Asus G73SW-BST6, was it the right choice?

SO. Yesterday I was checking out my local Classified ads when I came across this Asus G73SW. He was asking $800 and I offered my Toshiba A665-S5177x and some cash. He said he wasn't interested in another laptop but asked how much cash I would offer.

Today I told him I was broke and probably didn't have what he wanted. After some minor haggling, I went to meet him at a local coffee shop to do the transaction. He tossed in a Cyborg R.A.T and a 7.1 surround headset for free.

It was 6 weeks old and showed VERY LITTLE wear that's hardly noticeable (Only on 6 of the keys; A, S, D, W, R, Space, and Shift. Typically gaming keys.), and It still has it's warranties and receipt.

What did I pay for everything, you ask? A huge, whopping, enormous sum of...

$485!!!

EVERYTHING works, I have had <strike>ZERO</strike> ONE issue(s), and I'm truly in love with this machine. It's replaced my desktop and it has near or more power than it.

I don't think I could be happier. Sorry if you are upset with this post, but I felt it made a good story, and might leave a few mouths dropped in aw.

So I guess I now have a good enough laptop to leave in my sig! Woot woot!

- Jesse S.

Before doing a clean install of Windows 7 Ulti I had a Unigine Heaven score of 520 at 20.1 fps average. High settings, normal tessellation, x4 AA. Is that decent? I don't quite remember what my desktop was getting.

I'll have to run the test again with the clean install.

 

The BB model has a gimped GPU in comparison to the online models but for that price? It's a steal, enjoy your laptop.

 

Man, you got an awesome, deal, hope it continues to work good. No doubt you will have fun with it. Yeah, like Kuro said, it has the 128bit 460m, but at $435bucks, any BB negatives go out the window.

 

Yeah I wouldn't worry about the (relatively) minor performance hit from the 128-bit GPU. That is simply an amazing deal on a great computer. I just dropped $1500 on the G73SW-A1, so I really envy you! Enjoy!

 

Yeah for that price you made a good choice.

 

Yea you freakin got out with a deal or he put a bomb in it.

 

Yeah, its SO much better coming from integrated graphics on an i5 2410m

I'll be happy for a very, very long time.

 

Yea, that's a really awesome deal. I got my bst6 off Craigslist for $650 and though I had a great deal. It was 2 months old and in perfect condition. The guy threw in a cm storm mouse and a new bag with the tags still attached to it and all paperwork and receipts. Poor guy had some financial problems he ran into, his loss my gain I suppose. I haven't ran into a game this laptop cant handle, but shhhh... don't tell anybody here on the forums, they don't like hearing that about the bb models. Oh yea... enjoy!

@jessekin Lol, I just noticed your sig. I have that as my sig in gmail, the geeks in the it department get a kick out of it at work.

 

Congrats man, I hate to burst your bubble, but have you tried to register it yet? And did the seller have a body guard called Big Angelo??

 

Haha, no body guard. He did not register it and he told me so when I was buying it. I did register it in my name and I'm all set for any assistance from Asus in the future

So no bubble bursting here

Ok. My first issue has surfaced. When I try to change the volume, brightness, power settings, or screen settings, the (I'm assuming it's: ) Power4Gear lags HARDCORE and takes forever to react. When I hit the button to change my power settings, it takes about 10-15 seconds to react; and if i push it more than once to cycle through it takes much much longer. Any idea whats going on? Does the same thing with the volume, brightness, display color, etc.

Edit: Thank you moderator combining my two posts. I was about to do it when I find out the "edit" button had no link Thank you.

 

Uninstall the ATK package and resintall the latest version. It's 1.0008 i think. You can get it from Asus' support site or Chastity's awesome reference page: G73 Series Driver and Application Reference.

Since you're kinda new here, you can consider Chastity as the goddess of the G series .

You can take the opportunity to update your momentus XT drives to their latest firmware as well as update P4G, drivers etc.

Also read this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/380681-asus-utility-bloatware-guide.html and get rid of the unwanted bloatware.

 

So I've done everything but the Momentus XT drivers and I think it's solved. I did the drivers from the Asus site before, but I guess the ones from the ROG forum fixed it. Hopefully the issue is gone. Thank you tijo

 

Yeah man great deal! The gpu is fine once you overclock it and with the sandybridge processor kinda makes up for the fact that it is gimped. I don't know why any one would ever sell a laptop on craigslist you can get so much more money on ebay lol

 

Happy for you!

At that price, even if it is BB, I wouldn't hesitate on getting it.

Regarding overclocking, I don't really recommend it even though I do it. It is possible that it may cause some instability with the laptop. But if you really want to do it, I say go.

 

You wont need the Momentus XT firmware. The bst6 comes with a Momentus 750. The momentus xt is the hybrid drive and is not equipped on the bst6, unless its aftermarket of course. The 750 is still supposed to be a pretty quick drive. The platter density on a 750 2.5 is supposed to make it pretty quick.

 

Thanks everyone for the feed back I think I will overclock it, I do have experience OC'ing desktops, but not laptops. Will I have to raise the Voltage at all? How much will OC'ing it cripple my battery life?

Thanks - Jessekin

 

Personally, I didn't raise the voltage on mine when I OCed it. I used MSI Afterburner to OC mine.

 

You actually cant change the volts at all. For ocing, just raise the the core and mem to around 775/700 and you'll see a nice boost in frames. Highest most 460m users have been hitting is 850/800.

 

Is it possible to find a normal GTX 460m and put it in? Or am I stuck with this "gimped" gpu because its the best-buy model? Honestly, I have NO issues with the gimped gpu. It's SO much better than integrated graphics from an i5 2410m. Not quite like my xfx 5870 xxx though.

 

Trial and error I dont think we have had someone try this however it is a good idea and it has the highest chance of working from the other reverse MXM chips that have been tested. The gimped 460m should be better than integrated graphics gimped or not its still a class 1 laptop GPU

You will only really notice the difference in benchmarking and higher resolution that make use of the lost bandwidth. It might be an idea to wait to see if anyone manages to get the 485M working in it.

 

Haha yeah, thanks for the tip. Because it only has a 1600x900 (which I don't really mind. It's better than 1366x768) I don't think it will need THAT big of a drive to run games. I'm content with medium-high settings at that resolution for the long run. But it would be good to know that I could upgrade the GPU for future proofing instead of buying a whole new laptop. I don't think i'll ever upgrade the screen, cause I still think 17" is too small for 1080p for some reason. The text at this resolution is perfect for me, and my eye-sight isn't perfect

 

Actually, Dallers, I think when cayocayo got a 128bit GPU in his G73SW because of some random, not supposed to have been there situation. Asus just replaced the video card, instead of giving him a whole new laptop. Don't quote me on it, but if so, that means all Jessekin would have to do is find an Asus 460m for sale(would think no one/hardly anyone would be selling one though).

 

I saw a couple on ebay a week ago, but just now checked and there gone.

 

I would say to this that is disgusting and for him to take it back to the person he got it from and lodge it firmly where the sun does not shine too brightly!

However...

I just noticed that he got it for $485 lol so no complaints there then. If this is the case as well that his card has been changed to a 128bit one from the stock 192 then more reason to confirm the straight swap will work. To be honest the only difference between the card are bus and power if they are the same size and the heatsink is the same then the swap should be very straight forward.

 

Woot! 50th post ;D I am now a GURU!!

I'll try contacting Asus and see if it's a possibly, though I highly doubt it's probable. If not, I'll just keep searching for a cheaper GTX 460m; or as someone said earlier, the GTX 485m.

Hahaha, yeah for this laptop being so uncoveted, there are sure a lot of people who have it For the price, I don't think I could be happier. That and I must say I REALLY love this chiclet-keyboard. So much more satisfying to type on compared to my Sidewinder x6 and Razer Lycosa-mirror.