ASUS G73JH-A1 with ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 - Part 3

Jesus, I hope you guys are just unlucky (don't mean to be mean), it's for the greater good!
That's really discouraging, at least for me.

 

Well at least we all know we're covered for two years. The thing that sucks is waiting for replacements.

 

Yeah....and paying for shipping back and forth if you're an international (Mexico) customer.

 

While I am certainly saddened that yet another G73 pilot has been grounded, the pic with all the G73's abandoning ship and floating in the water watching their FAILSHIP sink is one of the funniest things I have ever seen

Damn it man, one by one, we are all being thrown overboard without a life preserver, and no idea when help will arrive. My reseller has agreed to a refund, if I want to send my unit back to him, and now I am contemplating it much more intensely. Since Sager has already announced the option to add a 5870 in the NP8690 and NP8670, I am seriously considering bailing.

Damn, what to do? If I wait 2 more weeks, my G73 will be replaced. If THAT replacement crashes and burns, my reseller definitely won't refund. Ugh

 

ouch, sorry to hear that

It would make me think twice before overclocking my GPU

 

Man, really sorry to hear that evensen. You purchased through the resellers IIRC. It's just surprising reading about this problem after the good numbers you posted up. Let's hope you get the service you need and deserve.

 

If this laptop were a real jet, it would be more like a B1. Stunning when it was revealed, deadly in it's capability, but hampered by technical failures and breakdowns.

As for Sager... No way, not for me. Call me shallow, but those things are the ugliest piles of plastic you could ever purchase. Complete opposite end of the aesthetic scale from the G73. And if the m5870 is the problem like I think it is, the same problem would exist in the Sager. I'm hoping the early run of 5870's has a small bad batch that can be overcome with more manufacturing.

Thanks for the well wishes all. I did purchase from a reseller and am going to go through them to handle this. I could call the trained monkeys at Asus and play their game, but I would rather have the reseller just get it expedited. I'm still working on that; I will let you know what happens.

 

Yeah, your analogy right on for those that are experiencing problems.

While I respect Sager and their powerful notebooks, I agree that they are hideous.

 

Except internally it's the most beautiful thing I've eve seen. Enough to make me want one.

 

I think I am going to just keep my new one sealed and sell it.

I can't handle alll of this $hit,really. So anyone wants a BRAND NEW G73, let me know.

 

Are you using the 10.3 beta drivers? If so, switch back to 9.12 hotfix and see if it still happens.

Edit: nevermind you tried various drivers. Try underclocking your gpu to 500/900 and see what happens. Given the temps the 5870 runs in the G73, I predicted there would be issues with it. I would recommend everyone else not OC their cards if they want them to last.

 

What part can't you handle? Dealing with newegg?

 

The part about machines dying in 2 weeks

And me having to deal with either newegg OR asus - pick your poison, really.

 

Unfortunately, yes. I had 2 hard freezes in firefox when I first got the G73, but overlooked them. I then got one in Google Chrome. This was all before the new catalyst drivers. I went back to the OG drivers when I reloaded (3 times) and am still getting hard locks.

 

So true, the Clevo's are easily the best in cooling. AW comes close with GPU cooling but doesn't get there on the CPU end.

 

Sorry to hear about your G73.

I like your sig but I can top that. Look what someone wrote about me before, LINK.

 

Dear Moron Elitist Pig Robot,

His sig is from a post that was directed at me by some angry old man that missed his daily dose of donepezil.

 

Don't get me wrong. Their cooling capabilities are second to none, they are just ugly as dogSh&^. Also, I think the m5870 is the problem, not the cooling. My temps never crested 76c even under load. It would have the same problem in one of those systems AFAIC.

I love this from that message drake:

"And acting like queen of britain golfing select club you banned and closed threads.

So.. elitist on the outside, on the inside.
Suck it!"

HAHAHAH!

 

Haha yeah that was hilarious ....

 

The major difference though in the Sager/Clevo 5870s vs the Asus is ATI will build the cards for Clevo and Asus built there own cards...

Im not exactly fond of the Sager designs myself until you open the bottom and see the copper mine they have inside the machine ...

 

if there is a problem with single card m5870, wouldn't SLI just accentuate it further more?

 

Haha yeah this forum is full of comedians, unfortunately they don't last very long but they do give plenty of entertainment while they're around. So you weren't exceeding 76C with that overclock you had? It's possible there was a bad run of 5870s, especially given that GSOD issue they seem to have. I guess I'll probably hold off on upgrading my 4870s until rev. 2 of these cards are out there.

 

Have you tried pulling one of the sticks of ram and only running 4gb?

 

Yea, those temps were rock steady even with a 100mhz bump on the core and the mem. My ambient temps in the house have been cool though, ~65-70F.

I really do think it's a bad initial run of m5870's. Obviously not all of them, but there is a tangible failure rate. I would wait too...

Trust me Jasp, I have torn the thing apart trying to find the cause. I tried the ram in all configs that I could get to boot, trying to see if one of the modules was bad. I ran the new Windows 7 mem test, memtest86 3.4, 4.0. No ram errors. Everything that is happening is indicative of a bad gpu. Any type of flash video/ some gaming is making it hard lock. Gpu fan goes into afterburner mode, and sometimes a gray screen for my troubles if I'm lucky...

 

Yeah, it was talked about. No one does because it's too much work to disassemble. Seems to have good cooling though.

Yeah, and disabling the page file will cause programs to have to use a lot MORE RAM, and generally decrease your performance.

Awesome find!

 

I saw RJtech is starting to sell the W870CU with the ATI 5870. Got my eye on that but I want to see what cebit brings.

 

Depends on the system.

 

Interesting.

I'll have to think about that even though I REALLY don't like Clevos......

 

The one wrench Quad threw into this theory is that Asus is making their own 5870's. It is based off of an ATI spec, but they are not coming from ATI. Since Asus likes to control the process and uses a reverse mxm standard, they have to manufacture their own. I'm not 100% sure about this though.

 

Well, let's hope the march 4th shipment won't have as much problem...

 

Yeah, hopefully the delays were because of them fixing all the issues!

 

My eyes are fixed on the X8100 if it gets 5870s ... I have a now free i7 920m that was given to me and id like to put it to use so im leaning towards a barebone one...

If none of this stuff pans out i may just move back to my desktop for a few months till Alienware does something else... Noise is my biggest issue though and why i love the G73 so much ...


The issues people are having are starting to spiral out of control and are no longer isolated to just a few people ....

 

^

Yup. Don't know what to do anymore. Maybe I'll just go back to the M17x and go to the gym to strengthen my legs so it doesn't kill me to use it on my lap.

 

I would have kept the M17x in a heartbeat but when playing games i cant be in the same room as other people because the noise levels are SO LOUD it disturbs everyone around you ...

Surfing the web on it though was quiet ...

 

Guess I'll stress the crap out of the G73 for the next 10 days and pray it breaks - that would make my decision easier

 

I still have a decent desktop at home, and a decent laptop for work so I still intend on bothering all of you every day. I haven't decided yet what to do. I may just return it, but I haven't made that call yet.

 

Just sell it sealed so you get your money + maybe even more back.

 

wow that sucks evenson.
Knock on wood, mine has been fine so far but I haven't been gaming on it as many hours as you, and I never ran benchmarks/stress-tests, or OC'd it. I've never had hardlocks like yours seemed to right out of the box more or less though either - that might have been symptomatic like you suggested.

 

I dunno man. I mean, I haven't had any exp with sagar but this machine seems to do the best job as far as cooling goes from everything I have been hearing.

With the added ati card in sagar, the better one comes down to which ever has the better cooling design. Of course, the g73hj looks a heck of a lot cooler.

 

Sager beats Asus by miles in the cooling dept.

Not to say the cooling on the G73 is bad, but think of massive copper heatsinks in the sager/clevos

 

Yeah.... One runs cooler and the other looks cooler .. Pick your poison ..

 

Even I would consider that if it had 5870s. I would guess the new M17x would be released with it before the x8100.

 

Based on the current info the X8100 might get the 5870s at Cebit ... Not sure if the Alienware will see them that soon but it could very well be....

I wont buy the M17x again though thats for sure ..

 

If the Sagers had a warranty that was comparable out of the box to Asus, I would deft consider them...but sadly they don't. That was kinda the one breaking point for me when I was still trying to decide on a new notebook.

 

I'm still searching for the "perfect" laptop.

Maybe someday I will find what I seek.....

 

None of us here usually keep system past 6 months maybe a year.

So warranties are usually last on my list

 

Let me know when you find it ...

I have given up on perfection when it comes to laptops...

With every machine out there today its going to be a give and take scenario sadly....

 

Let's form our own laptop company and sell what we would actually want to buy...

 

Really, well, since two people agree that sager runs cooler then I'll have to believe it. But I'm still going for asus. You get 8 gigs of ram and 2 hardrives for an insanely lower price then most.

 

in relation to how many units have been released, is the failure rate really high thus far?