10.7 Ready for download!! Link!

If you wont tear the sticker on the cpu noone can proove you repasted it, so no it wont.

 

OK. Thanks. I think I'm missing some history here. You are asking folks for multiple two hour furmark runs to prove stability. Will your G73 run multiple hour runs like that without getting too hot or GSOD? Also, does anyone else have a G73 that will do that? Furmark appears to be one heck of a load on a GPU and I'm not sure any laptop can run that for hours on end without going into thermal shutdown. Mine is obviously screwed up. A person should be able to get past 6 minutes but I'm not sure six hours is possible. Do you know if there are other laptops that will run furmark at 1920X1080 with those settings at 18 FPS or better for hours on end?

I'm just curious as to where this is coming from. Is this like a group effort to find a properly pasted G73 with a vBIOS/driver combo that will run two hour furmark benches at will?

 

Yes i can run furmark furmark for hours and hours without ever overheating or GSODing on the stock 9.12 or 10.1 drivers.
But noone can run it as long as they want without GSODs on 10.5/10.6/10.7 drivers. Temperature is the same on those drivers though, so its not an overheating issue.

It doesnt push any computers i ever owned or built to their thermal shutdown limit, infact its far from that. On any other notebook i owned the temperatures were much lower, its the cheap hardware Asus chose thats causing all the headaches.

 

2:18:00 of Furmark

Just for a FYI: my windowed temps are about the same

 

Can you run it at 8x msaa and see what you get?

 

If I put a custom overclock and get it somewhat stable I can run this benchmark and Starcraft for hour or two perfectly fine no GSOD. Then If I close starcraft and open up another game or FFXIV benchmark it will GSOD in few minutes. After that I can't seem to get the system stable without reinstalling back to stock drivers and updating. Not sure whats up for the people who can run the furmark for awhile I would try closing it down and reopening up another game or benchmark and sees what happens.

Its a driver and hardware problem I think that is clear. I just hope to god ASUS does the right thing and releases some updated drivers on their site soon.

 

My windowed maxes at 94C and fullscreen at 79C and ive observed the same thing on my previous laptops. So how can yours be "about the same"?

So you can repeat this 3 times with restarts between or changing to a game and back without a GSOD? And all you did was repaste the GPU? I also see youre running an overclock of 705/1100 - does it also work like that without the overclock or does it than crash?

 

You cant run MSAA on 10.7 for some reason, dont ask why though.

 

It crashes at stock speed, but is stable with the overclock. I ran a 2 hr windowed mode, and I am still only hitting 80C. Here's another Furmark 2:00:00 Windowed 1920x1080 This was done consecutively with the previous 2hr Furmark, so I hope this satisfizes your curiosity.

TBH, I find it odd that you get different temps between windowed and fullscreen.

 

Thats normal, try running a game in windowed and fullscreen and youll notice the laptop struggles much more in windowed - youll see much lower FPS and higher temperatures.

I dont really understand how yore having 80C on windowed as well as fullscreen, but gratz, no other G73JH user has shown such low temperatures on their machine and i can tell you im sure mine has perfect contact, new thermal pads and good application of AS MX-3 TIM and there is a difference in windowed and fullscreen with mine as i said before.

If youre still getting GSODs on stock clocks the issue is still there. The overclock is again just a means to prolong the time before you see one, but im glad it works so well for you.
Id hoped youd restart the computer or play a little games in between at least, but thank you for repeating it on windowed.

And i tried running furmark on power saving and it still showed 700/1000 clocks so thats certainly not reliable.

And whats your ambient temperature?

I hope we will one day get customised drivers, but until than, i will keep searching for a solution to be able use newer ones without GSODs instead of these lame stock ones, even if it will in the end mean buying a Dell mobility 5870, flashing a moded Asus vBios onto it and using that to end my troubles.

 

There shouldn't be any temp difference between windowed and fullscreen. also it doesn't matter much what resolution you pick. It simply stresses the GPU 100%, so if you pick a lower resolution it just gives more FPS with the same load.
Anyway, 80°C is hell of an amazing temp. Really nice!

 

Aren't most GSODs caused by unstable clock rates/drivers? I doubt the cause is hardware if 10.1 have been serving you well.

 

And a pointless exercise if you ask me. If the laptop does what you need, plays the games you play and does so with great temps and a beautiful display, why on earth ( the planet of your choice) stress the system.

I see no reason at all to perform all these benchmarks (even though a small group of enthusiasts will always do so) when the potential for damage and more likely disappointment is ever present.

Cheers,

 

Thats what I thought they were caused by which means we just need asus drivers. lol and 10.1 has been working great for me today. Starcraft 2 is seeing almost 2x better preformance. But its almost using 100% of the gpu.

 

Ok so I tried to instal 10.7 drivers but it keeps failing... can someone tell me why this might behappening?

Packages for install
ATI Catalyst Install ManagerFinal Status: Success
Version of Item: 3.0.782.0
Size: 20 Mbytes
ATI Display DriverFinal Status: Fail
Version of Item: 8.753.0.0000
Size: 90 Mbytes

 

I get what you're saying, but the thing is under warranty right now. Now is the time to pour the coals to it and see if it holds up. You don't want to find out at 24 months plus one day that your GPU had crap thermal paste and was roasting itself alive. I figured I would push it now and if it smokes, send it in and get it fixed for free.

Note: I will not overclock. I don't see the point (no offense to you overclockers out there.) However, if my GPU can't perform per specification, now is the time to figure that out while Asus still owes me a properly functioning unit.

 

I understand your position. As a former owner of an nvidia 8600m in a MBP I too struggled with what to do. Many Mac users ran Windows benchmarks to force a failure and get a replacement from Apple, while millions of other users never even knew there was an issue until the card failed 2-3 years after purchase. Apple ultimately extended the warranty to 4 years for the bad GPU but you are correct in that many forum readers purposely stressed the GPU. I sold mine and bought something else.

I see the G73 as a totally different issue. ASUS says the machine works with the ASUS driver that comes with the machine. The reference ATI drivers are not supported and therefore are not really a legitimate reason to RMA the machine. If the enthusiast community wants better treatment they need to buy a different brand. ASUS strikes me as a decent whitebox builder that happens to sell its own brand. They have neither the ability nor inclination to support all their models with every reference driver from ATI & nVidia.

However, you get the most bang for your gaming dollar from ASUS so you learn to live with the limitations because: A.) they don't affect/bother you (or you can't afford a different brand); or B.) wait until you've saved enough money to get a brand that has better (more frequent official) driver support.

In the case of the G73, I don't see a ton of people (there are exceptions) complaining about temps. Even after hours of game play I don't exceed 80C so I think it's fine for me. I just cannot justify running any benchmarks that have no real bearing on how I use the system on a regular basis.

Note: As to the overclocking. My system ran fine stock. I only uninstalled the AV and made sure bass boost was off (it was by default). I only updated the BIOS to 209 and drivers 10.6 out of curiosity (something that violates my #1 computer rule; if it works leave it be). My first GSOD happened after 10.6. Overclocking slightly to 705/1100 fixed the issue (as did sticking the stock drive back in). I'm not dealing with an RMA to resolve an unsupported ATI reference driver issue.

Best of luck, and many prayers to all those folks who love to tweak, update and otherwise tempt fate with updating and testing their ASUS G73.

Cheers,

 

Hm. Well, all of your other points aside (many of which I agree with, or don't really concern me, like overclocking) they DO have an obligation to support their product. By that, I mean either putting out their own fixes or informing ATI (by the way, I still don't understand why it is so hard for them to ask- would it cause bad press?) of issues with future drivers. Stock drivers are stable enough, but still have issues, not the least of which is the inability to run FFXIV.

I would be very surprised if that is the only issue with stock drivers; and even if it is, users are missing out on several other improvements to their systems. Just look at the release notes for drivers 10.2 to 10.7. Those are a lot of fixes and improvements across a wide range of games to deny users.

I'll admit I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder over XIV, but I don't think it's unreasonable to be upset that a 1200-1700 dollar gaming machine is absolutely unable to run one of the most anticipated games of the season (if not the whole year). And again, I really don't see why it's so hard for Asus to inform the team releasing ATI drivers of the issues.

 

I agree ASUS should provide the level of support you and many many others desire. Each ATI release brings many fixes that we'd all like to safely enjoy. The sad fact is ASUS is either unable or unwilling to provide regular supported ATI drivers tuned to their implementation of the ATI GPU. I think it is now past time to either accept that and live with workarounds (trying not to cause other issues in the process) or move on to other manufacturers.

I own this machine (G73) because I came to understand Jobs would never give me an Apple MBP with a decent GPU and BD-ROM support. So because I travel for work I carry two laptops so I can play in between assignments. If the trip is too short I just carry the Mac for work. I now buy the cheapest refurb or Microcenter sale Mac laptop I can find since there is no point in trying to find a single Mac laptop that would satisfy my requirements. I do this because I finally realized Jobs would never budge (even if it only meant making a 1/4" thicker MBP) off his preference of style over substance.

My work HP still hasn't updated the Intel GPU driver from 20 months ago. Hp's response: Buy a new one.

Sometimes you get tired of banging your head against the wall and you'd like to convince others such banging actually hurts your head and not the manufacturer.

Cheers,

 

There's a couple of things I'd like to mention:

1) I have noted by several Asus techs that the G73 is suppose to be able to run the ATI released driver packages, which is one reason they don't crank out driver packages a whole lot.

2) I'm not a fan of Furmark for hours on end, but before I repasted, my idle temps were higher, and under load would hit about 96C while gaming, and Furmark ran it up to 101C in about a minute, and would GSOD about then, even with a tweaked OC for stability. Now I have run the benchmark for a total of 6 hours between various tests, with 2 2hr runs, demonstrates that the hardware is capable, but the thermal protection supplied was inadequate. I'll will be posting some pics of what the TIM looked like later. And I can assure you that it wasn't Arctic Silver 5, since I'm experienced what that looks like when it's been used. (The TIM used here wasn't that same dark gray AS5 has)

Besides, having so much thermal headroom offers some interesting OC aspects.

Too bad I have to buy a new keyboard. I guess I didn't remove it from the tape so successfully.

 

Panzer06, perhaps the laptop satisfies your needs, but it certainly wont satisfy real gamers and i think Asus has no right to call it a gaming notebook if we cant use the latest reference drivers from ATI.
If there was a notice - "cant use reference drivers and well never update them on our website" would certainly put off many buyers dont you think?

As ampedconfusion said, there have been a lot of bugfixes and improvements in the newer drivers, which some people just MUST have if they want to game, or at least WANT to have for a better gaming expirience and i believe theyre entitled to them either way.
I have never had a desktop or laptop that couldnt use latest drivers and i wont settle not being able to update them on this one either. No other notebook with the mobility 5870 has any problems with the latest reference drivers and its horrible that Asus ignores such an issue on their flagship model - but i suspect its becouse they know the culprit is theit lower quality gpu and dont want to admit it so they deny the problem altogether. Ive written tons of mails to them describing the problem in detail and they just replied with "you can rma it", just like i havent even written whats the problem and that just changing the gpu or laptop wont fix it.
And why would you want to update drivers for the integrated Intel gpu - was something buggy? That one is really not intended for gaming, so it shouldnt matter so much, but even there its nice to get appropriate support. My Gfs HP with the integrated Intel gpu can update to any latest driver though.

And again, we run furmark to check if were 100% stable. If youre satisfied not getting a GSOD yet in your games with such a temporary fix as a mild overclock (which is totally unacceptible to me - if it doesnt run stock its not fine, and that fix also isnt 100% either) thats fine, but i want to know that i will never ever get it when gaming (although i already got it in gaming so i know its not just furmark). Just dont call it pointless or "harmful" if you dont want to use it, its really immature.

 

You had a pre-Dell AW. Hardly indicative of what AW is with the current lineup.

 

Hellcry, I do not disagree with your position on what ASUS should provide to it's customers. However, confusing what should be with what is will bring you and those who desire that level of support nothing but frustration. Short of suing ASUS (not practical) or developing your own vbios and driver patches (which some have attempted) you cannot force ASUS to change their current behavior. ASUS sales overall are up. Many buyers of this machine doesn't even know most of these issues exist and have never even heard of these forums, updated a bios or loaded new drivers unless directed to do so because the experience a problem.

You are correct in expecting better. All I'm asking is are you expecting that which will never happen (at least not to your satisfaction)?

As far as running benchmarks are concerned I will never find it useful for me but as you point out some folks want to put their systems through their paces and determine the hardware's limit. I'm sure after testing several machines you may find some more able to perform in the manner you desire based on the natural differences in manufacturing runs but as a general indicator of longevity or suitability to purpose I don't ever see artificial benchmarks as an accurate predictor of real life experience. In "my opinion" they serve little purpose (other than to point out some potential limitation in my new gear) and can cause overheating that might never occur in real life usage.

It is the same in the Apple forums. The faithful want, Apple fails to deliver and folks are naturally frustrated. I just don't see these companies changing the way they do business unless people stop buying their products. I've watched people read these forum threads about issues in the product they intend to purchase and with full understanding make their purchase and instead of enjoying it for its intended purpose they try to see if their unit has some of the "issues". Such behavior is illogical to me but I do understand the reasoning behind the action.

Perhaps all the complaints and frustration displayed here will be acted upon by ASUS and fixes implemented (more likely ASUS will create a new model and expect everyone to upgrade). The only point I was trying to make is that we are unlikely to get a fix for many of these issues and it might be best to accept our lot and move on (enjoying what does work), or failing that, return or sell the machine and find something more suitable.

Cheers,

 

As i read the M17X-R1 had similar stuttering problems than my M17, and those were already under Dell, although i hear their support is more friendly, but still they couldnt fix the R1 problems, so the US users got R2s if they nagged enough, but here in the EU there are always more problems dealing with Dell support, so some users werent so lucky to get a R2 replacement. Dont know about if theres any issues with the R2 though since i stopped reading the AW section, you should know more about that. Its alot better than Alienware as i hear, but im still hesitant to buy from them/Dell again especially here in the EU. And theres the fact that the Alienwares have the loudest fans ive ever heard which just puts me off. Though its still a lot better working than Asus i guess so id take an AW over this any day... Anyone wants to trade me their M15x / M17X?
But the Clevos have absolutely 0 problems, becouse they seam to put much more work into making them run good and stable before they get into consumers hands and if theres any problem they fix it either with a software or bios update or a hardware replacement in very decent time and that combined with excellent cooling, and pretty silent fans (although still not as much as id want, but alot more than AW and most other high end laptops) is the best deal you can get in my oppinion so ive decided i am only going with Clevo if i can from now on.

 

I've been following these Catalyst threads for a while now. I've have had my G73JH (RBBX05) for about a month now, no significant issues. (aside from extreme suggishness for a couple minutes after booting... maybe something I installed)

I've Been leery to update the video drivers but just did so tonight. I updated to 10.6. I didn't do anything but accept the installer defaults to "upgrade".

Ran Furmark afterwards for about 20 minutes without a problem. Temps stablized at 95c. (house was 77f at the time) I played about an hour of Dragon Age after that without issue.

HAve any of you who are experiencing the GSOD tried changing to lower res.? I realized after I did my Furmark testing that my laptop was at a lower rez to display on my HDTV properly. I may try retesting everything again tomorrow at the max (non HD) res. that my screen can do. Just wondering if resolution plays any role in this.

I'll report back here after more testing!

 

I don't think it's anything to do with the resoulution. Even if it was, changing it from anything but max is unnacceptable so i would stay on 10.1 anyway.

Furmark may need longer than 20 mins before it crashes, try 20 min x 3 with a restart in between each attempt.

With 10.6, i could game for 6 hrs straight and not get a GSOD ... but then the very next day I could get a GSOD every 30 mins, or every 1hr the day after that. You need to really test it over a long period before you can say that it's GSOD free.

Anyway, keep using those 10.6 drivers and good luck with it.

 

Where do we get the 10.1 drivers from? I had downloaded the drivers from the Asus download page for the G73, but think those are the onler 9.x version? Thanks!

 

click on chasity's gsod fixes and resources, the link should be on there
And yeah test your machine for longer. I did three random 20 minute furmark tests and it didn't show up, only showed up when I ran for 45 minutes out of boredom to see if Hellcry was right. Though, temperatures are terrible on my machine memIO around 102. I definetly at least need to do a pasting job, but I don't have time until december sigh.

 

Click on 3rd sig link. In the software section.

 

I have g73jh and installed 10.10 with 8.782 driver.

The problem is when plug in 42 inch tv to computer, It displays like 40 inch.
Did someone have this issue with new driver?

 

HDMI? Go into CCC Desktops and Displays. Right click on the TV icon and choose "Configure". Adjust scaling/overscan option(s) to fit screen (usually 0).