ASUS Service Question

Hi All, great site. Thinking about getting a G73, I spend a lot of time on the road and want to kill some time playing games. I have had a Toshiba for years and have been immensely impressed with the repair centers one of which is very close to me. I would jump on the Qosmio x505 but am turned off by the screen, the asus display is far better imo. I have searched but cannot find any info regarding local service centers for Asus...anyone have any info? Thanks.

 

For North America, see: ASUS Notebook Authorized Service Provider

For models that come with a global warranty, see: http://support.asus.com/contact/contact_right.aspx?no=339&SLanguage=en-us

 

If I were to buy a G73JW-3DE stock, then buy a i7-940XM OEM, after the Sandy Bridge CPUs come out and the price drops, would I be able to take my G73JW-3DE to one of the service providers above to install the 940XM, and not void the warranty?

 

That's an interesting question, I think you might be able to pay one of the ASPs to do it, but I'm not sure. You'd have to call them and find out.

Of course you'd probably be better off just buying it from a reputable dealer and working something out with them. Many of them will do after-sale upgrades for you, without charging an arm and a leg like the ASP might.

 

When are the Sandy Bridge units realistically expected to show up?

 

Units as in CPUs are expected to ship around the time of CES, the 5th or 6th of Jan 2011, units as in notebooks with them from ASUS probably won't ship for another month or two after that.

 

Thanks. How much of a price drop to you think we are looking at on a XA1?

 

That's entirely dependent on inventory levels. You could see a rebate of a hundred bucks or so if inventory levels are high, but probably not on the XA1 which is a lower spec version. They could end up selling the current Jw models into springtime without discount, because even when the new ASUS models are announced, it will take a half century for them to start actually shipping. You'll need some patience if you want to wait for ASUS Sandy Bridge notebooks in other words...

 

Fantastic! This place beats the crap out of M3 Forum.com...seriously though, appreciate it. I'll probably pull the trigger now rather than wait.

 

Just one thing...the G73 isn't really the ideal laptop for using "on the road"; it weighs nearly 9lbs and is extremely unwieldy at around 2 inches thick, not to mention you'd be lucky to get 2 hours of battery life out of it.

 

G73 is more like a portable desktop. If you spend a lot of time in hotels and still want that power, it'd be fine. 2 hours of battery life is an extremely liberal estimation (YouTube will nearly kill it in 45-50 minutes).

 

Yeah, thanks. My job requires that I fly a corporate jet (no airline security crap) for 3 or 4 hours, sit in a nice hotel for 3 days, fly home...repeat. I think the size would be fine with a decent case.

 

Sounds like a fun job.

 

Depends, Marsh Harbor fun. Newark, not so much....hence the need for a decent gaming machine!

 

LOL Well, repair services (like health care) are better in ontario, canada than in indiana ... I wouldn't worry TOO much - with all the horror stories, I imagine they're not sending out bad units at the moment. Rather, the monkey who was doing the -poor repair jobs has probably improved...

Also, although sandy bridge does provide a huge bump for CPU speed (with similar clocks), a gaming machine lives and dies by the GPU. Getting a 940xm will probably still beat the pants off the 2720qm (or whatever the code is for sandy bridge quad-core entry cpus) at a much, much reduced price premium. And with the awesome cooling the g73 gets, I believe I've read stable overclocks at 3.2ghz on all 4 cores on a 920/940xm with no real increase in heat.

 

Thanks. Yeah I was mostly asking because if I attempt to install the 940XM myself, I'm going to probably break some sort of seal somewhere that voids the warranty. I think I read somewhere else on here that there is a screw on to top of the heat sink for the CPU that the Asus Tech's check first on returns; if that seal is broken, you are SOL. So, if I have to pay some guy at an Authorized Repair Center $100 to install a CPU, and still maintain my 2 year warranty for when this brand new awesome screen craps out in less then 2 years, I'll take it.