Question 1

Alright I had my 1st unit delivered and thought it was defective because there was no backlight to the keyboard, just the mouse pad.  Product description says "Backlight Keyborad".  I requested a replacement unit and it arrived and appears to be the same way.  The G2 button only lights up the mouse pad.  Am I missing something?  It's almost impossible to see the red letters on the keys in dim lighting.  Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Accepted Answer

Hold FN (to the right of Ctrl) and press F12 :-)

Question 2

Where does the heat come out of this?  As in where is the exhaust port for the fan?

Accepted Answer

The exhaust port is located in the upper left of the keyboard.  The intake is underneath the laptop, left of center.  The upper right grill is actually the optical drive, though it also resembles an exhaust port.

Question 3

Thinking of picking this up for college, how's the battery life for note taking?

Accepted Answer

Battery life is supreme. I've had it unplugged for at least 2.5 hours while streaming a movie from Netflix the whole time. It got near 30% battery or so while full-screening and having other background processes. 
The right "shift" key is a bit small, you'll definitely get a kick out of it when you first see it. It's as small as an arrow key, but the arrow keys are big enough, trust me. I haven't had any battery problems or typing problems while using this laptop.

The only thing that will require you to get used to about this keyboard is that the spacebar requires a good amount of force with every press. Not too light like most laptops, but it's not too hard. It's just a regular amount of press, about as tough as pressing a regular key on the keyboard. The spacebar and the right shift key is all that will make things "difficult".

Other than that, I would recommend this computer for regular gaming, regular school processes, and regular entertainment. I would get to know the G buttons above the keyboard for maximum efficiency.
G1 = Exhaust fan toggle
G2 = Turn off touchpad
G3 = Battery saver settings

I know I've been blabbing, but OVERALL:
IF YOU WANT A LAPTOP SOLELY FOR NOTE-TAKING,
I would look for something else. 
IF YOU WANT AN AMAZING LAPTOP FOR EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES,
Get this laptop. You can't beat the price for what you get.

Question 4

Anyone having problems with temperatures/CPU throttling?

I regularly get up to 94c. My CPU throttles down to 1.5ghz while gaming ALL THE TIME.

Accepted Answer

I notice some heat when gaming, but I press the G1 key to up the fan speed and good to go. I have never seen CPU throttling, sounds like you need to contact support.

Question 5

Just got this item, and the windows 10 isn't activated, has a product key that's mostly XXXX's, don't see any documentation with a key to use?

Accepted Answer

If I recall correctly, I used the product key on the bottom side of the laptop, unsure if it is the same for all, but it is a red-green-yellow-blue colored note. It states it's a product key and linked to Microsoft/windows 10. Been awhile since I installed it, but hope this information helps in some way.

Question 6

If anyone has tried, how well does this run Dolphin along with games such as Melee? I'm looking for a laptop that can play those games well but I've heard they're pretty CPU intensive. Does it work well on a laptop?

Accepted Answer

I had to google what this is--the gamecube/wii emulator, right? Super Smash Bros Melee?

I don't know to be honest--but this laptop is way more powerful than a wii is. Should do well.

I play ArcheAge, a ridiculously CPU intensive MMO, and in large-scale ocean battles it's still possible for me to dip in to the 20fps range (down from a 120fps in arenas). Normally I only dip to 30.

But this game is CPU intensive, uses CryEngine3, and is incredibly poorly optimized. Might be the single most demanding game I know of.

I play Dragon Age: Inquisition on better than ultra settings... so long as I use post-processing rather than regular anti-aliasing.

Question 7

What kind of SSD comes with the computer? Is it M.2 or something else?

Accepted Answer

The drive shipped with mine is a 2.5" SATA SSD, however there is an open M.2 slot tucked into the corner of the bottom panel.

Question 8

1) What Ram spec does this machine require?
2) What maximum Ram capacity does this machine accept?
3) particular ram brand I should look for or is there a website to check upon?

Thanks

Accepted Answer

Either latency will work, but if you have two different ones the two will set to the slowest one (unless this has changed in recent history). This will have absolutely no baring on you if you're not trying to squeeze out every bit of power, so if it's something that could be important to you, get the higher one and hope for the best, and if it's not so big of a deal then go for affordability. It won't make the difference between playing a game or not, just a couple FPS if anything.

Question 9

Can play only CDs, not able to play DVDs.  Is this a driver problem and how do I correct it?

Accepted Answer

You will likely need to install a media player, though windows should already have one.

Question 10

Not recognizing web cam.  How to fix?

Accepted Answer

One of the function keys activates/deactivates the webcam. I don't have my laptop in front of me at the moment but I believe it was around F4. Just hold the function key down and hit the "F" button that has an icon that looks like a webcam and then retry any application that utilizes the camera.

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