceplate off my dvdrom and put it on the hdd caddy?" -
Right, my first post here.
I've recently bought the n56vm from Comet in the UK.
I'm probably 70% happy, but only niggle is the touch pad and the key board not being backlit. My previous 3 laptops were backlit, so it feels like a real step back!
My question is, what are the chances of being able to source the part and get it fitted inside my laptop? I understand the warranty will be void if I were to do this myself.
2nd question, do you know the part number? I want the UK english keyboard illuminated... I can only find one site that sells these keyboards at http://www.asusparts.eu/index.php?cPath=224828_232974_233713_233724
but I can't be sure if any of these are the correct parts?
As for the touchpad/trackpad it's a bloody nightmare. Is this replaceable also with a normal trackpad with an actual left and right click button? -
Both SSDs you're talking are supposedly good. I installed a crucial m4 512 a month ago and has been working fine, big difference with the HDD. It's a tight fit, although at the end gets inside the slot. The 256gb version might be slimmer. Don't know the answer regarding the HDD caddy.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2 -
But as far as I know any 12.7mm caddy should work, as long as it's just SATA to SATA. -
First off, a big thank you to the guys who actively respond in this thread. There were many valuable bits of info not only in the first post but the discussion since then. I don't think a better laptop exists for my use (university, gaming alongside my consoles, web browsing) so I'll most likely get the N56VZ if I decide to buy something this fall. If I get one, is the checklist of possible problems to look for as follows?
-Obvious build quality
-Dead pixels and other panel-related issues
-Speakers for popping/glitches with constant signal
-Heating with web browsing
-CPU and GPU should be below 60 °C
-no noticeable heat in chassis
-Heating with Crysis, SC2 or something
-CPU should be below 90 °C
-GPU should be below 80 °C
-top chassis may be warm but not hot though the bottom plastic gets pretty warm
-Random crashes with games (Is this even a hardware issue or just because of corrupted/misbehaving drivers?)
This would be my first laptop and my first "real" PC after using different Macs and BootCamp at home so I'm pretty scared1000 is a lot of money. I guess the niggles you guys have written about are pretty small compared to the usual overheating and breaking chassis. Have you noticed anything alarming after a few months of use? It would be nice to get a laptop that doesn't break down right after the warranty ends...
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Hi Munkk1,
Your checklist is good. I posted a full checklist here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/664468-asus-n56vz-ds71-first-impressions-81.html
Note that my list is fairly comprehensive of any possible thing that could go wrong, so it shouldn't scare you away from the purchase if you know the N56VZ is offering what you're looking for with respect to components, size, aesthetics, etc. -
Has anyone checked this link: The N56VM-AB71
Amazon.com: ASUS N56VM-AB71 Full-HD 15.6-Inch 1080P LED Laptop: Computers & Accessories
why is it cheaper? aside from the G630M - can this unit be upgradable as well? -
Peter -
based on the comments though it has a back lit keyboard
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I have N56VM and has backlit keyboard.
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just one more question about the cosmetics...will i be able to take the faceplate off my dvdrom and put it on the caddy? -
Hi guys,
I've got an i5 VZ with working backlit keyboard, but the logo on the back of the screen doesn't light up. Well, a sort of diffuse lighting coming from there can be noticed in complete darkness, but that cannot be called a proper illumination, rather a sort of leakage coming out of the screen itself.
I emailed Asus Support one week ago and seems that they're still investigating. That's why I'd like to ask you guys if there's a specific driver / controller in charge of commanding the illuminated logo, as I haven't found anything like this till now. Or, maybe there's a sort of drivers conflict or something alike, rather than just a defective component. Have you experienced such thing and come up to a solution to this problem?
Thank you. -
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Hi,
could someone explain me pls where the air intake(s) of this notebook is/are (the vents on the left are only for exhaust??) I can`t find them, maybe I am too stupid -
The gaps in the keyboard on the top, and there's a grill on the bottom of the chassis on the slope from the front.
Very clever, really. -
"Air vents: The air vents allow cool air to enter and warm air to exit the Notebook PC"
And they mean only the vents on the left side..hmm..it is possible that the upper part of the grill is for air intake and down for exhaust..I feel the warm only coming from the down part -
No. (Thermo-)physically impossible.
..but I am very grateful that Asus' support and marketing department didn't design the hardware layout. -
I was so, so close to just picking up a N56VZ this week but now the guys in the UX51VZ thread are telling me about how GDDR5 is the only option and DDR3 sucks at higher resolutions etc... what's your thought on it? I thought I read something in the N56 threads about it, that the DDR3 overclocks better and even sometimes runs better or the same because of the bandwidth or design? hmmm
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Yep, gddr5 sucks..
..no, I don't know what to tell you. The highest overclock result on a 650m at 3dmark11 is on a ddr3 card. No assumptions going on here, it's in the database. This is a good benchmark, because it is possible to disregard the cpu when comparing the gpu results. And here the ddr3 cards perform better.
In my opinion, the assumption about gddr5 ram being magically better than anything else stems from a preview at Anandtech, where they essentially declared that gddr5 ram would transform any graphics card into a device that would produce fairy dust and magic. That this "unique" 1Gb gddr5 ram 650m card that heralded the second coming of Jesus happened to be put in a Macbook Pro they were previewing -- obviously had /nothing/ whatsoever to do with the insane and irrational gushing over the gddr5 design capabilities.
Anyway. The point with gddr5 ram is that it's cheaper to produce, and has better production yields. The design also allows you to put the same module on a lot of different cards. Not just the same sodimm, but the entire module, the whole board with the chips - this is another aspect that makes it cheaper to produce. That you can produce the entire setup in bigger quantities and store it, because you will expect to be able to use it later on. Those have been the two major selling points that have motivated the use of that design.
The problem is that it demonstrably has higher power-consumption than ddr3 ram. It also has internally much higher frequencies to maintain the same speeds as ddr3 ram. Meaning that there will be less height for an overclock or for changes in frequencies and volt - both because of heat, as well as the error-correction being very sensitive on higher clock-speeds. The higher clock-speeds internally in the ram also don't actually give you any increased performance, since - like explained - the reason for the module is that it will work interchangeably with other setups. It's supposed to look the same as a ddr3 module from the point of view of the core chip.
In other words, until someone somehow figures out a way to leverage the broader addressing bus gddr5 ram has on the specification, there's no benefit and several disadvantages for picking the gddr5 card. And picking the 650m gddr5 over the 650m ddr3 makes no sense, specially because the actual performance is the same or worse. And this is not my opinion - whether you look at the benchmarks, the power-consumption data, or the design data -- picking gddr5 over ddr3 right now makes no sense.
A lot of people keep insisting that there is data to suggest games run faster in higher resolutions. But they can't provide it: there's no data to sustain that idea. Instead the little data I have seems to suggest the opposite, thanks to how you can very easily overclock a 650m/ddr3 without increasing the heat or affecting the performance.
But it means at the very least that the "gddr5 is superior" thing is a myth. There's no data to support it. And the whitepapers, benchmarks, etc., say the opposite. Which.. matters absolutely nothing to Anandtech and Engadget, obviously. -
After sleep, the keyboard light sometimes not work, I must logout and login in Windows to start it again, anyone else with this issue?
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Thanks a lot for your insight, I appreciate the informative, well thought out and thorough replies,
Peter -
It just happens to be false, and they don't seem very interested in correcting it.
The problem is that ddr3 modules operate at "2x ticks", and the gddr5 modules at "4x ticks". So that to transfer the same amount of data, it needs to run at twice the speed, which is what it's designed to do. To have shorter, but quicker responses at lower intervals.
You can read that in the whitepaper as well.
I sort of theorized (because of the increased response time) that it was possible the operations that happen only on the graphics card internally would have better results. So that anti-aliasing would be faster, for example. Some of the physx based particle effects. Maybe large sized textures, that sort of thing. This would also translate to a lighter load on higher resolutions. Would make sense, right?
But I haven't been able to confirm anything like that. Instead, like I said, with slight overclocks on the core, the ddr3 version seems to be somewhat faster all round.
Could there be a particular difference on stock clocks, though? Turns out we don't have those either with the same clock-speeds. I.e., there's a difference if we compare the 660m and the 650m cards, because they don't have the same clocks (this is what most benchmarks will do, since we don't really have all that many 650m cards with ddr3 and gddr5 ram. But we have several 660m cards with gddr5).
But.. just like with the "stock overclock" card setups. If you take a 650m and set it to the same clocks as the 660m, it performs just about exactly the same. Whether it's gddr5 or ddr3 doesn't matter here either.
I.e., the core and external memory clock matters for the performance. Internal performance (and bus-width on this particular module and core chip, at least), doesn't matter.
It could be that it's possible to create a design where gddr5 ram is better. But frankly, I don't think it's going to work that way. That there's no increase in performance to be picked up towards an external bus via the gddr5 modules. While instead the increased power-draw and higher frequencies is going to give you less battery as well as less overclock potential - along with more errors, more sensitivity towards heat (also on stock setups), etc.
So yes, I think the entire "gddr5 is awesome" narrative comes from some Macworld-sniffing blogger going overboard from theory to practical application without actually providing any data. Basically believing that the "retina display" on the Macbook could only possibly be run on gddr5 ram, since higher resolutions need unicorns and magic to operate, etc. And that this is all there is to it.
Not the first time that sort of thing has happened either, I can tell you that for certain.. -
how to fix buzzing sound from subwoofer ? When I play music all fine, when click keyboard or mouse I hear some noises from it, music switched off
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While awaiting your reply I came across this article:
GT 650M GDDR5 vs DDR3 and 2GB vs 1GB memory capacity - Gaming Laptops Junky
That seems quite interesting to me, especially the significant Mass Effect 3 difference as that's a game I would almost certainly play with the new system - do you think these figures and their source are reliable enough to draw the conclusions they draw? Or is there a flaw in the methodology somewhere?
Thanks,
Peter -
Oh, I see. Right. Well, it's also "technically" correct to say that it's more expensive. It is a new card, and the parts are probably more expensive. It's cheaper to produce because of the modularity, see..
And no, I don't think those data are reliable. They have ddr3 and gddr5 performing better and worse seemingly at random. So there's something significant that affects performance other than the graphics cards. That they then credit the gddr5 ram when convenient. -
..no, the standard clocks on the gts450 is around 1500Mhz. The standard clocks on a gt 640/kepler is 900Mhz. It's two different chipsets with different power-consumption, and different setup for number of pipes and "stream processor units". Those results are not going to be comparable directly.
Like I said, I don't doubt that it's possible to design a card with an architecture that would benefit from gddr5 ram (even if it has to be based on bandwidth strategy, not purely clock-speed).
But when looking for a 640,650,660m card, that use the gk107 chip, no one has found some sort of data to support the idea that the gddr5 ram gives you better performance. -
Sorry.. yes, the memory clock is different.
But 2. -- these should be, and they are, usually in the same range. A gt 640 (desktop card) clocked at the same speeds as a 660m will get pretty much the identical gpu score in 3dmark11. If you look up the 660m cards with gddr5 ram, they also score close in that same range.
The 660m and 560m are two different architectures again, even if they have the same shader count, smxs, etc.. I'm not an expert on the differences here, though. But it seems to be possible to get reasonably similarly specced fermi cards to the same or better performance when compared to a kepler card - except it will run hotter and draw much more power. That was the huge selling point with kepler, after all - better performance/watt ratio.
So when you look at the results between a reasonably normally overclocked gts450 and a gt640 - and see that the both cards run up to around 4500 3dmarks in 3dmark11 before croaking. Then consider that the gt640 card is happy with just drawing power from the pci port, and that the fermi card needs another connector just to run. Again -- other factors than just the ram involved here.
So like I said.. I don't know what to tell people. The results are relatively predictable. They are very clear with the 640-660m cards. Whether it is gddr5 ram, or the factory-underclocked versions that really are capable of running much higher. The results here are very clear. All of those cards score pretty much exactly the same on the same clocks.
Meanwhile, no one seems willing to deliberately do thorough tests where they set the ddr3 and gddr5 versions of the same desktop or laptop cards with the same chips at the same clocks, before running the benchmarks. Instead we get a lot of "oh, but look at this new and fancy card (that incidentally has higher stock clocks and a significantly higher power-profile, while running at a different motherboard, etc.) - that has gddr5 ram(!), which obviously is faster because it has a higher number, and explains the performance increase, because of the theoretical bandwidth on the bus, that I don't have the faintest idea how is used or translated to actual memory operations!". And so on.
Not that it matters a huge deal. But I'm just saying that for the gk107 cards offered for laptops right now - no actual data exists to suggest you should pick the gddr5 version over the ddr3 version. Whether you look at overclock potential, temperature, stability, performance or power-consumption -- the ddr3 cards come out on top.
I'm not saying that proves gddr5 designs /always/ must perform worse. I specifically said I'm certain that that isn't true, for several different reasons I explained in detail. But the data we have for the kepler cards available for laptops right now isn't very ambiguous.
(And.... if that data also happens to prove Engadget and Anandtech are buried in the bottom of Apple's suit-flaps. And field lies on their web-pages when it comes to certain tech, depending on the manufacturer that happens to put them in their computers -- then that's just a bonus.)
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What about these?
GDDR5 Memory
GeForce GT 440 512 MB GDDR5 vs. 1 GB DDR3 Video Card Review | Hardware Secrets
For the AMD I don't know if the cards are otherwise the same, for the nVidia, they state they are. This is 512MB vs 1GB of the other.
Thanks a lot,
Peter -
^there we go..
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N56vz review and owners lounge - Techno Art
Discussion in 'ASUS Reviews and Owners' Lounges' started by nipsen, Jul 6, 2012.