Asus G73JH Random Lockups

OS: Windows 7 SP1
Hardware: Asus G73JH Standard build except 12gb of RAM

History:

Machine used to idle at 80c. Sent to Asus and now idles at 60-65c with little to no fan noise.

The only game I play is Civ V (needed the machine for four RAM slots and more RAM to run VM's not so much for Graphics).

Lockups occur every 1-3 hours or more, and windows error reporting shows the error as a blue screen. Physical evidence is a locked up system with no mouse, keyboard or screen updates.

I have been able to mitigate the lockups and keep them away by installing the updated realtek drivers, but the version I have is different than Chastity's version here: G73/74/53 Series Driver and Application Reference

The link to the realtek drivers in that thread is dead, and the version I have is 266 rather than 263. I would reinstall the drivers and the lockups would go away for about a week.

This worked from November 27th to about a week ago. Then the driver reinstalls would not make them go away. So I took the driver out and left the system alone with no drivers (and terrible sound, but no lockups).

That worked for about a week at which point (today) I recieved four lockups in about 2 hours. I reinstalled the realtek drivers 2 hours ago and haven't locked up since.

After reading this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/637253-g73jh-freezing-after-startup.html I was wondering the following:

1. If I'm using the correct realtek drivers to mitigate lockups
2. Someone mentioned uninstalling Creative software. The only creative software I have is "Creative MediaSource 5." Would uninstalling that help?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I really don't want to send it back in as this computer is critical for me as I take it on the road for work, and being without it for a week or two is difficult. Also, I'm afraid that it's not a hardware issue. I don't want to buy another computer if I don't have to, but I'm wondering if that's what it's going to take to get stability.

 

Like you, when my lock-ups/freezes plague my G73JH-A2, I always reinstall my Realtek Audio Drivers (to the latest one in my case) and most of the time, it fixes the problem.

There's one time that even though I have reinstalled the Realtek Audio Drivers, the lock-ups never stop (especially at the Windows log-in screen). What I did is that I system restored to a good restore point and on that state, I reinstalled my Realtek Audio Drivers and ever since, no lock-ups/freezes for me. You might try to uninstall all those Creative Software though Creative Sound Blaster Audigy IMO makes the subwoofer below works great.

Why don't you try to uninstall the Realtek Drivers then the Creative Software afterwards reinstall the Creative Software then lastly install the Realtek Drivers and see if it works for you.

One thing I have observed on my G73JH-A2 is that when I run the Asus Express Gate, after sometime the lock-ups/freezes goes back. Ever since I've observed that, I stopped using the Asus Express Gate.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try to uninstall the Creative software next time.

No lockups overnight, so I'm not going to do it until I get lockups again.

I don't think I've got Express Gate. I have reformatted my hard drive and installed my own version of Windows.

 

I use these drivers:

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/Audio/Audio_Realtek_SM_Win7_64_Z6016499.zip v3.41

and I've had no issues on several laptops

PS: newer versions:

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/Audio2/Audio_Realtek_SM_Win7_64_Z6016511.zip

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/Audio/Audio_Realtek_Win7_64_Z6016446.zip

SM packs have the SRS installer

case: 1636014