N81V: Review & Owners' Lounge

how heavy is the notebook with 6 cell actually??? a few website state 5.6lbs anyone can confirm

 

Hey guys, So, I bought the WIndows Vista 64bit from newegg for 99 bucks. So, how do i do a clean install so i can get rid of this 32bit? Just put n the CD and install this 64bit? how bout the drivers n stuff? can some1 please help me? id really appreciate it with a passion.

 

Pop in your 64bit disk, go into your BIOS and set your optical drive to boot first, restart.

The 64 bit drivers are included in your drivers disk, so you can just install it from there.

 

The 64bit drivers are included in my drivers disk? which one? The N81 Drivers Disk that came with the laptop? or the one came with the one I bought? Sorry just making sure

 

They're in the N81 drivers disk that came with your laptop

 

It's the driver disk that came with the laptop.

I'd recommend following the link to the install guide I linked earlier, and reading about how to make a copy of your product activation. That will allow you to reload as many times as you want without having to activate over the internet or call Microsoft. You'll want to do that before you reformat (if it's not too late).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=144783

Also, if you're going to play games you'll get faster performance with a newer ATI video driver than the one on the driver disk.

http://www.donotargue.com has newer ones that are hacked for the 4650.

 

Hopefully you guys can help some, I got this computer on Wednesday and have yet to get it functioning properly. Our home has a wireless network (n) and I can not get the internet running properly for the life of me. I tried disabling Ipv6 as a friend suggested it, but whenever I try to apply the changes the spinner just spins to infinity and I can't even end it with task manager I have to completely restart the system in order to stop it. Also, when I shut down about half of the time the computer gets stuck on the shutdown screen and I have to force it to shut off by holding down the power key. With the internet issue I tried booting from a live CD into Ubuntu and the internet worked fine there.

Oh, one last thing when the screen goes black, (not in sleep or anything just the screen turns off) is there a special key or anything to wake the screen back up? I've trying moving the mouse pushing buttons pressing the power key, etc. but nothing can get the screen back up and I have to hold the power button to make it shutdown then start up again.

In short, I'm trying to figure out if the settings are wrong and I can fix it, or if the computer is faulty and I need to try to return it. Thanks!

 

You could try restoring to factory settings with the recovery partition / or perhaps a clean install followed by driver installations, with no bloatware. Since it seems your Windows installation is not quite right.

For this problem:

Some older ASUS notebooks did this, I used to fix it by putting the laptop to standby with the correspoding Fn+F* combination (the actual F key may differ from model to model); and then pressing CTRL to bring it back. That usually woke up the screen as well.

You could also try pressing Fn+F7 or Fn+F8 once or multiple times, that may also work.

 

I've tried restoring the system....twice. Didn't seem to help with anything. Although, now its doing this weird thing where it works fine for the first like minute on the internet and then goes back to not working.

 

That particular problem sounds like an IP address conflict. Just a stab in the dark. Is it possible that something else on your network is using the same address that's getting assigned to your laptop?

 

Got my N81 yesterday and all's well except for the fingerprint reader. At first it worked fine but later the little "device removal" bell dinged and an error message came up saying a USB device was unrecognized, but gave me no options to help fix it.

It seems to be sharing the same USB port address as my Bluetooth mouse, which is working fine. I've updated and re-installed everything I can think of, and for a brief time did get the fingerprint scanner to work again, then got a series of the USB bings and it died again.

Hardware issue? Should it go back to Amazon for a new one?

I've tried scanning for new hardware via Device Manager, etc. - no joy. I was able to enroll my prints in ASUS Data Security Manager twice, but now that program sees no fingerprint reader at all. Obviously the fingerprint sign-in is not available during boot either.

I wonder if it would be worth opening the case to see if it's something as simple as a loose wire...

Any thoughts, anyone?

EDIT: I seem to have found the solution for the above, which I'm leaving in so maybe it can help someone else: after a complete reboot (disconnect power & battery), the fingerprint scanner showed up again, so I checked the hardware settings in Device Manager and sure enough somehow the checkbox for "Allow computer to shut off this device to save power" had been enabled. Unchecked said box and have been good to go ever since.

Pretty stupid, tho: if you shut all power off to the device it disappears from Device Manager entirely, and a normal restart will not re-enable it; to Windows it might as well not be there until you do a complete reboot as above and it's re-initialized. Go figure...

 

Got mine last week it's a great laptop except for one thing. The screen has horrid viewing angles. The keyboard on the other hand is about perfect I haven't had any issue with flex I do wish they had put the control key to the left of the FN key but I can adjust to that. So far it's been great as far as performance is concerned World of Warcraft runs about 30fps and dips to about 20 in cities with everything maxed at native resolution. Fallout 3 runs pretty well at ultra high although you might want to reduce a few things to get it running ultra smooth.

 

Update the video driver as indicated in the earlier post here; you should be getting 35-45 FPS in WoW with everything maxed.

Which reminds me to ask: does anyone know a source for a mobility modded version of the new Catalyst 9.3 drivers?

 

So I was wondering if anyone can comment on the design of this laptop are the lines really good and how does the bronze finish look in person because it's one of the things that's preventing me from getting it.

 

Here's a video from GenTechPC on the N81Vp. It's got some nice close-up pics of the finish.

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nice video.
just wondering... is there a huge difference between the HD 4650 and the 9650m GT?

 

From what I've read between 30-40% faster with the 4650, and that should get better as the drivers mature. I haven't benchmarked it myself, tho.

 

I'm biased, I'll admit, but I think it's a really nice finish. Quickly in passing you'd say the notebook was black, but as you look and move it in the light the subtle bronze highlights come out and make it look somehow richer and more finished than just basic black. No doubt it's a fingerprint magnet, however, so if that would bother you beware, otherwise it's "some sharp, deah" as we say in Maine.

 

Has anyone tried Left For Dead on this? How does it play?

 

Hi, I am a first time Asus laptop owner. I got the Asus N81Vp just a couple of weeks ago. Thought I’ll share with you my experience and random thoughts about it.

The 'bronze' color isn't 'yellowish-brown', it is more of a light brownish-rose tint (that’s the best I can describe it). The color actually looks pretty nice.

I have wiped out the hard drive and installed the latest version of Windows 7 beta (64-bit). So far, it has been running fine (laptop is fast & LED screen is nice). Windows 7 managed to recognize most of the hardware, so I did not need to download much drivers (only had issue with getting infrared driver install). The drivers download guide at the beginning of this page is nevertheless helpful.

The Asus Express Gate software is interesting. It’s using an “instant on desktop” software called, Splashtop, to boot up laptop in around 8 seconds. The Splashtop software includes applications like—browser, chat, music player, Skype, and photo manager. Although, Splashtop is pretty neat, I do not think I will be using it much since it runs at a low screen resolution and the laptop boots up to login screen around 30 seconds. A few more seconds of waiting time is okay for me. Though, I can see this software would be useful on a netbook.

One thing I do not like about this laptop is the touch pad keys. It makes a clicking sound every time I press it. Also, the laptop could have been made a little bit “shorter”, by trimming of some space in the area around where the webcam is placed and the space below the large touch pad keys (the touch pad keys are large as well; they could have made it smaller). If the excess space had been trimmed off, this would have made the laptop smaller and lighter. At approximately 5lbs 11.2 oz (laptop w/ battery), the Asus N81Vp is not too heavy to carry around, but it could have been lighter and smaller.

This is just my early assessment of the laptop. I have not tested games on it yet. I plan to maybe install Fallout 3. Some tests already made by others on the laptop, did show it can play some intensive games, so I do not see I will have a problem running it.

Overall, I like the laptop. It is quiet and runs cool, and very well built.

 

Ok so i have a bit of a problem with mine. For one thing does anyone else notice that under windows vista the harddisk is constantly being accessed? Mine is I installed Ubuntu on it a couple of weeks ago and in Ubuntu it doesn't constantly access the harddisk like Vista does.

I tried turning off everything I could think of (indexing, shadow copy) and still it constantly access the disk. Then all of the sudden since yesterday I cannot access my Documents folder (Vista says it is corrupt) and cannot run scandisk as the disk is constantly in use!

Anyways I think i'll just chalk it up to bad harddisk and have it replaced but I am still wondering if anyone else has the constant access as again it didn't seem to happen in Ubuntu.

Oh yes also one other thing that is an annoying design flaw with this laptop is that the GPU exhaust comes out right where you use your mouse if you are right handed. You don't notice it until you play a game and it's not a deal breaker but definitely could have used a better placement with that one.

 

The constant disk access seems to be the indexing of Vista's search feature, which I have tried to disable or turn off without luck. Eventually it settles down to a little "bump" access every 10 seconds or so which I understand is normal, if irritating. I wouldn't ditch the disk just yet... give it many hours to completely finish the index and remember that Microsoft is convinced it's their computer, not yours, and they call the shots on how it operates, not you. So every change to a file or application you make means it gets re-indexed. I wouldn't mind so much if their search "feature" was worth a bucket of warm spit, but it's not so the indexing is a complete waste of time and resources. Apple has Spotlight so MS see MS do... oogga oogga.

I couldn't agree more about the air vent; maybe the designers were all left-handed?

 

The problem is the documents folder is corrupt and I cannot access it. I was interested in the disk access as I thought it might be related. However the constant access doesn't allow the disk to be locked to perform a checkdisk on the documents folder so it does complicate things a bit. The other strange thing is that I have a desktop with Vista64 sitting right next to my laptop and it does not access the disk constantly despite having indexing turned on (it is off on my laptop).

Anyways i'm going to get the unit replaced as having disk problems after only a month seems a bit ridiculous. Thanks for the info.

 

You can run CHKDSK on boot which may repair or at least ID the source of your disk corruption: go to My Computer, select the affected disk and right click on it, select Properties and look for the Tools tab and select Repair Disk (or similar - I'm on a MacBook Pro right now, so can't check this now). You'll need to restart to get the program to run.

It's possible if you do have some disk corruption that the access you're seeing is Windows trying to repeatedly index that area without being able to complete the operation. Hopefully you can repair the disk and not have to get it replaced; good luck!

 

just got my n81 yesterday. Here is a GTA IV update.

Resolution set to 1366x768, all details at Medium, and default view distances, something like 20, 50, 10, 20, etc, AA on, Vsync On, I get 26 FPS, and its very playable with no lag or jitter or anything.

I can play online games just fine and it looks awesome.

 

Look for the mobility modded Catalyst 9.4 drivers elsewhere on these forums, or online; they should get you 3-4 more FPS at a guess.

 

I've tried searching for catalyst 9.4, modded catalyst, etc but couldnt seem to find the drivers.

Could you point me in the right direction please? an extra few fps would be nice

 

Sorry, I can't. I just caught them paging through last week, and I don't remember which manufacturer's forum I found them in. I do remember the author mentioned E-Wrecked and that he had just made the drivers support the mobility cards and hadn't really modded them like E does... maybe that can give you a lead.

 

I found some catalyst 9.4 drivers, and with those I'm now at a solid 30fps!! It does dip now and then, but 30 is a good average. The GTA benchmark says 29.x.

 

Outstanding! We may get a couple more FPS as the drivers for these new cards mature but I'm guessing 9.4 has the biggest bump we'll see.

Glad you found them...

 

for those who have this laptop how does the keyboard feel and is there any lag after pressing the buttons

 

How about a link to those drivers? Also how are you guys getting around the issue that Windows Vista 64bit has with unsigned drivers?

 

A couple of the keys on the upper left hand side are a little "squishy" on my machine which could probably be fixed easily by putting some tape under that area of the keyboard pan but it doesn't bother me enough to make the effort. As for lag I've never noticed any, none at all.

 

I havent noticed any keyboard flex or lag in typing. I havent actually scrutinized the keyboard, but have used it daily for typing and have no complaints.

I just checked my downloads and the drivers, looks like all I have is the regular 9.4 from ATI.

 

feeling it too

but its much better after i disable vista search indexing

 

How did you do that? I've tried but Windows seems to merrily ignore the changes I made and goes about its business much as before. How do I really and truly stop the (totally worthless) Vista indexing?

 

this should work

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/speed-up-or-disable-windows-search-indexing-in-vista/

i recommend you to disable it =]

 

Thanks! Just what I was looking for...

 

So owners, what's the verdict? Even though the resolution is low can't help but still consider this notebook since it is equipped with a ATI HD4650.

 

I wouldn't actually call the resolution for this size screen low at all; for me it's perfect, and higher rez would mean smaller harder to read type. Also more pixels for the 4650 to push...

The LED backlit screen is extraordinarily clear and bright, performance with the 4650 is all I could ask for on a truly portable laptop (compared to a desktop replacement) in even intense 3D games, and you most certainly should consider the N81; it's an excellent machine!

 

What do you owners clean the back lid with?
I just got this laptop but want to know how to clean away all those fingerprints in the back

 

Just plain water and a lint-free micro cloth would do. However, if you want your LCD cover to resist fingerprints, a LCD screen cleaner would help a bit.

 

One of the best products I've found over the years is iKlear. It's sold as an "Apple screen polish" but works great on all surfaces of any computer; cleans great and leaves just a hint of protective coating so you have to clean again less often. It's available in various sizes and in kit form with micro-fiber cloths and some foil packed pre-moistened towelettes which are super handy to have in the laptop's bag with you on the road. You can see pretty much the whole line here: http://eshop.macsales.com/search/iKlear

 

What are the real dimensions of this laptop?
Is is it 13.5 inches wide or 14.5 inches wide?
These two different widths are posted on different sites, so can someone do me a huge favor and actually measure how wide this laptop is.
The conflicting size reports are really confusing so if someone who owns this laptop do a rough measure it would be greatly appreciated.

 

It's 13.5 inches wide, from the left edge to right edge. Just measured it. And it's about 9.5 inches deep and an inch or so thick.

 

Thanks man!
It just got a little confusing as to what the dimension really are, when I was checking out the specs on different sites they were all over the place + I really want something more portable.
Thanks again it is a big factor on me purchasing this laptop.

 

anyone with a n81vg yet?

 

Does anyone else have speaker problems when the volume is turned up?

 

Could you elaborate on the speaker problems you're encountering?

 

As if the highs are too high.. I'm sorry it's hard to explain. The noise hurts my ears though. It makes a small vibration sound at the top left corner of my keyboard.