Bought a new (1 month old) G73 on Craigslist for $750

I just bought a one month old G73 best buy edition for $750 on craiglist. It is either going to be a great move or a complete disaster. I saw the add selling it for $900. I went over to check it out. Not knowing anything about the G73 (other than that the specs rock), I ran Furmark to test the GPU just to make sure the computer wasn't broken (at this time I'd never been to this forum and didn't know what Furmark does to the G73). Within 20 minutes the laptop went to the Black Screen of Death and would not reboot. I told the guy his laptop had issues and left.

Then I went home and research led me here. I learned that Furmark frequently overheats this laptop and maybe his wasen't so bad after all. None of this changed that his laptop went to over 100c in a few minutes, but I figured it might still work. I texted him and told him I was still interested but he would have to lower the price since I was taking a risk. He said $750 was his lowest, any lower and he would rather keep it. Went back over, retested everything (except the GPU) and bought it.

It has the 209 BIOS, so I'm surprised it crashed. I am going to upgrade to 211 and check the GPU drivers. Hopefully I didn't buy a lemon. I'm taking a risk but the price was worth the risk (to me). Right now the laptop is running Prime95 multi core for over an hour. No issues, CPU temp around 65c. I know furmark will overheat the GPU, so I'm going to try upgrading the software before testing the GPU.

The seller gave the receipt so I can RMA it if necessary. It was sold the first week of August. Even if the receipt is a fake (which I don't think it is), the manufacture date is in June, so I've still got quite a bit of warranty left.

Any advice to a new owner?

 

$750 is a steal. As you said, even if it is a lemon, you can RMA it. I'm near positive that someone mentioned that Asus warranty is transferable. So as long as it's within the warranty period, you are good to go.

 

repaste your GPU with IC Diamond will solve the heat issue.

 

Update the vbios, it should fix that pesky Screen of Death. Just follow instructions here: GSOD FIX

 

Repaste and do the vBIOS upgrade

 

the original owner might have thot that he got a lemon so he sold it for a steal. anywayds, just read around the Asus RoG forum to know all about the problems with G73.. basically it all boils down to updating to the Vbios and lates drivers + bios. good luck

 

So far so good. Been running for 3 hours. Updated to 211 bios. Current idle temps of 48c CPU & 57c GPU. I'm trying to update the vBIOS but I'm having trouble w/my USB key.

 

Wow you are an extremely lucky person. Doesn't matter working or not you can RMA it and have Asus fix any issues for you! you got it for the best price I've ever seen for it

 

Ok, got my first crash. It is doing the same thing it did at the sellers house. It now will not boot up. When you hit power it goes to a black screen and it will not let you shut down. No ASUS opening or anything. I removed the battery and AC cable to power down. I will let it cool and see if it reboots.

 

I would also check if any wires are touching the reset button.

 

Where is the reset button? You mean the power button? It booted up now, don't know why it crashed, I assume it was heat, but I wasn't running anything that should make any heat.

 

It's on the underside. Open the access panel, and see if any wifi wires are by it. Off to the left.

 

I'm checking now. It crashed again. I think your on the right track. It cannot be heat, it isn't even doing anything to heat up and last I checked it was 50-60c.

 

If the GPU idles below 60, it's possible that the previous owner took it apart and did a repaste messing something up in the process. If he or she broke something doing that, they would know that Asus won't exchange it. Perhaps got rid of it on CL for a big loss since it wasn't returnable?

 

Ok, I checked the reset button. I moved the wires away. I can see how they could nudge the reset button or get stuck on them.

The first time I booted it up it worked. But since then it has not been. When you turn on the power button, the lights turn on, the HD spins up, but the screen stays black. Also the CPU and GPU fans are spinning up to high. I've checked the wifi wire again, no problem there.

Any ideas.

 

This is my biggest concern, that he was letting it go because it was lemon. I questioned him about it, and he said he hadn't done anything (but my wife tells me I'm terrible at ferreting out lies). I wish I could check. Is there anything on the case inside that will indicate it has been opened?

 

Try taking out the 3 memory sticks, leaving in just 2GB. Try booting with that. If it does, go into the BIOS and have it restore defaults.

 

No luck there. Same problem.

 

i would start by running a hardware diagnostics on the hard drive and RAM.

usually the first two things i check if i get random crashes and i know it's not heat related.

also do you have steam installed by any chance? steam and the realtek/audigy drivers don't play well together until you update to the newest realtek drivers

 

Just read this thread.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/484560-g73lh-1-boot-issue.html

Sounds like I may be trying the RMA.

 

That also cancels out any warranty - RMA chance too (unless the current owner pays everything out of his pocket).

As a general rule, if something is too cheap it is always a good idea to stay away from it.


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there is almost always a fix..it just depends on what you're willing to do..

do you have steam installed? lol did i miss that part...

i drove myself nuts for 2 days figuring that one out, did a google search and ended up here at NBR and saw that steam and realtek didn't get along.

also when you took out the ram, did you swap the single stick you left in with another? just to rule out that being the bad stick?

 

750 dollars is 750 dollars. You can get a nice m11x for that or close to a lenovo y460 brand new.

 

I don't think the previous owner broke it. This is a common problem, at least a dozen other G73 owners have posted the same problem here.

 

My first one did that. However, mine would still boot completely into windows... you just didn't have a display screen. HDMI and VGA out didn't work either. You could hear it boot right up and play the windows jingle. You could log in (blind) and it would play the right sound when the desktop started. I RMAed it back to NewEgg and they replaced it with another new unit.

Sounds like RMA time to me. I hope they fix it for you. It is nearly impossible to disassemble a G73 without buggering the keyboard at least a little bit. Look at the edges around the escape key, F7/F8, and maybe the END key. If it is raised up a little or the keyboard bounces a little, it was taken apart. It's stuck down with strong double sided tape and it gets roughed up a little when you peel it up.

I would give an RMA a go. You've got nothing to lose. The worst that would happen is they ship it back to you unfixed.

 

Looks like it is going to be RMA. I've looked over the keyboard, it is flawless, I cannot imagine someone removed it, especially after seeing how messed up it gets being removed on YouTube. I was hoping to update to vBIOS and see if that fixed it, but no luck getting the system to boot from my flash drive (my dell boots off it fine). Any suggestions before sending it in?

 

If you've got a bootable flash drive properly made it should recognize it - mash ESC after booting, not del. If you can't get a small menu on screen with boot options then yeah, RMA.