Asus Quality slipping?

I have an Asus G50Vt-X1.
As of this week these things are dead:
Diskdrive. (Just goes full throttle when you put a disk in, somehow freezes Windows explorer, also freezes Linux, tried bios, tried Drivers)
Headphone Jack Switch(Full speaker or No speakers now with the connector under the keyboard.)
Now there is this weeks biggie and the kicker.

My intel 5100 WiFi Card is shot. Really. What on Earth am I to do?!
(Tried Linux and drivers....)
So I looked up the cost of these parts from a few places and came to a realization.
The cost to fix these things is ~150$ plus I have to rip the thing apart to fix the headphone jack.
However the cost of a referb G50 by now is ~$550
How much do you think it is worth right now without any fixes, it's in perfect shape.
Sell it as a really cool Gaming low watt HTPC for $400?

Then the cost to me of a new one is the cost of repairing mine!
So that begs the question, I can get a brand new UL80VT for $650 or a UL30JC for $660, should I just get rid of the cursed thing and go this route? I am a College student looking for a little performance in a portable package.

 

That's too bad about your hard disk, but they do fail... the headphone detect is a common problem, you may be able to fix it by poking or prying out the contact, or there are registry tweaks to force it. Make sure your wireless switch on the front left (right under the palmrest) is set to ON.

 

The DVD drive is what has failed, The contact is gone actually and I tried that and many many other things, it is dead.

 

Did you try flashing the DVD drive firmware? It's on the asus support page if you go to notebooks and then optical firmware.

Also check that wireless switch for the wifi not working.

 

Tried both of those things.

 

asus dont make the hardware that you say fail, they assemble it. you just had bad luck

 

They do make that headphone jack and they do choose the parts.

 

they use generic parts you can find in many other laptops, they use well known brands and they chose and make quality hardware.

 

Asus' quality concerns me a little, too. My G50vt-X1 developed a horribly LCD bezel squeak probably a year and a half ago that I've had to take parts of the gaudy plastic off to make it stop. This is amplified by my hinge, which has more movement than a hinge should. This is partially because the lock-tite seems to have worn out on the left hinge, and part because most hinges are comprised with two contacts on each end, and the ones on this thing only have one. This makes the hinge more wobbly/loose feeling than it really should be.

This worries me because I'm going to be replacing my trust G50 in about six months and I don't know what to get. I'm going to wait and see what replaces the G73 (or if the G73 gets a new video card) and see if it has problems. From what I've read with system lock-ups, memory or northbridge issues, gray screens of death, etc that's just not acceptable from a $1200+ laptop.

That being said, it seems you can dig up a large history of problems for a variety of Asus' machines, so I'm left thinking maybe I should look into an MSI GX series or a Toshiba Qosmio or something else in the $1200-1500 price range.

 

haha...yup you should do that. Well you never had a g73 so you dont really know what your missing out on but ive had one for a year and i also have an eeevx6 and driver problems are common on all computers, except that most computers dont use it as much as a g73 would. Ive had dells, hp, toshibas and the best for me is without a doubt me G73

 

For the hdd's, they are seagate, which I would never buy myself but since they come with the notebook, I use them. They should fail, though. Where I think asus is dropping the ball is in with the motherboards. I have had nothing with problems with Asus motherboards, both desktop versions and I am about to RMA my G73 for a third mobo.

 

I'm not quite prepared to spend ~$1500 to find out later that same day my laptop can't do anything without modding the out of it. I'm all for messing with desktop stop, but I'm not quite sure that a vbios flash should basically be mandatory (from what I'm reading) along with a regular bios flash and a careful selection of drivers just to get your laptop to do stuff out of the box.

Sorry, but read some reviews (there are a couple hundred out there), a lot of people have a lot of problems with that line, and I'm more inclined to believe them given the (somewhat minor) problems I've had with my G50, especially when you have a 160+ page thread detailing the Gray Screen of Death.

Some people don't have hundreds or thousands of dollars to throw away, and when buying an Asus product I'm more inclined to completely ignore their warranty coverage since they shafted me on mine.

"haha", as you say.

 

vBios flashing is very simple and cures the GSOD problem. You shouldn't be deterred because of it. You don't need to spend any extra money on the G73 to get it working perfectly, and eventually Asus will implement these changes in production.

As far as the G73JW, there is no need for any modifications.

 

Do you think the posters here and such represent the total amount of owners of the models? There have been many who have no issues, or very minor ones and followed an update guide here, and never bothered to post about it.

And the GSOD issue was due to a design change in the ATI card, and an unforeseen timings issue. Many companies (see Dell M17x R1 for example) would fix it in a refresh, and tell you "too bad, buy the new one on trade-in". At least a fix was developed, and put out for the customer. If flashing (about 1 minute of your time) is too much of a hassle for you, or beyond your expertise, you are welcome to take it to any Asus ASP center and they'll do it for you, for free.

In my experience, some desktop replacement laptop buyers should have gotten portable game consoles instead. Some level of technical support is assumed on this kind of model, and many review sites ignore this fact. When my review of the G73JH goes up, it will be upfront about all its Pros and Cons, and will have information about expected maintenance.

 

Good to hear! I'll probably be buying my next laptop a bit sooner than I thought, so any info I can hear about the G73 will help.

And I never said it was too much for me, I just meant that Asus' as a corporation seems to have had a string of systems you need to mess with after purchase, which seems a bit much. You don't need to mess with a $500 laptop to have it function as advertised, so having to do so with a system that costs three times as much is a little disheartening is all I was saying.

 

You have to take into consideration that the same equal spec'd laptop anywhere else would be double the price. Asus are the ONLY company on this planet that not only encourage modding your hardware but also pay you for it. Have you seen the many different overclocking competitions they throw? maybe you should follow them on facebook. Also Asus are the only company that send qualified technicians in forums to help people with their problem. As i've said before, Asus and more specifically the G73 was my best purchase ever. And if you dont have the money, then why are you even bothering to empty your bank account for a computer, if you cant afford it, get a PS3 if you really want a gaming rig, for only 300$ you can get the best blu-ray, media server gaming rig available out there.
Also take into account that most people who reveiew laptops do so because they've had a bad experience with it. People who have a great experience have nothing to talk about. Everybody are aware of these laptops have problems, they are not a secret and their solutions either. So all you have to do is come on this forum and if you do have problem, read the threads and do everything cautiously.

 

MSI and Toshiba offer similarly priced and equipped systems. Sager does too, albeit they have a slight boutique premium.

I do follow Asus on Facebook, and I see tons of people on there complaining about how their is broken and calling Asus' support did nothing for them except make them send their laptop in for a month only to not be given a status when they call about the RMA.

I have the cash to spend on a $1500 laptop (hell, I could spend $2500 if I wanted to, but I'll end up replacing the thing in 2-3 years so what's the point?).

You're right, I don't see any other companies sending techs to forums to help solve problems. Then again, I don't see any other laptop manufacturer with anywhere near the amount of problems Asus has. We're not talking about "oh my gawud I hate Dell" type stuff here, we're talking system crippling video problems, system limiting overheating problems, feature breaking BIOS updates, etc.

I didn't come here to argue (although the more posts I read on this forum the more I realize that's a common thing), so if you want to be a Fanboy go find somebody else to talk to. I simply mentioned that I've seen several problems first-hand, and read many many more, so I agree with the original post - I think their quality control could be a little better.

 

I've had a tonne of different brands of laptops, and asus is no worse than any of them.

 

Again matt, you speak like if you own 50 machines from Asus. You had one bad experience and you closed the door to asus and from that point the only info you got was the negative info. I can't convince everybody to like Asus, i'm sorry for the bad experience you had but ive never had any laptop sent to asus because of problems, never had a single hardware failure and most problem i've had were solved within hours because of the Intelligent people that reply on this forum.

Also, please try to find and show me any other brand of laptops that offer an i7, 8GB ram, 1TB HDD, backlit keyboard, and ati 5870 for 1000$, id be surprised if you can. Asus does...

 

I don't know why this thread turned into a flame war, but if you were looking at black friday sales, some electronic stores had the G73JH for sale @ 999.99 non-refurb, but of course those were limited quantity (this is where I got mine for 999.99). The Toshiba line-up of gaming laptops have their problem, you can find them on their Toshiba support forum, if it still hasn't been closed down. I remember hearing about Toshiba dropping phone support for forum support only, not really sure what model it was though. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but all the laptops have problems. From a statistical perspective, the G73 seems to be having the most problems is probably due to the fact that it is the cheapest for the specs, so a lot more people bought it compared to the other brand of laptops on the same tier, thus making it seem like more problem is happening. I'll agree on the part that ASUS RMA can take months of waiting and their Support phone is a hit or miss. So is many other companies. Bad reps exist in every company, those that don't know what they're talking about or never bother to check past records or notes that might've solved your question. Having a bad experience once doesn't mean the next one will be bad. Personally, I've owned many HP laptops in the past, all of them overheated and died (HP Envy included). This was enough for me to stop buying HP products. Why? They ignored all phone calls of me wanting to get a replacement for my HP Envy that burned out when it was under warranty. The worst thing a company can do is ignore your calls. At least ASUS answers them, and if someone answers, something can be done if you keep asking for elevated case and speak to management level personels.

 

If a company ignores my calls, it can expect a well-written letter to it's CEO, and if that's ignored, a well written letter from my lawyer.

Thanks for clearing that up, though I still maintain that while "every company has it's problems" it's clear Asus has had more than it's hands full with the G73.

Maybe I'll just pick up the Best Buy model for twelve hundred, add a two year accidental and call it a day. That way when it's discontinued and the damned thing won't work I can just get something else.

 

Well the G73JH that BB is selling for 1200 is actually already discontinued (though retailers are still selling them). Kinda weird, but meh.

 

I want a 5870 for the Tessellation, but if I get a 460 I won't complain. They seem to perform about the same, and I'm not sure if either card would be fast enough to support Tessellationanyway.

 

I believe the 460M tesselates better than the 5870M, but I could be wrong (it was the case with the desktop variants of those 2 GPUs).

 

Realllllllllllllly.

Well if that's the case, it wouldn't make a difference either way. You mentioned the 5870 version is being discontinued - is the 460m version also being discontinued?!?! I'm still a good month or two off.

 

Someone in another thread just mentioned that he was told by Microcenter that the G73JW-A1 and -XR1 was being discontinued, but that doesn't mean the entire JW series is discontinued. Since they have the -3DE model just rolling out and the SW model using the 460M too.

 

The best brand I have ever owned, has got to be Asus. My g51 is sturdy as the day I got it. The palmrest is very comfortable, the chicley keys are great and it has never crashed on me ever.

 

i had a Hp Dv6 which was my first ever laptop.. horrendusly overheated and screen is screwed up.. My G73 was my second laptop and its been good.. I've heard the G50 being very doggy but no such problem with G73.

Panther214

 

I had a HP notebook for 1 day. I was looking for a gaming lappy, and the HP model had the specs and price for about what I was looking for. Then I brought it home, and discovered that they modded the reference design of the nvidia GPU. They underclocked it, and replaced the GDDR3 with GDDR2.

I returned it, and got a Gateway P-6860FX. This was then replaced by a P-7805u, and then a G73JH-A1.

 

Haha yeah, HP tends to put in cheap RAM too (ones that failed to meet retail standards) and sometimes they'll fill all the slots with say... 2x2GB if you have 4GB ram, 2x1GB if you have 2GB instead of using a single stick and then stating (Upgradeable to such and such, but you need to buy all the RAM again to upgrade anything as you have no free slots). I think they downgraded the vRAM cause of heat issues, instead of solving it, they decided to downgrade it to something that runs cooler and slower.