Asus G73JH advice needed please

Hi forum,

Since about a week, I am really looking forward to buy the G73, it looked just like the perfect laptop, except the touchpad. But since a few days, I spent hours on this forum (really good btw, looks like a good community) and I am getting scared about issues with this laptop.

I mostly saw about

-Creative corrupting other stuff
-Static sound
-GSOD or anything related
-FN + ESC
-Keyboard light kill after BIOS update
-Unstable drivers
-Horrible support
and minor things or rare issues we could see in any product (not 100% products are not defective is this world)

I was wondering if I could get some help on this.... I spent hours reading, but I need something brief. Will this laptop be a piece of trouble from day 1 to years later? Or it will run normally with no trouble except a few cases taht we see around on the forum... Right now I'm telling my self just to uninstall creative stuff, get stable drivers and everything should be okay. But I am scared. I don't want to buy a laptop that is supposed to be godly and that I'm gonna have trouble and will regretting it.

I need help, tell me if you guys are just unlucky or this product is really the worst laptop out there and tell me if I should get it or not. Also, If you don't mind, a little brief description about issues+solutions would be great, could make me make my choise.

Thanks a lot to everybody ^^

 

I had very similar fears. I'm VERY pleased with my purchase. You may have some issues. Maybe none. Maybe you'll get a lemon or you might get a good one.
Just the same risk as buying any other computer. But Asus computers are known to be solid machines, so I wouldn't turn away a great machine because some people have issues.

 

-Creative corrupting other stuff > Never seen this happen, there was a conflict issue with bass boost so turn it off. If you find some really bad issue just unintall it.

-Static sound > Not seen this complaint myself must be very rare

-GSOD or anything related > Again only a few people with this, most of them are driver related because somebody did not update drivers properly or used non compatible drivers.

-FN + ESC > Fixed in Bios 209

-Keyboard light kill after BIOS update > only a handfull of people had that happen as well

-Unstable drivers > No supporting evidence of this, that sounds false

-Horrible support > Asus has best warranty & support of any manufacture in my experience. Buy from a good reseller like gentechpc and they do all the work for you if you need support.


Think about how statistics work the G73 is the highest selling gaming laptop in the world hundreds of thousands of units out there. If you have 3 people mentioning a problem, that means you have hundreds of thousands of people without that problem. The net result is a very low % of flaws/problems.

National average for RMA is 2-3% for the G73 most laptops carry 5%+

 

Thanks! Did you have any issues?
I guess I am scared because of this forum, but right now I'm just saying "A forum like this is more for people with issues than for people willing to say their laptop is perfect for 500 pages" and that this is why I see problems all around the forum.

All I want is to be able to turn on the laptop, do my things like I would do on any computer, and turn it off after. I hope it with last long, with the cost it has...

Thanks for telling me this!

 

Creative issue - solved through uninstall.
GSOD issue - solved by either reverting to stock drivers, or using a custom vbios.
Keyboard lights issue - as long as you use EZflash and a compatible thumb driver to update the bios, you should be okay. A lot of people lost their kb lights by using the winflash utility or by trying to flash from their HDD, both of which are mistakes.

I have had my G73 X3 for over 2 months now, and after uninstalling the creative bloat, I haven't had any issues.

I updated by bios to 209 without any issues, and running on the stock 9.12 cats.

 

Hey Blackluc,
Welcome to the forums buddy.

We can all understand what kind of dilemma you are in. Personally, I think everyone who is scared to tinker with a laptop goes through this. I wouldn't say i dint go through it. but, yeah, to some degree. Let me ease the situation out for you.

- Creative corrupting other stuff-> Now that stuff is kind of common if you ask me. But honestly you dont need the creative stuff in this laptop anyways. Works like a charm without it too. If you are scared it might cause you trouble. Uninstall it when you get it. Otherwise there are workaround for you in Chastity's thread.

-Static sound-> I had this issue into the second week of owning the laptop. If yo do, here is a link which will fix it for you. Worked for me and has yet to see a sound issue.

- GSOD or anything related-> Haven't had any such issue for me. IMHO this happens to the minority who buy this laptop. Honestly, you shouldn't worry about this at all. if at all it happens, You can always overclock it a bit to find your stable clocks or even use a custom vBios. Easy job i tel you. And there are threads in here that will help you in case this(GSOD) happens.

- FN + ESC-> When you update your BIOS to 209, this issue goes away. If you are uncomfortable in doing so, Your reseller will do it for you. If you have to to it, there is a detailed guide in here which will allow you to flash it the right way and not have any issues.

- Keyboard light kill after BIOS update-> Haven't heard about one guy who got this issue who flashed the BIOS using EZFlash method. If you use WinFlash, i wont guarantee anything.

- Unstable drivers-> If you are worried about this, Keep on using the stock drivers. it is not mandatory to update your drivers for awesome performance. This laptop itself is awesome. Honestly, I am using stock drivers with BIOS 209 and have no problems in that front.

- Horrible support-> Every company as its own support related Hell if you ask me. Asus is not all that bad as you may read elsewhere. I live in Dubai an I only have an ASP here. Still I bought this behemoth and I will never regret m decision. If you live in the US, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT??. You have a lot of ASPs and RMA centres there. Have any problems, just RMA it dude. They wont make you go through hell for it. THe people whom you see complaining here are a minority. Like soo many has pointed out, the number of people who voice their concerns are a small fraction of the people who actually own this laptop and are satisfied with it.

I normally wouldn't bother typing all this much. But since I understand what you are going through, just wanted to reassure you that this will be one purchase you wont regret.!!

PS: Even after me telling you all this, if you end up not buying this laptop; I will hunt you down for making me type this much!!!

 

Thanks for the welcome!

Like I said this forum seems really great! Thank you and thank you for your help. I am really comfortable now in buying the laptop! Sorry if I made you type a lot, but it's worth it I live in Canada and there's Best Buy and an other store called Dumoulin who sells it. Dumoulin sells the real version so I'll buy that one and will ask before buying if I can RMA without any problems. I think I am getting scared because the laptop I am using right now is a piece of crap and I am updating every drivers when there's new, so I can get maximum performance even how poorly it is. For the support, I am scared only since my AC adapter broke and they had to send my computer to HP for 1 month, just to get a new cable -_-

Anyway, thanks a lot! I guess the first thing I will do will be updating the BIOS with EZflash (so if there's a problem I can return it immediatly) and remove creative software (I want a flawless sound but you guys tell creative is useless so I'll go for it) and if I get any problems, I will come here and search on previous threads.

Thanks a lot guys, hoping to get my G73 soon or else kenny_zero will hunt me ^^

 

Dont worry about me typing dude, was just cracking one. I'm glad you decided to buy it. You wont be disappointed with it.

One more thing. I know everyone will advice you to delete the creative drivers, including me. But if you want an honest opinion, Keep them until you encounter any problems. Creative is said to create problems with steam, its games & EAC. Try these out by installing and running hem a couple of times first before uninstalling. Who knows, maybe yours will work like a charm without any hiccups.

About the BIOS update, try to have Dumoulin's techs do it for you before you collect it. Will avoid any headaches for you in case you bump into any problems while you attempt it.
Just my 2 cents.

BTW...I was joking about hunting you down and all................Or was I??

 

Loosing KB Lights: Asus identified a problem with WinFlash 2.29 causing the firmware for the keyboard to go b0rk and loose lights. Requires a firmware update to fix, which is only available through Asus techs.

However, using newer versions addresses the issue. (So they say. )

Also, see links below for more info about some of the more annoying issues that may arise.

 

Thanks again! But I'm scared that Dumoulin uses winflash for it XD hehe. Well, I am now think about Best Buy... Dumoulin only sells A1 and goes up to 2054$ with taxes and Best Buy goes to 1921$ but Best Buy's one has a 1600x900 wich I don't like for the price. Anyway, I want the laptop for sure, but I have to check for money before.

 

That's quite a bit more than I paid... do you live in the yukon or something

If you're looking for an online retailer I'd say go with gentech, they'll really look after you and ship pretty quickly. Ken flashed mine to 209 and I've got great temps and no issues - vicious is one the first owners and he hasn't had any issues either. They're based in cali but that only seemed to add a day or 2 because customs takes their time.

 

Ive had the laptop for several days now and for a few minor things that arent bugs this laptop works great. Its not too heavy solid build. About the laptop bottum keyboard I was scared the other day i messed it up but I just turned it off with the key in the top left you have to function key it back on and it still works.

The only other problem im having right now is keep my video games in 5.1 audio through optical audio. For some reason it boots it down to 2 channel stereo (which if anyone knows how to fix please tell!!).

But the laptop is everything I expected it to be, youtube all web stuff runs quickly, I have dsl and was still managing on the stock wifi card 500kb/s which for any comp in my house is great, even better then a wired connection(funny thing I plugged the ethernet able into it, and it didnt give any speed boost). Ran HL:Lost coast at 59 fps at stocks speeds on highest settings.

 

Hehe, I'm living in Quebec... I saw some online retailers, but the only thing is that I prefer buying it in a store (Dumoulin is at 4-5 minutes of my place) and whenever there's a problem I can just dump it there instead of shipping it or anything... But yeah, I think I'm pretty convinced about the issues with the laptop You juste have to be unlucky to get some, as any laptop.

 

BUY IT. You won't regret it, so long as you get it from a retailer that will accept exchanges/returns in the unlikely case you have a problem. Don't forget most asus laptops come with a minimum 1 year warranty.

 

A month ago, I was in your situation. I took a long look at all problems the G73 had and figured if you installed/uninstalled everything correctly, there should be no reason (barring a random act of god) that the G73 break down.

I didn't mind whether I bought it online (but of course I hoped that I would get a good one without having to send it back to where it came from due to pay shipping) or in-store.

I can tell you right now that even though I've only used it a limited number of times, everything is running perfectly fine. Would I have liked it to generate even less heat than it does right now? Yeah, but that's being way too unreasonable on my part.

So the first plan of action was to obviously create the 6-disc Recovery DVD (wasn't provided) and then do a clean install after that + Bios update to 2.09. I have Creative installed but have not used any of the known conflicting programs/software with it. The freezing from FN + ESC was still there before the BIOS update, but I did this just to test it. Since then, I've swapped out a HDD for a SSD and did yet another clean install (probably did about 3 by now) and still happy to say that everything is working fine & well. No static sounds, no XSOD, no problems!

Do make sure that you are getting the absolute lowest price, I could have saved $50 if I googled "G73 best price" since ncix.com (where I bought mine) had a great low price, but could have price matched.

Location - Manitoba