Chastity's Repaste Experience

There is only a warranty sticker on the CPU heatsink. I'm not entirely sure what that means however. It seems likely that going inside is a very good reason for them to refuse you free replacements if you need service down the road.. It won't be hard for them to tell that you were inside. Fingerprint here, missing tape there, etc.

Don't open it up if you are at all worried about keeping your warranty.

 

Thanks to all of them who answered my questions Now wait for my buddy to come back...finger crossed

 

ASUS messed up and left a loose screw inside. Are they going to now deny me warranty because of their mishap? I haven't opened anything up and won't either and if I need a repaste I'll just send it back. Paying for CPU/GPU replacements later is very expensive so I'll just let ASUS open it up etc

So basically those who asked for CPU replacements through the reseller got their warranty voided?

 

the key word is Authorized dealer, If you got a CPU upgrade from one of these the full warranty is in effect. I am sure Donald of powernotebooks will confrim this info. God Bless ASUS. JOSEA

 

correct, just using the unit as is. Idling at 48C while typing here with it on my lap.

 

Asus allows their Authorized Service centers to do warranty work w/o voiding the warranty. For example, MicroCenter was willing to do my repasting, and done under warranty for free.

 

Just wanted to add, as you may note in the pics, that there was quite a bit of paste originally, and the heatsink wasn't 100% tight. (In fact, IIRC, one screw was not down all the way) Unfortunately, I think everyone's is probably like this. So it's not about the paste itself, but more how thick it's applied and heatsink spacing.

 

Chastity, is microcenter an authorized provider? I got mine from Gentech so woul d they (microcenter) do it free? I live 5 minutes from one.

EDIT: none of the microcenters are on the list on Asus's site or on teh RMA guide.

 

call up the locations to find out. some may only take them in and ship them out, others may do some work onsite. The one by me does work onsite.

 

OK... Chastity... I'm sure you already know this but when we sweaty nerdy guys go to Microcenter they don't offer to work on our laptops for free.

 

Soo... any chance that asus is going to do something about the thermal paste issue? Also, your temps are amazing but did you ever gsod with your new diamond whichamacall it?

 

She got GSODs on stock clocks after repaste. And Asus wont do anything about your paste...

 

I hope when I'll redo mine, I won't turn he screws too much to damage the motherboard

 

They are made so youll know when you cant turn them anymore (but consequently you cant get sufficient pressure on the gpu, or at least not as much as id like to and had on my previous notebooks). Thats the last thing you have to worry about. As someone said youd really "have to go hulk on them" to break something.

 

Oh man you don't know, when I bough my bed (in parts) and assembled it, I turned the screws so much that the "X" on them got damaged and you could hardly even unscrew them

 

correct, I still GSOD with stock speeds and 10.7. so far 10.7a is doing much better at stock speeds. On a side note, I noticed that while on Entertainment mode, and typing on this forum, I noticed the lappy was too quiet. I found that while idling at 47C the gpu fan turned off... and would putter back on only briefly. now that's "cool".

 

If we had a vBIOS that clocked down to 200 core and 300 mem with 0,95V on the core than the bios could have a different fan profile so the laptop is silent for everyone but...........

Asus has no intention so far to produce a different vBIOS and BIOS so we are all out of luck.

And there was me thinking that Dell had bad support. But the support for this laptop is really really bad.

 

The v3 vBIOS has a 200/500 0.90v setting

 

Yeah but I want one from Asus. I'm going to write a very negative review this weekend for a Dutch site where users can post their experiences. It's the least I can do for Asus non support and ridiculous behavior.

 

or you can use the v3 vBIOS and be happy I'd rather be happy.

 

LOL i modified the v3 some more but am not sure how to use RBE to edit fan modes. I'd like fan to run at 100% at anything above 80C; that would definitely bring the temps down.

I guess I'm in the 98C club. v3 and 10.7 I've been running furmark for a hour no gsods Changed stock settings on v3 to 705/1005 and edited the powerplay settings so that on anything except high performance on p4g its clocked at 100/200 and my idle temps are like 45C underclocked.

Really need to do repaste or change these fan settings.

 

even on stock drivers I can't get lower than 300 without a BSOD (it doesn't display the BSOD because the drivers fail instantly)

 

100/200 wont be universally tolerated. This is why 200/500 was used.

 

How do I edit fan speed

 

I don't think anyone's found a solution yet. I think there was a discussion and someone hypothesized that it's MoBo controlled.

 

last time I checked 300/200 is the lowest I can go. If I go lower I begin to get screen artifacts, can get a GSOD, or even a crash

 

I also remember something that CCC has a fan control page, like Overdrive, and it's disabled in the vBIOS.

 

UPDATE: Since peeps have been asking... I have the lappy on my bed, no elevation, so underside is totally covered. Plugged in and running at 700/1000 idling (well, doing an Acronis backup) Idle temps 54-55C

 

I suspect its the rams that cause the GSOD, try dropping your gpu to something around 100/500. If its stable then try 100/300. You you are not stable it is because you are making a drop that is too much. If you can run on 100/300 then try set it to your overclocked settings which for me is 705/1100 then drop it to 100/300. See how it goes

 

You can find tons of info about the GPU corruption info online. It is not a new issue. It goes back to the desktop Radeon 4870 (it seems connected with GDDR5 RAM).

If you get the GPU screen corruption (whatever color or lines you get), just RMA. Most of the GPUs will work perfectly. I've had a flaky one and have used several perfect ones. ASUS will not hesitate to let you RMA your G73 if you want to for GPU problems. They will pay shipping both ways too. Don't sit and wonder if some hacked BIOS will solve your problems because that's betting with your money and you paid ASUS for a perfect notebook.

I also seriously doubt that drivers will ever fix the problems because 1) they seem hardware related [read: hardware defect] 2) ATI has said that various drivers (like Cat 10.1) would fix it and those have come and gone months ago.

 

A lot of desktop 5870s had GSOD problem too and ATi fixed it with drivers...didn't they?

 

My desktop 5870 GSODed a lot in DragonAge when I bought it. A December 2009 update made the GSOD blues go away. These GSODs were actually always gray and sometimes had black pin stripes.

 

It is TRULY a great feeling when you take this whole laptop apart just to put one little dab of paste in one spot and it boots back up with a working backlit keyboard and operational touch pad.

I got it running about two minutes ago. I took pictures of the paste job that Asus did. I'm idling cooler. This dang room is hot, but I'm still about 8 to 10C cooler so far. Will furmark it shortly and see if it survives.

 

wdf?! why aren't we seeing any of those ?!?!?!?

 

i am shutting off at 110 due to heat in the FFIV benchmark

i am wondering even if i repaste and get 10C better it probably will shut off still and eventually reach 110C still...

should i repaste? could it actually help that much that i make it through th bencmark?

Do i loose wrranty if i repaste? i gather yes...??

 

I too am thinking if i should do the repaste. I have a tube of thermal paste sitting on my table. BC2 goes up to 94 for me. But i get the feeling i might screw up the laptop if i went ahead with it.

 

I'm picking up my machine today, and after all the posts on the topic...I think I'll ask them to both update the bios and repaste it....after making sure it's all official of course xD no point voiding the warranty on day 1 right ?

 

If your idle temps go down 10C, you will probably not reach 110C. Depending on how poorly the original TIM was done, redoing your paste will definitely help your GPU operate cooler while idle/under load. I mean, look at what happened for Chastity - I don't know what her max temps were before repasting, but her idle temps went down 20C after repasting, and her max temps were in the 70s (and it is considered normal to have max temps in the 90s while running intense games). So it very well could have been around 20C lower for both idle/under load. Which for you could mean that if your temps go down 10C, your max will only reach 100C, and the laptop will not shut down. It is not optimal to run a GPU at 100C for long periods of time, but it won't shut down.

As to whether you should repaste, it's really up to you. If you think your idle and under load temps are acceptable, then why risk the trouble? And you won't lose your warranty if you repaste. There is a sticker over the CPU so you can't mess with it, but there is nothing on the GPU.

 

i just finished the FFIV benchmark and hit a nice 109.5 Celcius.... too high i think

 

The thermal paste on my GPU looked like crap. It was very thick and putty like. It wasn't just thick because it didn't flow out. It was never going to flow out. My heat sink looked better than Chastity's though. It wasn't banged up like that.

The first time I ran Furmark with 10.7 drivers and stock vBIOS (before repaste), I hit 110C shutdown within two to four minutes. I don't remember exactly... I posted it in this thread or Chastity's thread where she was having trouble.

Anyway, I'm thirty minutes into furmark 1920X1080 extreme burning and post fx windowed. Max temp is 88C and it is dropping to 87C occasionally so I think it has peaked. The room I'm in is freakin hot today for some reason. I don't have a thermometer in here but I'm going to guess that it's hovering around 80F.

Anyway, if you repaste, I can wholeheartedly recommend IC Diamond. Very good stuff. It is a PITA to tear this laptop down so use whatever you think is the very best paste in the world. It's too much trouble to tear down for paste that you just happen to have laying around.

So for Hellcry: Furmark cooking right along. ATI 10.7. Stock vBIOS. No GSOD

 

Hi Jody, glad your repaste was successful. One question though, did you mangle your keyboard tearing it out?

 

Ya think?

/10char

 

I did not damage it. The metal backing on your keyboard is almost as thin as aluminum foil. OK, it's not that thin, but it's pretty close. It will wrinkle a little but not terribly. I smoothed it out and snapped it right back in. It works exactly as before. You would never know I took it out.

I unclipped it and pulled gently. You could hear the tape peeling away. I just gently applied more pressure until the tape peeled loose and worked my way from left to right doing this. I watched the disassembley video over and over to make sure I knew what each step was as I went along.

I didn't get as rough with the keyboard as they did. It wouldn't have hurt anything if I had. Going on Chastity's experience with her keyboard, I was extra careful at that step. I even took pictures of the ribbon cable layout before disconnecting anything in case I forgot how they went back.

 

My only question is: Did you bring your hot gf or sister?

 

I recently furmarked for 30 mins, 1920x1080, windowed, postFX on and extreme burn in.

I fared a lot better at stock clocks than when I tried to do it with my beefy OC (114c and shut the machine straight off).

But, I'm sitting at 99c max after like 25 mins... and I noticed that my fans only kick over from 30% to 100% at 96c.

So, everyone who repasted never has to listen to the fan whirring along at 100% speed? That might very well be worth it.

 

I noticed late fan kick in as well. Before I repasted, mine would overheat very quickly but the fans never kicked in until it was way too late. Something around 98-100C. I think the upcoming 211 BIOS is going to be more aggressive with fan speed and that will be a good thing.

 

It doesn't seem like it's a late fan acceleration.

Open up hwinfo so I can monitor them.

if I furmark in a window and hit 96, the fan kicks to 100%.
the temp immediately drops to 95c and the fan drops to 30%.

If I turn the furmark features off for a sec once it hits like 97ish, the temps drop and I can see this behaviour happen again.

It certainly seems like the fan only ever goes 100% at 96c+.

 

No I agree with you. I didn't mean that the fans kicked in later than they were supposed to. What I was agreeing with was that they should kick in sooner than that. That is just way to late in my opinion. I think we should be at full fan speed at 90C. That is just marketing crap to make them kick in so late so you can say the laptop is stealthy and quiet. I want my GPU cool even if the fans need to make a little noise to do it.

 

Agreed that it should be cooler. If you want your fan to kick at 90C by(MemIo), bios 211 can help you. They decrease temps for full fan speed for 5C.

 

I downloaded 211 when DRevan posted it both the 4MB and the 2MB versions.

I will probably upgrade tomorrow if it doesn't smoke any of the early adopters' laptops before then.