Asus g73 hard crashes in video games

I've had my asus g73jh-a2 for about two weeks now. Some games (Starcraft 2 and Mass Effect 2) cause it to completely hard-lock freeze (In the middle of the action the screen will completely freeze, and sound will start skipping a few seconds after that), requiring me to hold the power button for 5 seconds to power off and reboot. It can crash anywhere from 15 minutes into the game to an hour or more. Other games, such as Heroes of Newerth, do not cause it to crash. I have tried updating my video drivers, but doing so didn't seem to have any effect on the issue.

Any suggestions?

 

download the latest drivers or rma it

 

I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but here goes. Does it crash when you go into Control Panel -> Ease of Access Center?

 

Completely uninstall ALL the Creative Labs software.

Problem solved!

 

No. I uninstalled the creative lab sound drivers first thing, so that's not the issue.

 

Is it possible that it could have something to do with the ac adapter? A few friends have told me that their laptops have crashes similarly because of power issues (CPU undervolting in some cases, but same idea). My AC adapter gets absurdly hot, almost hot enough to burn someone.

 

I have similar to Phlogiston problem with my asus g73jh-a1 model. After removing all bloatware and reinstalling latest 10.3 version ATI video driver, I have been trying to play couple of games like Crysis and Stalker. Problem arise after 30-40min of playing, screen simply gets completely freeze and then turned to black or gray allowing only rebooting by power button.... Overheating is not issue (CPU~58° and GPU ~60-64°C) I wonder if somebody has any ideas or suggestions???

 

This is the GSOD (Grey Screen of Death) from what I understand. Your G73JH has to be RMA-ed.

 

It might be possible...

My AC adapter gets WARM, but NEVER hot. I can easily pick it up and press it to my face and it feels like a warm hand (maybe a little warner). That is after hours of charging and being plugged in to the running laptop.

 

I don`t know what to say... I have just installed back older ATI driver version - 9.12 and now it works fine, no freezing any more...

 

Not necessarily.

If you guys are getting GSODs, uninstall the 10.3 drivers and try with the 9.12 drivers (the version currently on Asus's website.)

Can we stop this FUD? The "GSOD" does not automatically mean a defective GPU.

 

He is right. Try to download furmark or any other stress test. For many people 9.12 gives them more stability but from reading about the GSOD issue I still send mine to RMA. If GSOD happens with 9.12 your card is really bad. In the AMD forum people said 9.12 is underclocking the GPU with CCC.

 

That's quite a claim. Do you have any proof?

The fact is, GSODs are not unique to this Asus laptop, and people have been investigating the causes of them for months...ever since the 5800 series desktop cards were introduced last year. There is no definitive cause, and in general, it's become accepted that GSODs are not always proof of defective hardware.

 

I run FAH and the power brick, which would typically be sitting flat on the floor, would become so hot that you would not want to touch it with your face. Instead, I have it sitting on the window ledge and the window open and when that's not possible, I place it on something that keeps the majority of it elevated.

 

Dunno but mine ONLY gets warm on the floor 2 hrs later

 

That's why I mentioned FAH, as it's not the same as gaming temps. FAH runs the CPU and the GPU at full tilt from the moment it's started, until it's closed.

With both CPU and GPU at 100 percent, the power brick is going to behave differently. This is why I have a hard time believing that a GPU at 95 °C is considered normal. It's great that it goes up that high without shutting down, but it shouldn't be going up that high it the first place.

 

for GSOD here is an article FYI
www[dot]semiaccurate[dot]com/2010/02/01/ati-grey-screen-death-fix-coming-soon/

 

Here's a working link:
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/01/ati-grey-screen-death-fix-coming-soon/

 

thx
not sure if they fixed this since that post is in Feb, 2+ months past already.

I'm waiting for my G73 on its way to my place. finger crossed it has no issues what so ever...

 

Does anyone have a link to somewhere I can download the 9.12 drivers?

 

It must be on your driver's disc... if you have got it with a laptop

 

hello people...

i have an issue with my G73, today morning i wake up my lappy from Sleep mode, start gaming Modern Warfare2, i am playing on power4gear highperformance setting - its one of a small nubmer of pre-installed sw which i keeped on my W7.....

so i played maybe 15min, then i got GSOD.... everything maxed, full hd res, 2x AA

so i rebooted the system, ran furmark stability test for 10mins , xtreme burning mode, 1920x1080, the temp hit 93c max during this period of time, no reboot has happened, everything worked ok...

any ideas? Maybe its connected with sleep mode? am using 10.3 catalysts....

btw all creative stuff uninstaled...

 

I read that others have had similar problems such as you described with the 10.3 Cats. If it continues reverting back to the original 9.12 Cats may fix the problem.

 

it might be connected with sleep mode... just now i ran Furmark´stability test again, full hd fs,2x MSAA xtreme burning for 20 mins, temperature went on 92c after maybe 2mins, but was keeped on this value for whole 20mins... no crash

i also tried to ran MW2 again, i didnt get GSOD after hour gaming so..... temp reached 79c maximally

strange

 

That's interesting...

Because I have an SSD my machine boots in 15 secs or so, so I haven't bothered sleeping it unless I was on the move (and not gaming).

No GSODs or crashes (except when I was playing the overclock game)

 

In case anyone google searches this thread in a desperate effort to fix their g73, changing from the 10.3 drivers to the 10.5 drivers (in beta at the time of this posting, found a link to them on guru3d.com forums) fixed the hard crash I was having. Good luck!

 

Look in the events viewer and see what issue occurred when it crashed.

 

I checked all types of erros, the only critical one is Kernel-Power saying "The systm has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first..." of course because of GSOD, system isn't responding at all. There are no any other types of errors related to ATI software so far....

 

I wonder how did u get the 10.5 ATi driver version if only the 10.4 is in preview... Not sure whether this driver will fix.. it just some updates for games like BB, I read on ATI forums this bug is might be due to Win7 updates conflict...

 

Just send it for RMA. I got the same issue and custom service told me that it is a graphic card issue. I got my graphic card replaced and it works fine now.

 

I have the Creative drivers and Ease of Access works fine. In fact I've had no audio problems with at all, with games or otherwise. This sounds like another sort of hardware defect on some level.

 

Could be. How long have you had your G73?

 

I had my G73 constantly freeze (no GSOD) after 5 min every time I played red alert 3 or dirt 2. It was fixed after I uninstalled the creative drivers.

 

I've been lurking here a while and I've been reading a lot about the Creative problem. I've had my G73jh A1 since the middle of March with no issues. Running stock drivers and install, only uninstalled some bloatware and installed my games/Steam/etc. I have messed with the settings in Audio Center, but didn't leave anything enabled except the equalizer. Everything ran fine and stable. Just now, feeling adventurous, I enabled the Bass Boost, then started Steam (I have Steam set to not auto-start at log-in). Bam! Instant lock-up. Reset with the button on the bottom and reboot, un-check Bass Boost, start Steam, no problem. I haven't checked the other setting in Creative though, but this whole time I did have the equalizer checked.

 

You are, probably, right! But how can you be sure that it caused by bad graphic card and not a driver issue? I would wait until the official release of Ati 10.4 driver version. If GSOD appear again the only way is to RMA

 

In my situation, I didn't even need to enable Bass Boost. After doing several ASUS recommended re-installs, the pattern became clear that it was only a matter of time before the G73 would lockup.

Once the lockups started, I could go into Ease of Access Center and lockup the G73 on demand. That is, until the Creative (specifically Sound Blaster Audigy HD) software was uninstalled. Without rebooting the G73, the stability of the G73 went from near zero percent to 100 percent stable with Creative gone.

Sure having a equalizer with individual bands would be nice, but other than that the Creative software doesn't offer anything of true importance. And, seeing as how detrimental Creative was to the stability of the system, it's removal was a trivial fix which offered so much more with it gone, then with it installed.

Is it possible that the Creative software exposes a defect in the hardware? Sure, it's possible. Would I recommend installing Creative software to others? Nope.

BTW, you don't necessarily have to use the reset button on the bottom. You can also hold down the power button for 5 seconds.

 

Cuz I have the same issue...Everytime my G73 freezes in 5 mins after I start War3. I tried different drivers but cant work. After I send it for rma, ASUS just replaced my graphic card with nothing else changed. So I'm so sure (at least for my laptop) it is a graphic card problem

 

My personal experience : My Asus G73 was working PERFECTLY.

I played around with my settings, once I ENABLED BOOST BASS via the Creative Audio Centre , my laptop just FROZE anytime it wants to, I had to hold my power button to switch off!

So if you have Creative drivers installed, DO NOT enable the boost bass option!

 

I have uninstalled all the Creative Software and after that there are no problem going to conttol panel -> ease of access center, THANX!!

 

I have uninstalled all the Creative Software and after that there are no problem going to control panel -> ease of access center, THANX!!

 

My G73 shutdowns every time i play for more than 20minutes(Crysis WH, MW2) i think the video card is overheating...

 

This guy is really good at killing RPG/Gustav noobs.

 

Just to add here, my G73JH has had no issues with the Creative audio addon installed, ever since upgrading the Realtek drivers. (using 2.48) I also use Steam.

 

My G73 is only a week n half old . I removed most of the Asus bloatware have updated to ATI 10-5 drivers and am downloading the Real tech 2.48 drivers. I will most likely update Win7 to Ultimate as are the rest of my computers.
The only issue I have at this point is with the Dragon Age launcher screen no matter what I select from there the computer locks up and the sound does the jitter bug. Only way out is to hard crash and restart. I can go directly to the game exe and start game w/ no issues. As far as the crash I'm lost as to cause. Still in process of installing games. Any ideas??
TY

 

Hey I Got The Same Problem As You People !

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Hey People.
I've Just Bought One Of These Disasters With My Own Hands.
At First That It Was Running With The Asus Graphic Driver ( You Know The One In The Asus Website ~243 MB ) I Got The Gray Screen With The Stripes Everytime I Ran A Game, Even When Windows Was Running By Itself And I Didn't Even Ran A Game...
I Tried To Give It A Shakedown With The 3DMark06 And I Didn't Get Any False Screen The First Time I Tried It, But The After, That I Gave It The Test Again, It Failed Completely, Crashed.
I Decide To Read The Posts And Luckily I've Found Some Usefull Ideas Here...
The Things That I Got From The Posts Were among These :
1...Uninstalling All Creative Software ( In Some Cases )
2...Disabling Bass Boost Feature ( In 1 Case )
3...Sleep Mode ( That I Really Don't Got It What It Meant, And I Don't Know, Even Now! )
4...Using ATI CATALYST 10.5 Mobility That Supports Win 7 64bit ( I Found The Right Thing After Downloading 5 Different Useless Other Drivers - The Right One For Me Was The File With The Name "10-5_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe" And With The Size Of " 71.770 " KB -Seen In Explorer View In Details And Seen " 70.0 MB (73,494,528 bytes) " In Properties >> Size And Size On Disk, I Can Give The Link If Anyone Needed It, Anyways ....
5...Using 9.12 Ati Display Drivers !
And For This One As You Can See I Multi-Quted All The Posts That Everyone Said About This Weird Driver.
Look Here Is The Problem, Everyone Just Mentioned That It Works Perfectly With This 9-12 Driver Software But, I've Searched Everywhere And I Didn't Found Anything That Works With My Situation Which Is ( Win 7 X64 Home And ATI HD 5870 Mobility !!!
Actually I Found One Driver Software That Was 69.44 MB And You Can Access It Through These Links :

techPowerUp! :: Download ATI Catalyst 9.12 Software Suite Vista/7 64-bit

ATI Catalyst 9.12 Win 7 | Vista (64-bit) download from Guru3D.com

And One Other In Amd Official Website

You Can Find About It's Hotfix Through This Link :

ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix Win 7 | Vista (32|64-bit) download from Guru3D.com

Anyways People...

I Can't Install My Graphic System With These 9-12 Drivers That I've Mentioned.
I Tried Giving The Device Manager The Exact *.inf File Through The :
C:\Ati\Support\9-12_Vista64_Win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\Driver\Package\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF\CH_92499 OR C7_92499 Files
But Windows 7 Doesn't Accept It...
So Please If Anyone Of You That Said The ATI 9-12 Display Works Like A Charm, Have A Link Of Exactly 9-12 That You've Downloaded and Installed On Windows 7 x64 And It Worked ... Please Give Me The Link . Thanks .

And By The Way The 10.5 ATI Display Driver That Worked For Me As I Mentioned Before Has The "MOBILITY" Word In It's Filename.

Any Help Will Be Appreciated.
Regards.

 

I just returned two of these for refund. Spent a week trying all these tricks nothing worked. By no means am I an expert, but it seemed to be a GPU over heating issue. If there was a way to manually set/increase the fan speeds it might work a little better.

 

See "The Conclusion" section in my clean install guide (top link).

 

Thanks Kalim For The Conclusion!
I Already Got That Driver And I Didn't Knew That What Version I Have ( WHAT A NOOB !!!! )
The Major Problem Exist When I Had That!
I Think It Is The G73JH Default Driver That Was Already Included With My System !
Anyways, As I Said Before I Have Updated My Graphic System Sofware With The 10.5 ATI Display Driver, The Different Kinds Of Malfunctioning Still Exist.
Before I Update That, I Have Updated The System Bios From 206 ( I'm Not Sure What Was It, I Have ADHD ) To 209 With A Great Hope That Everything Work, But As Always, It Was Just Daydreaming !
I'm Super Confused !!!!
I Have Checked This Forum And The Asus Official Support Forum, But It Just Confuses Me More !
I Think Actually No One From A S U S Company Ever Sees And Checks What Problems We Are Struggling With, I'm So Disappointed In That.
I Couldn't Imagine That These Kinds Of Bugs ( In Some Cases Very Very Stupid Bugs!!! FN+ESC ) Happens.
Some Guy Says Something Works And Someone Comes And Says It Doesn't !
And The Worst Thing About My Situation Is That I Can Not RMA Mine!
I Have Got The Notebook Shipped From More That Thousands Mile Away From Where I Live Now. There Is No Way I Can Do That !
I Just Hope I Can Find Something Which Helps Me.
I Don't Like Modding The VBIOS Or Changing It To Some Other Notebooks ( Like Sager ) VBIOS.
Cause You Never Know That It Works Stable! ....Oh God, It's A Bad Situation!!!
I Wish That There Will Be Nothing Wrong With The Graphic System (Hardware Aspect)
And That The A S U S Fixes These Problems Through VBIOS And BIOS And Graphic Driver Software Updates.
I Know...
I'm Daydreaming Again !
( Weird ... I Remembered This Song ... You May Say That I'm A Dreamer !
But I'm Not The Only One )

Regards.

 

I'm not understanding what kind of issue you are having with your GPU. However, using later versions of the display driver which have the potential to cause additional issues is not the best strategy to determine underlining issues. So, perhaps it's best to start with driver basics and see if the issue exists afterwards.

What I would suggest you do is make sure that the ASUS 9.12 drivers are properly installed. To do that, you might want to follow stubbornswiss's G73JH Display Driver Update - Step by Step Newbie Tutorial. Only after purging all traces of ATI from your system would I then attempt to install the ASUS 9.12 display drivers, using the archive I suggested earlier.

You mentioned Creative earlier. If you haven't yet removed Creative, you might want to concern doing so now.