10.7 Ready for download!! Link!

It might be easy to explain why there are no newer Asus drivers than 10.1 from January. Most likely Ati has timely provided them with each new Catalyst release to base new manufacturer driver upon. However, because of the problems mentioned in previous posts here, all these drivers have crashed for Asus engineers as well and therefore not passed Asus internal testing for stability (provided they even have one of course).

The course of action has been not to release any new drivers over stable 9.12 and 10.1 stock and it is likely not going to change ever if Ati doesn't make the required software nerf to reference drivers making them compatible with poor Asus components.

I really like the above mentioned big notebook journal idea, we really should unite forces to make Asus finally do something to make their laptops function as their customers have the right to expect.

 

Know of anyone who has some influence or works somewhere like that? Would be nice if we could get a real article with someone known or something like that to be released.

Until than just write to Asus, and write about this on every forum you can think of. Its the best we can do to get some attention.

 

Maybe. But I would need a quality picture of a laptop with the GSOD...unfortunately I don't have a good enough camera for that

 

These photos Ken shot should do it right?
Permalink

 

I feel kinda depressed after reading this thread. I would like to do a full test to see if my laptop is stable or not. So far it has been very stable on 10.6 but I haven't really played enough games to know (except for creative sometimes).

so I need furmark? someone link me up and give me some instructions that will prove if I have a stable system or not.

 

Don't do it. If it works leave it be... I've never bothered to benchmark any system. I see no purpose. I have 15+ games installed and it's not crashed once since I setup 705/1100.

Cheers,

 

If you want to find out just download the latest furmark and run it for an hour or two (1920x1080, extreme burning, post FX, MSAA 8x). But once you find out you probably wont like your laptop that much anymore...

 

Update:
Asked ATI if its true every manufacturer chooses their own vRAM and PCB for making GPUs and if the reason for GSODs on newer drivers could be lower quality components used for the Asus GPUs that simply couldnt take the changed clocks in newer drivers.

Response:
Dear Customer,

Your service request : #
Response and Service Request History:

All of the OEM cards are built to specifications from the specific system builder. Only the chipsets is an AMD product, all other parts are what is selected by the OEM. It may be a simple difference of the memory manufacturer or how far they have decided to set the standard core/clock speeds on the chipset.

In order to update this service request, please respond, leaving the service request reference intact.

Best regards,

AMD Global Customer Care


So to me this would confirm that the most probable culprit is the different vRAM or whatever different hardware or chipset settings Asus chose to use for their GPUs than the competition (probably also the reason they were able to make the laptop cheaper), that is unable to adapt to the new clocks in the newer drivers.

So the only solution is probably to get drivers custumised for us with the old 2D clocks or whatever other changes in the drivers are causing the GSOD issues.
That means that every new driver that will come out would have to be remade for us (since ATI is probably keeping the clocks changes for other notebooks who dont have problems with them, but as they say run more stable on them), which i highly doubt will ever happen, the best we can hope for is probably to pester Asus to ask ATI to customise a driver for us every few months at least and for now lets focus to get a customised 10.6 or 10.7.

 

I've had my G73JH-A1 for about a month. After reading this thread, I upgraded to the 10.7 drivers off the ATI website yesterday. Here are my findings:

Downloaded full CCC 10.7 Drivers. Updated on top of the Asus drivers. No uninstall of the old ones or Driver Sweeper.
Room temp: 70*F

Furmark 1.8.2 Tests Results -



1st run:

Turned on laptop from sleep @ 1410 hrs
Windows 7 Visual effects, GPU-Z and desktop gadgets are on
Let the laptop idle for 15 mins, GPU temp @ 57*C
Started Furmark @ 1425 hrs
Crashed Furmark @ 1429 hrs with GPU temp @ 91*C. Screen showed lines, WSOD x 2, and then finally BSOD
Laptop restarts

2nd run:

Let the computer idle for 10 mins, GPU temp 60*C
Started Furmark again @ 1440 hrs (This time without GPU-Z running)
Crashed Furmark @ 1450 hrs with GPU temp @ 97*C. OSOD and then froze.
Complete shut down

3rd run - Successful:
Started computer @ 1550 hrs
Turned off all windows 7 Visual effects, GPU-Z and desktop gadgets
Did not let computer idle, started Furmark 3 minutes after boot @ 1553 hrs, GPU temp @ 58*C
Opened GPU-Z @ 1750 hrs
Closed Furmark stability test @ 1800 hrs, GPU temp held at 97*C through test and peaked at 98*C
Run lasted for about 2 hours and 10 mins
Turned on Windows 7 Visual effects and shut down laptop

Good run screenshots:






4th run:

Turned on the laptop @ 1815 hrs
Windows 7 Visual effects are on but GPU-Z and desktop gadgets off
Started Furmark @ 1816 hrs
Crashed Furmark @ 1824 hrs with GPU temp @ 96*C. OSOD and laptop restarted.
Turned desktop gadgets back on
Complete shut down @ 1830


Unigene v2.1 Short Test -



Started up laptop @ 1836 hrs
Windows 7 Visual effects, GPU-Z and desktop gadgets are on
GPU temp @ 59*C
Started Unigene benchmark @ 1843 hrs
Completed benchmark around 1850 hrs (had to step away from computer)
Ran Unigene in wireframe from 1850 hrs - 1900 hrs
No issues

Screenshots:







-------

No long hour in game testing with these drivers but I will try it soon enough with Crysis, COD and HL2. The only tweaking that has been done is updating the bios to version 209. On the day I bought it, I turned it on to see if it works than wiped the hard drive clean and did a fresh OS install with all factory Asus drivers.

Any thoughts?

 

That's all very interesting, especially about turning off the other enhancements, but I can't help thinking that improving the thermals can't hurt either.

 

I finally got my notebook back (~45 days out of my hands), installed the new SSD that I had waiting for it and re-installed Win7 with 10.7.

They apparently installed a new GPU and then it went back to PowerNotebooks for the IC paste to be re-applied (Note: PowerNotebooks was great during this ordeal and I highly recommend them, Asus was the issue for my long wait). So far it's looking good. No GSOD yet and the temps are significantly lower then they used to be. I haven't had a chance to really stress the system but raiding ICC25 in WoW only got up to 74 and it was pushing high 90s before.

Crossing my fingers that it stays like this...

This is my first and last Asus.

 

Chastity - I thought I would try an alternative approach. I'm going to do a second run tomorrow with everything turned off again and see if it works again. I'm overseas right now but I do plan on putting some IC Diamond stuff on someday.

HellCry - Can you try a furmark run with 10.7 with all windows 7 visual effects, gadgets and GPU-Z etc turned off? I'm curious to see if that helps anyone else.

 

Well, my pads should arrive today, so maybe I'll get my makeover on the GPU done over the weekend.

 

Screenshots are up on page 11...

Let us know how the pad install goes with some pics. I'll need some reference material lol.

 

What enhancements are we talking about - could you be more specific? I can try it if you tell me.

And just to note, i too had a good 2 hour + run with furmark on 10.5 drivers and after a reboot i got GSODs running furmark again... Could just be a fluke like at me before.

So could you repeat the test at least 1 or 2 more times with reboots inbetween to be sure it works with all that turned off as you said?

 

re-doing the paste will probably get your Gpu#3 temps closer to your Gpu#1 temps. Will probably drop your Gpu#2 temps down 10* or so. something is not right if it is shutting down at 96C though.

 

Hes not shutting down from overheating, but from gsods. Entirely different.

He could probably improve temperatures by repasting, but theyre not causing him issues.

 

Sorry, I should have said visual effects and not enhancements. They are located under, Control Panel -> Performance Information and Tools -> Adjust Visual effects. I unchecked all of the visual effects, turned the desktop gadgets off and closed GPU-Z for the good Furmark run.

I had some more time this evening to mess around with the laptop and with everything on, I left Unigene running and the laptop crashed after 10 mins. Played Call of Duty and again saw BSOD after 10 mins.

Looks like I'll be going back to the old drivers but before I do that, I'll run a couple more Furmark stability tests tomorrow with no visual efftects or background stuff going on. As for the variances in temps, I'll be re-doing the past and looking inside the laptop when I get back to the states.

 

Ok, let us know if it will be repeatable without GSODs. Would be interesting information.
But in any case i wouldnt consider it a solution to make windows 7 look like Windows 95. I just dont think i could live with that old look. Is pretty much the same as telling someone to use the old drivers.

 

45 days? Good God and people complain about Dell.

 

Ok, so I've been testing to see if disabling Windows 7 visual effects will help and below is what I got today. I'm not so sure now if the visual effects even mess with anything...

1st run - All effects on wth the exception of "Aero Peek" & "Save taskbar thumbnail previews"
Started Furmark @ 1552 hrs
Furmark locked up and OSOD @ 1643 hrs with GPU temp @ 97*C
Rebooted laptop and let GPU temp cool down
51 minute run

2nd run - All effects on with the exception of "Aero Peek" & "Save taskbar thumbnail previews"
Started Furmark @ 1655 hrs
Furmark locked up @ 1700 hrs with GPU temp @ 97*
5 minute run

3rd run - All effects turned off, desktop gadgets off
Started Furmark @ 1710 hrs
Furmark locked up @ 1712 hrs, with GPU temp @ 97*C
2 minute run

Maybe if I use driver sweeper and do a clean install I could be stable?? Oh well, for now I'm reverting to Asus 10.1 drivers. Hopefully one day they will come out with something that's actually stable without tweaking for these laptops.

 

WOO HOO! Updated to 10.6 and it seems stable (went through 10.1, 10.2, ect, all the way to 10.6). Tried 10.7 though, after a few minutes of gaming and Bass Boost enabled, got a GSOD. Just went back to 10.6.
10.6 is 100% stable so far with Bass Boost on and off. Ran the Unigine bench two times and a DiRT2 bench and no problems! My Unigine score went down a tad, but I think I know why (did it just after computer booted up) and there's a considerable increase in my DiRT2 performance (4-6 FPS highest difference. Average seems to have stayed the same).

 

Seams it doesnt work.. would be strange if it did since its a hardware/driver issue. Just keep writing to Asus... only thing we can do.

 

Or you can sell your Asus and get out while you can still fetch a decent price for it. You should have stuck to your D900. You can always buy an Alienware.

 

Get outta here Alienware dude! Shoo!
*Gets broom*

 

I had an even worse expirience with Alienware so im never buying from them again. Love Clevo though, i appreciate it even more now after getting this Asus, and if the driver problem wont be solved i will either put in a Mobility 5870 from a different manufacturer or sell it. I do regret selling my D900F a bit now i must admit, but what is done is done.

Will never buy an Asus again either. Sticking to Clevo next time, even if its a bit louder and heavyer. You just cant beat Clevos quality, reliability, great design (my personal oppinion, i like a plain look instead of flashy) and they have best laptop cooling on the planet...

 

I have been experiencing an increase of temps by 5C-8C on this driver. Dont even notice the increase in performance for VLC

Be going back to 10.6 Drivers later today, seems like they have the same performance gameswise for me.

 

Which model Alienware did you have?

 

Downloaded Catalyst 10.7, installed over 10.1. No GSODs after 1 hour of Starcraft 2, 1920x1080 resolution, all settings on Ultra. BIOS 209, stock vBIOS, all cores unparked. Here are my temps after an hour:

View attachment 53693

Ambient temp is 25 degrees C, and I'm using the ThermaPAK HeatShift 17 inch passive cooling pad.

 

89C max for memIO? Nice, I usually get 99C for memIO and 84C for dispIO after an hour of SC2.

 

*sigh*

SC2, watching cinematic GSOD.

 

Had the M17 Crossfire 3870, qx9300 (manufacturer model Arima W840DI). Dont want to start talking about what all was wrong with the laptop and how horrible AW was to me, so just do a search with my username in the AW section if you want to know.

And BKoolReturns, only an hour? Try playing longer or run furmark and youll see the issue...
DRevan those temperatures are pretty bad, i wouldnt suggest running your gpu at such temperatures every day... Your core is not so hot, but your memory IO is 15C hotter, which means your vRams have probably got bad contact with the heatsink (probably some lazy tech didnt fasten the screws enough or youve got a bit bent heatsink or poor screws). I had the same issue before, but after i redid the paste/pads and fastened the screws tight myself, the memory IO is only 3-4C hotter than the core at most, and doesnt go above 85C at usual gaming (and not over 94C with furmark, Ambient ~26C).

 

Well disregard what i said earlier. 5 minutes in to my second round of SC2, GSOD during a cinematic. Rolling back to 10.1.

And HellCry, I have no desire to run furmark. I understand it is the benchmark of choice, but I prefer to gauge and tweak my system against what I'm actually doing, not if it were maxed out.

 

Whell as i said youll notice it sooner or later even in gaming, but it shows up faster in furmark if its there.
I think my point got across though.

 

Point taken HellCry, but here is what DOESN'T make sense: all of my temps are good, well within reasonable temperatures. Yet I GSODed five minutes into a fresh game. I do not believe GSOD is a heat issue at all.

 

Furmark 1.82 Stability Test
1280x1024 0xMSAA (None only option)
Xtreme Burning Mode enabled
PostFX Enabled

Catalyst 10.7, 700/1000 clocks

30 minutes runtime Max temps:

TSS0: 76.5C
TSS1: 79.5C
TSS2: 77.5C

GPU repasted with IC Diamond 7

Idle temps are about 49-50C

 

I already said it isnt a heat issue, but a hardware issue - Asus using cheaper components for the gpu (vRAM, PCB...) which cant handle the driver changes. The only thing that is the same on every Mobility 5870 is the chipset which is provided by ATI, the rest is chosen by manufacturers themselves. Ive had this confirmed by techs and ATI.

 

Im pretty sure youre running it in power saving mode. Set the gpu to high performance and use 1920x1080 resolution and run it again. 30 minutes and one run is no good sample though.
As i already pointed out me and some other people have had lucky 1 hour + runs without a GSOD on newer drivers, but after repeating the test we sooner or later got the colorful GSODs again.

 

so we're bound to ASUS for a fix to this issue?

 

I had it in High Performance mode, and yes the app was reporting 700/1000 clock speeds. I can always run it again....

 

You sure? That seams almost too good to be true considering i havent seen anyone run that cool on the G73JH. You should be getting 18 FPS in furmark on the settings mentioned below on high performance - on power saving youd get much less so thats a sure way to know. Whats your ambient also?

All you did was repaste the same GPU? You didnt get a new GPU from a different manufacturer did you?

Please do this for me than:
Run furmark for 2 Hours+ with the following settings: 1920x1080, xtreme burning, post fx, msaa 8x. On the screenshot you have to show: the time and max temperature on the upper left side of the furmark screen, open ccc window with information so we can see the driver and ccc version, open gpu-z so we can see the vBios version and open date and time tab on the bottom right of the screen to see the time mark of the test. It has to be repeatable - at least 3 runs with restarts in between to see its not a fluke.

Can you do that? Should absolutely not worry with those temps if its so...

 

Yes, Asus just has to tell ATI about the issue and they will release custom drivers for us, but Asus is just ignoring this completely, so were out of luck.

 

You are idling 10 - 11 degrees cooler than me. Mine has always idled at 60 - 61C. I've never had a GSOD, though.

 

Hi everybody. This is my first post. I spent here some times. This forum is absolutely amazing, so many helpfully members and so many informative topics. Here below are some results and findings. Sorry for my English in advance.
1 hour Furmark 1.82 stability test post fx and extreme burning mode are on no mssa available with 10.7 ati drivers. Here min fps shows 2 cause i forgot to turn power option to not shut down display so it did for like 10 sec.

Imageshack - 1hr.jpg
Imageshack - 44min.jpg
Imageshack - cccfr.jpg

My videobios settings

http://img836.imageshack.us/i/vbios.jpg/

Summary max temps 94 after 1 hour running


Have done custom video bios flash (my version), redone gpu thermal paste (ocz freeze) didn't redone CPU thermal paste cause the stupid sticker on the CPU heat sink, but from what i saw on the original gpu heat sink CPU thermal paste redoing is a must too. Installed clean windows 7. Stock drivers but ati 10.7 and realteck R50. I own G73JH A3 bought from new egg for 1800 like 2 months ago and i absolutely loving it. The only con is the hybrid Seagate XT momentous drives that they used for the A3 version. They are fast but have problem with spin down function. Seagate released a new bios that address that issue but its only available for non OEM drives .Beside this little bump this machine is outstanding quality and performance wise.

Dirt 2 Benchmark

1.All maxed and i mean all options to max.

Imageshack - d2allmaxed.jpg

2.All maxed but post process on medium

Imageshack - d2allmaxedbutpostproces.jpg

3.All maxed but post process on low

Imageshack - d2allmaxedbutpostproces.jpg

Temperatures don't exceed 86 in games for 2-3 hours gaming(COD4, PES2010, Dirt2, AOE3....etc)
OK that is from me now hopefully this thread will be in somebody use. Later

 

For unknown reasons, the 10.7 CCC won't load at startup. It keeps giving me the message that catalyst control center has stopped responding.

Here's what I did:

1. Uninstalled the stock 9.12 along with Hydravision and AVIVO
2. Went into safe mode, deleted all relations to ATI using Drivesweeper
3. Installed Catalyst 10.7. Seems to install fine
(log says everything is a success).

Now right after it installs, it tries to load ccc.exe, and gives me the 'stopped responding' message. This persists even after I have manually rebooted. On the plus side, the 10.6's are running pretty well, (higher temps though).

 

Mine did that one time when I downloaded the regular 10.X driver instead of the mobility driver. I'm sure you didn't do that, but it will fail to load CCC every time you boot after that.

 

Well, I'm not going to run 3x 2hr furr runs just so you can be satisfied >) Also, I'm not getting any MSAA options other than None.

However, I did let a run go an hour, and restarted it so I can also setup GPU-Z. Here's an initial setup pic to whet the tastebuds:

 

Chastity run it windowed. Fullscreen wont heat it up nearly to the max. Thats the standard test. I also get the same temperatures on fullscreen. You also already said you got gsods so i dont see how you could manage 3 runs like that.

 

I finally broke down and ran Furmark. Chastity and Hellcry talked about it so much that I succumbed to the peer pressure. It ran for approximately 6 minutes with the temp rising rapidly from 65C to 105C and then creeped slowly past 110C and shut itself down with overtemp protection. I don't think that is good and I probably should not have done it. Now I feel compelled to drive to Austin and see if Fry's Electronics sells IC Diamond compound. Apparently one of the monkeys Chastity referred t pasted my GPU. However, I have played a crap ton of Crysis, Crysis Warhead, and Dragon Age with nary a hiccup or *SOD. Crysis gets me into the low to mid 90C range.

Does repasting the GPU void my warranty?

 

So what youre saying is you can run furmark as long as you want without GSODs?

Can you run it like i asked then please? And all the things i wanted to be visible on tha same screenshot not cut out in different ones.
Run furmark for 2 Hours+ with the following settings: 1920x1080, xtreme burning, post fx. On the screenshot please show: the time and max temperature on the upper left side of the furmark screen, open ccc window with information so we can see the driver and ccc version, open gpu-z so we can see the vBios version and open date and time tab on the bottom right of the screen to see the time mark of the test. It has to be repeatable - at least 3 runs with restarts in between to see its not a fluke.

I want to make sure its not a fluke like with my run and that its really repeatable. If so perhaps you hit a sweet spot with your vBios and i might want to try out flashing the same settings on mine.