G73JHs... Summary request to Learn from your experience

[Teitan]

Hello G73JH owners. Congratulations... and for some... condolences.

Well, as is usually the case for early adopters of tech, the pre-order launch of the G73JH saw units trickle in agonizingly slowly and after considerably stressful wait times some of these babies came home with issues. During the melee of eager anticipation and anxiety many a thread was started regarding various issues encountered with these machines and quickly those threads blossomed with replies, suggestions, confirmations of similar experiences and even other issues thrown in... in no time most of these threads grew too big to navigate. So...

I humbly request, now that the frenzy is subsiding, the owners of G73JHs to post replies to this thread outlining their specific experiences.

What modifications or updates you made to your configuration (hardware and/or software). If modifications were made did you do them yourself or get Xotic PC to do the work?

Have you encountered any issues? If so what are / were they?

What you think (or what did you determine ) was the cause of the issues? Are the issues resolved? How were the issues resolved?

Did you have to RMA? more than 1 RMA? How long did the RMA process take for you to get your machine back?

What are your current bios, drivers etc?

Share any lessons you learned or convictions made as a result of your experience.

Hopefully this is an all meat thread where we get a concise expression of experience, issues, fixes and gems.

Thank you for your time away from gaming on your G73. :notworthy
Cheers.

[Fingersniffer]

A2 model with 160g Intel SSD and Intel 6200 Wireless card installed by Xotic.

No issues to speak of, not even with the software issues a few people have reported are effecting my G73.

Only issues I've had is a direct result of video drivers (Mainly Bad Company 2) and the result of the game patches not of the unit itself.

Mine works 100% without any issues.

I've had my unit for a few months now.

[ChyrosNX]

G73Jh-A1
All specs are stock configuration
Memory: 8GB DDR3 1333MHz
Optical Drive: Bluray
Recovery Disc: ASUS Recovery Disc provided by XoticPC
Date Ordered: 04/04/2010
Date Received: 05/27/2010
BIOS Version: 206
ATI Driver Version: Stock

First 5 mins
Upon plugging and unplugging of the ASUS ROG USB Mouse, there's a single vertical line graphic that flickers quickly. Made me scare and thought that I might have the dreaded GSOD issue.

For the following days, I did some stress-testing and if no issues are encountered, update BIOS and VGA driver.

1. Stress-testing, gaming marathon
2. Update BIOS from stock version 206 to 209 (using USB flash disk and EZFlash)
3. Stress-testing, gaming marathon
4. Update ATI from stock version to 10.5
5. Stress-testing, gaming marathon

It's been 16 days and no issues at all except with the first 5 mins which I thought was a minor issue.

Be aware though that some people are experiencing:
1. Updating BIOS using the bios file saved from HDD will brick your G73. I used flash disk and EZFlash from BIOS setup and update went fine.
2. Some G73 owners are experiencing GSOD when updating to non-ASUS ATI driver which is the latest 10.5 version. Fortunately, I'm not experiencing this issue.

[gstboy]

got my unit back from repair a day ago. Just updated to the bios 209 without issue. trying to research a way to make the 5870 underclock when in desktop mode.

I had a question though, whenever I plug in my hdmi the screen turns funky colors before coming back to the desktop. Does anyone else's screen do this or does yours just turn black for a second before showing the desktop?

[ChyrosNX]

got my unit back from repair a day ago. Just updated to the bios 209 without issue. trying to research a way to make the 5870 underclock when in desktop mode.

I had a question though, whenever I plug in my hdmi the screen turns funky colors before coming back to the desktop. Does anyone else's screen do this or does yours just turn black for a second before showing the desktop?

No funky colors for me on both Plasma TV or G73 screen. They just turn black for a second.

[powerpack]

gst on underclocking the AMD GPU Clock Tool should work.

[Bling]

lots of crashing now in crysis no idea why really upset not sure if its an overheat but i cant beat the game now s angry

keeps crashing in same part n clue what to do

[gstboy]

No funky colors for me on both Plasma TV or G73 screen. They just turn black for a second.


Yeah that's what I thought is supposed to happen. I thought I was going to get another PSOD but it always comes back to normal so far.

Dam ASUS techs, they said they were going to wipe my hdd clean and test it thouroughly before they shipped it back. They did neither, my copy of windows and all my programs I had on there when I sent it in are still there, looks like they just slapped on a new screen and sent it back. Oh wells it works for now so can't complain.

[gstboy]

gst on underclocking the AMD GPU Clock Tool should work.

got it, thanks, are you underclocking yours on desktop?

[powerpack]

got it, thanks, are you underclocking yours on desktop?No at least not yet. I don't have heat issue so not sure what the thoughts are on underclocking?

[Teitan]

I give up... guys this wasn't a start another "I have an issue help me fix it thread"... this was intended to become a one stop reference for RESOLVED ISSUES so people didn't have to go through dozens of posts on any given issue that appear in just about every thread people start.

Thank you very much for hijacking this thread and rendering it useless for what it was intending to do SUMMARIZE the known issues and how they are resolved within the same post... with contextual information for troubleshooting.

I give up on forums where it is too much to ask that people show respect and courtesy for people as WELL AS THE SUBJECT MATTER... you get what you want at the expense of what others would like and could really use.

[Maverick494]

I give up... guys this wasn't a start another "I have an issue help me fix it thread"... this was intended to become a one stop reference for RESOLVED ISSUES so people didn't have to go through dozens of posts on any given issue that appear in just about every thread people start.

Thank you very much for hijacking this thread and rendering it useless for what it was intending to do SUMMARIZE the known issues and how they are resolved within the same post... with contextual information for troubleshooting.

I give up on forums where it is too much to ask that people show respect and courtesy for people as WELL AS THE SUBJECT MATTER... you get what you want at the expense of what others would like and could really use.

I hate to break this to you, but there aren't a lot of here is the issue and it was solved by this when it comes to the G73.

PSOD's: RMA is the only solution
GSOD's: Some drivers work to fix this and some don't seem to.
Creative Driver lockups (steam/skype/etc.): Uninstall the drivers, but you lose bass boost capabilities
Keyboard lag/light issue: Bios 209 update fixes this, but if you try and install it from your hard drive you might brick the laptop so use a flash drive.

You see for ever issue that has been seen so far there is either no set solution or they have issues in and of itself to the solutions. You are asking for set solutions that just don't have any other than the PSOD and that is sending it back to ASUS.

[powerpack]

What Mav said, and if you want to underclock your GPU AMD GPU Clock Tool is a very easy way. If that did not fit OP's original framework I apologize.

[gstboy]

What modifications or updates you made to your configuration (hardware and/or software). If modifications were made did you do them yourself or get Xotic PC to do the work?

Have you encountered any issues? If so what are / were they?

What you think (or what did you determine ) was the cause of the issues? Are the issues resolved? How were the issues resolved?

Did you have to RMA? more than 1 RMA? How long did the RMA process take for you to get your machine back?

What are your current bios, drivers etc?

Share any lessons you learned or convictions made as a result of your experience.

Cheers.

Sorry for taking the thread off topic. I don't see any options to delete your own posts so If I could I would delete the ones I posted earlier.

To answer some of your questions,

I updated to the 209 bios from the 206 using a flash drive formatted in fat32 with no problems. You may brick your laptop if you do it from the HDD or a stick formatted in NTFS

I had 2 RMA's first one was a direct replacement second one was a replacement of the screen only. both were for the PSOD issue. This current screen displays psod like symptoms but always reverts back to normal after a second.

I updated to catalyst 10.5 with no problems so far.

Also updated to the latest Realtek drivers dated 6/11/10. Not sure if they improved on anything but if you increase the recording or playback volume too much you will get loud feedback from your speakers if you close your lid to put the laptop to sleep. My solution for this was to decrease the recording and playback volume for the mic in the realtek audio manager.

[ChyrosNX]

Note to OP: I wish I could edit my first post here (third post from this thread) but I edit button isn't available. So I'm putting it here.

I have both the GSOD and Creative issues. So the fixes below are based from what I experienced and help I learned from guys at notebookreview.com...

G73 Issues Update
These are the issues I've encountered just yesterday (After 18 days of using G73). It seems that you'll only encounter these issues on special cases.

I. Creative Issue
Problem: G73 locks up on the following situations:
a. Accessing Control Panel -> Ease of Use Access
b. Steam-related applications such as Left 4 Dead 2 (after the 2nd logo) and Dragon Age Launcher (pressing any button from it)
Solution(s):
a. Uninstall all Creative drivers and apps (cons: you'll not be able to use Creative features anymore)
b. OR... Just enable CMSS-3D from Creative Volume Panel. (<- I highly recommend this if you still want to use all Creative features such as Bass, etc...) (This is the solution that I've performed.)
Source: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/488279-creative-software-debugging-thread.html

II. GSOD
Problem: Right after I encountered the problems with Creative, I immediately researched on how to recreate the GSOD scenario. It turns out that I have the GSOD issue, and it will happen after playing Dragon Age (steam edition) using ATI 10.5 Catalyst Mobility Driver at most 2 mins. I have other games such as Blur, Split Second: Velocity, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, Street Fighter IV, and GTA IV: Lost Episodes from Liberty City but these games doesn't GSOD on me no matter how long I play.
Solution(s):
There are three different ways to solve this and each has their own risk (except the first solution).
a. Don't use reference ATI drivers. Stick to ASUS-provided 9.12 ATI Driver. (cons: you'll miss out the latest ATI driver changes/enhancements)
b. OR... By underclocking/overclocking your G73. (e.g., overclocking from 700/1000 to 705/1100)
c. OR... Updating your ATI vBIOS using a modified ASUS vBIOS (by Xeven). You will still retain all features (except VGA CRT Out, as I heard) but also it will unlock ATI Overdrive for you to underclock/overclock your 5870 without using AMD GPU Tool.(This is the solution that I've performed.)
Since both have their own risk and you still want to perform either one of them, I would recommend you to read the whole thread rather than explaining a summary here.
Source(s):
Guide:http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/482491-gsod-fix-g73-owners-vbios-update-guide.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/488683-g73-cat-10-5-gsod-debug-thread.html
Modified ASUS vBIOS File (by Xeven): http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/482491-gsod-fix-g73-owners-vbios-update-guide-11.html#post6321889

Now to the FAQ
Question #1: Do I need this?
Answer: If you didn't encounter any of this problems then you won't need it. But if you do, ask yourself first if it worth the risk.

Question #2: Should I RMA on GSOD?
Answer: Some people says yes. But most of them are still getting GSOD after RMA. Third times a charm? ASUS tech said they have high RMA rate on GPU issues.