N81V: Review & Owners' Lounge

Well, as the speakers are front-firing from the bezel beneath the palmrests you really shouldn't hear anything from the keyboard area at all. I imagine it is a resonating "buzz" from some part of the keyboard pan or the keyboard itself, and might possibly be fixed by placing some double-sided tape in that area, especially if you notice any flex to the keyboard there as well. I suppose it's possible some some small screw or other fastener got loose in that general region during assembly and is rattling, is another idea.

If you feel up to it technically you could remove the keyboard and check it out and try the double-sided tape trick if you don't find any loose parts under there - that's about all I can come up with. Or call ASUS and see what they think...

 

Alright thanks

But one more question lol

So, I contacted the technical support and they sent me an email and said I should update my audio driver.
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us
They told me to go to that URL to download it but which series and model would I choose?

 

There should be a label on the bottom of your laptop which has model, series, and serial numbers; use them.

 

has anyone tried getting extended warranty?

I got mine from NewEgg.Ca, and there weren't any links to it;
so I filled up the web form and got a reply to the effect that the extended warranty could only be bought, at the time of the purchse.
Well, duh... No option to purchase it so ???

 

I was talking about the audio card not my laptop.

But anyways I got it taken care of.

 

I've had the notebook for about two weeks and I love it. Runs stuff great! I normally play TF2, but I've also tried Empire: Total War and Dawn of War II, which run great as well at modest settings.

The only issue I have is that the exhaust fan is on the right side...right near my hand =\ It gets very hot when I'm playing games.

What notebook cooler do you guys use for this? I'm very inexperienced with notebook coolers, and I presume it may be even more difficult to pick one since the laptop is 14.1"

Also...the battery life blows. I'd give a leg for a 9 cell battery. Oh well, it's just short of being perfect

 

Got a question for you guys-

Between the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220517 @ 799

And the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220519 @ 899

How big is the gap in graphics processors?

 

Hi,

got a question that I hope N81VP users can help me out with..

I was wondering what is the temp of the GPU under full load? I have read that temps can reach up to 90 deg C, is that true?

 

The gap would be about the difference b/w a Nvidia 9500M GS and a Nvidia 9650M GT. The 120M would be able to play more smoothly at native resolution the more power-hungry games of current-generation games than the 4570 by say 5-10 fps. Add to that, its easier to get laptop video drivers working for Nvidia than ATI. If you have the extra $100, you should splurge. If you see yourself formatting or reinstalling Windows out-of-the-box a year or so down the line, go for the N81. I don't see ATI providing laptop GPU driver support any time soon.

 

I can only say that I have used both the N80 with the nVidia 9650 and the N81 with the ATI card and the exhaust on the N80 was far hotter and more irritating on my mousing hand than the 81's under equal loads like playing WoW with everything turned up full. I've been very pleased with the 81's thermal performance, and subjectively it seems to be a cool running machine.

 

thanks for the reply

 

can someone that own this laptop give a good estimate on the battery?, it seem like different sites give different results, can it last up to three hours? Im thinking about getting this one, the only concerns for me is the battery, the heat and how loud it is since i need a laptop for college.

 

Good news first: the 81 is very quiet, even at full throttle the fan is barely audible, just a gentle "whoosh", and the heat output is also very moderate. The bad news: 3 hours on the battery is going to be a hard nut to crack, maybe if you turn the screen backlight way down, use maximum power saving settings, turn off BT, WIFI, and stay off the DVD, maybe....

This is a performance laptop and it didn't get that way by just sipping the juice.

 

thanks for answering, i didnt expect too much on battery but i was hoping getting at least 2 hours and a half out of it, buying an extra battery would probably help since i will be traveling next month.

 

temps -

i loaded 4 instances of an online game executable, and the processing load ran to more than 90%;

for a period of about 48hours;
ACPI min 44C, max 60C
stock CPU cores min 36Cm max 57C
stock HDD min 30C 36C

In summary - bloody happy that this machine runs very cool and quiet - as compared to any of my Dells.
the M1210 (with T7200 2.0GHz) has an avg of 60 to 70C.

 

Definitely you should be able to get 2 + hours without scrimping, so with two batteries you should be well fixed.

On the other hand if battery life is priority #1 Anandtech just reviewed the new Apple MacBook Pros and found the best battery life he's ever measured in a laptop. The 13" is in the same ballpark with the N81 price-wise, only you have to buy the top end 15" model to get a dedicated graphics card, and that one is around 2 grand. If you can deal with the integrated 9400 graphics of the 13" MacBook Pro it'd be a great travel option.

 

I'm beginning to regret buying the N81. Don't get me wrong, it's a very powerful machine for its size, but that's the problem. The battery life is just horrible. I was looking to find a laptop with a good size to power ratio, and I did, yet I failed to look over the battery life.

I'm not sure how much I'll need the laptop in college, but if worse comes to worse I may end up buying an EEE.

And now that I think about it, I could have gotten the X5 at Best Buy for $800 - $850 and buy an EEE all for around the same price as the N81.

 

A second battery for the N81 would cost less, be lighter, and take up less room than a second computer, maybe that would be a viable option for you?

 

I got an n81vg last week. Pretty happy with it, tried playing WoW on it and got 60 fps on the Nvidia 120M card. Keyboard flexes a bit but I may try putting something under the keyboard to stiffen it up a bit, but it's not a real deal breaker. For the money I found nothing that could touch it. Been using the face recognition and unless you set it on the easiest setting it can be a pain as it's pretty picky.

 

You can build up the library for the face recognition; I have well over 60 images in mine, from different angles, under different lighting, and with different expressions; it helped a lot.

 

That's what I've been doing. Everytime I find a situation (usually lighting related) where I have issues with the recognition, I log in manually and add another picture or two to the gallery.

 

SmartLogon is not a secure logon method. People will be able to log on with a picture of you.

If you care about having a secure logon (as opposed to just having fun, which is perfectly fine ), I recommend a password instead.

 

The idea of genuine "notebook security" is a contradiction in terms: if somebody really wants your data he'll just steal the whole notebook: once you've lost physical control of your hard disk access to its contents, even if encrypted, is only a matter of time.

Any kind of "secure" logon is like a lock on a door: it's there to tell honest people to please stay out.

 

Of course, that is why I didn't put much emphasis on it. A strong account password is useful to prevent access over a network (if that user is admin as it often happens in Windows XP or Vista), or e.g., in an office environment where you don't trust everyone.


What I recommend for real data security is:

a) Against opportunist thieves who are not really bent on the data, just on stealing the hardware itself: add a hard drive password using the ATA security feature. Set BOTH the master and user password. If you have done that, noone will have access to your data except if they have access to a cleanroom and special equipment (to remove the HDD platters and clear the password). Unless there are secret backdoors mandated by governments that is -- but that falls beyond the scope of this type of protection.

It is likely such opportunist thieves will just throw away the HDD and reuse the rest of the notebook.

b) Against anyone, including people who are really bent on getting your data: use encryption. TrueCrypt with the default 256-bit AES encryption should do fine. While I agree that in theory it is only a matter of time before you get the data -- in practice with a good keylength it can take such a long amount of time that it remains purely theoretical. Of course, all it takes to get around this minor inconvenience is usage of physical force to get you to actually tell the "bad guys" the key, so the naked truth is that anyone really bent on getting your data, will certainly get your data.

I would call b) (or a) + b) if you're really paranoid) as close to notebook security as you are going to get...

 

Questions regarding my sexy N81.

I have to say I`m really satisfied with my new N81 with the Ati 4650. It is so silent and cool, even when i play game I
find the fan quite silent compared to other powerful laptops I have tested.The drawback is of course the battery, but I knew
that when i bought it.This is for me an infotainment machine and not something I use at work.

But there is something else, my keyboard is very flexible from the middle and all the way to the right,
even the enter tab is flexible.
I purchased this from Notebook.de and they installed a Norwegian keyboard (N81 is not for sale in Norway) and I think
they must have done a poor job because most reviews I have read about N81 says it got a decent keyboard with not much
flexibility.

Now, is there anything I can do about this? I found this video on youtube( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGL6dtewhU4)
and I wonder if I can use the same approach
to remove my keyboard?? And if I can remove the keyboard, what can I do? Stuff som cardboard ? under the keyboard?
Can this affect the temperature?

Is there anyone who can help me with this?

 

I'd be a little careful putting tin foil (aluminum foil) or cardboard underneath; others have found double-sided sticky tape works well. Obviously you don't try to tape over the whole keyboard pan but just those areas with the greatest flex; try a few pieces and check out the difference they make, "rinse and repeat" as necessary.

I think there was a thread on this for the N80, but search has been disabled on the Forum right now and I can't find it.

 

Thanks for the tip. I will try it out.

 

Removing keyboard on ASUS is really easy and doesn't void any warranties, remove screws marked "K>" on the bottom (if any), then pop in the tabs along the top (and possibly left and right) of the keyboard, and lift towards you.

That's it.

 

Hey guys, just dropping in and saying hello. I have a n81vg-x1. And I'm really enjoying it.

I tried to get OSX working on it, but I ran into a problem with DSDT.

I just ordered a Q9200 cpu off of ebay and I plan on putting it in this little thing. It's a quad core with 12MB of L2 cache, 2.4 GHz, 1066MHz FSB. I will be sure to let you guys know how this turns out. As I did a lot of research yesterday and this seemed to be the best bang / buck cpu upgrade.

I'm not happy unless I'm tinkering with this thing. So hopefully there's some other tinkerers (lol) in this thread that can share some knowledge/experiences.

 

It may be a little tough typing after you upgrade the CPU as I figure the little guy will levitate about 2 inches up off the desk with all that power going through it!

Good luck and do tell how it works out.

 

Oh, I almost forgot. This model doesn't have bluetooth I tried to contact asus on acquiring one of these bluetooth modules but to no avail.

I took the harddrive cover off of this and found the wifi-card. I am suspecting that the bluetooth module would plug into this spot:


But maybe not. Perhaps someone in here would be willing to snap some pictures of their bluetooth module I have one of those tiny little USB bluetooth plugs, but it drives me crazy using it. I always fear that I am going to lose it.

 

That's the Mini PCI express slot but it required Asus proprietary adapter, Asus use it for Turbo Memory on a old model call F8SV.

 

Hey guys i have a question. Can i upgrade the graphic card later on? Like 4850M or even 4870M? Because for me i think 4650 is a bit weak...

 

probably not

 

Generally speaking, modular graphics boards/upgrades haven't really taken off as a feature in Asus laptops... so the answer would be nope.

personally I reckon the 4650 is a good GPU for the price, and also for what's touted as a "business notebook" - it's grunty enough to play most games at medium to high detail, and if you wanted something gruntier you'd probably just stump up to a more powerful model anyway

(ah, the power of marketing)

 

yeah, but most powerful "gaming" notebooks are on the 17-18" scale. Which sucks for portability.

 

I am taking my n81vg-x1 apart right now as I am typing this. The graphics card is removable. It appears to be a variant of the MXM Module.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_PCI_Express_Module

 

In case yall suspect I'm just talking out of my :




btw, here's a link on how to take the thing apart
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=344547

 

so bense - where did u buy the q9200 from? taiwanese seller on Ebay?

I've just bought a new keyboard (the regular kind with the Ctrl/Fn placement) on ebay to replace the stupid (Fn/Ctrl).

 

currently having some problems with the q9200
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=395954

 

hey to n81vg owners, what's the word on the battery life? could i get a ballpark figure of the battery life on both max performance (gaming, hd movies) and battery saving mode?

 

From the review post:

I guess it's not all you need to know, but anyway.

 

Hello guys, thanks for this great forum, it really helped me in my buying decission, this n81vp-c1 is simply AMAZING.

Id like to know if its possible to use the infrared port in this laptop with a remote control, i dont know how ... do i need to buy a special remote controller? or should every remote controller out there work with this port?
Would be great to get a remote controller that fits in the expresscard slot, any info on that? I have seen this kind of remote controllers on ebay but i think they wont be compatibles with this computer... no idea.

Too many questions, thanks in advance guys

 

Hello I just got the N81VGX-X1 and for some reason the computer keeps randomlly turning off without any warning! Has anyone else had this problem or know how to fix it?

 

What are your temperatures? Use a software such as HWMonitor or Everest to monitor your temperatures.

Your laptop may be shutting down due to overheating.

Is your fan running at all / do you hear it?

Otherwise, it may be either a hardware or software problem. We need more information to make any useful suggestions.

 

Also - no offense intended - but are you sure it's not just going to sleep? The factory default is I think 10 minutes, and it looks very much like a shutdown. Don't know how new you might be to notebooks...

 

Hmm... that wouldn't quite fit the description of "random" but yeah, it's a possibility...

 

I doubt it's the issue, but under "covering all the bases..." If you didn't hit a key for a while and noticed the computer "shut down" on you sometimes but not others, you might call that "random."

 

Hi all im from Indonesia,.

i buy N81vp-C1 from USA,.
now i already upgrade Ram to 8gb (2x4gb PC6400 800mhz)
and OS upgrade to OEM Vista Ultimate x64,.

if i try this event: http://event.asus.com/2009/windows7/
i will get 7 Home premium x86 (based OS: VHP x86) OR 7 Ultimate x64 ??

 

you'll want x64