G51j Blue screen of death problems

That's quite possible, specially since Battlefield 2 takes advantage of EAX and the new G51J's are supported by EAX 4.

 

I'm a guy who play lots of online and graphic demanding games like cod 5,6 and also lots of mmos. This bsod problem really sucks and would it be enough of a problem so that I can barely play the games? Do you guys recomend this laptop?

 

I love the laptop, but am continuously getting BSOD playing MW2. Have tried extreme turbo mode, removed the eax software... and Im this close to putting XP on it (anyone done that?). Would I recommend it from my own experience? No... but i would love to - i hope ASUS come's and helps us...

 

Personally I love every aspect of this laptop and even though I'm no-longer getting BSOD in the games that I play there are a selective list of other games out there that do still give BSOD's which I have yet to try. I suggest you wait a litte longer and until ASUS releases a certain fix. There was a similar issue with the G71Gx BB version a while back, but ASUS looked into the issue and fixed it within a few weeks. Plus I'm pretty sure ASUS wouldn't lunch their upcoming G51J3D without addressing this issue.

 

read page 1.
not a single issue since.

 

Just the other day I was playing BF2 and was truly impressed with the audio FX. I guess some of it was the EAX kicking in. I should turn it off and see the difference.

Anyone here try Vista on the g51j and not have bsod's? Maybe the solution will be in an update to Win7 and not to the laptop.

 

Maybe the problem is the Intel Core i7 being too unstable with some games?

 

Doesn't it work fine for desktop systems? Or do they also encounter these same problems?

 

Alright
i decided im going to buy this laptop.
i hope its worth 3 month of hard work to get the money.

 

I have had the BSOD problem as well (124)
1 playing oblivion maxed except a few unnecessary shadow options: spamming fireball on a crab (max difficulty lvl1)
2 playing the Crysis demo med/high settings.

I have played Dragon Age max 4xAA for long stretches without problems.

Has anyone else tried doing everest log for the Asus CC guy? I spent a couple hours trying tonight but no BSOD. Will try again this week.

Would anyone care to guess upon how long it will be until a fix is released? Also is there any indication that this can't be fixed by a Asus update?

 

I've had my G51j now for six days. First thing I did was wipe the hard drives (after imaging the recovery partition for possible future restoration), install slipstreamed XP then clean OEM Win 7 as a dual boot (will eventually be a quad boot with Ubuntu and OSX added later). There were no issues whatsoever reinstalling all required drivers (sourced from direct manufacture when possible or downloaded the latest drivers from asus support site when not) and the main (read: useful) asus utilities. As a point of reference since some have mentioned it here, I have not reinstalled the creative EAX software from the driver disc as they've *always* had shoddy drivers and software as far back as I've had their equipment (mid 80s).

After OS's I installed all of the games listed below in both Win7 and WinXP and have played each for a half hour minimum, a few of them for multiple hours each (both of my sons and my daughter have been "helping" to burn the laptop in). Its basically been on for five days straight.

Not once have I had a blue-screen. We haven't had any issues at all, in fact. The machine has been rock solid.

So, I'm wondering if any of you have exactly reproducible steps to make your G51j blue screen? If so, I'd like to try it.

Here are the games I have installed:

Anon 1404
Assassin's Creed
Batman: Arkham Asylum
CoD4: Modern Warfare
CoD4: Modern Warfare 2
Crysis
Crysis: Warhead
Dragon Age Origins
Far Cry 2
Flight Simulator X, Acceleration
Galactic Civilization II, Twilight
Left 4 Dead
Need for Speed SHIFT
Need for Speed Undercover
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Wild
Sins of a Solar Empire
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Shivering Isles
The Sims 2, EP1-9
The Sims 3
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X
World in Conflict


And the benchmarks/monitors:

3DMark 01, 03, 05, 06
3DMark Vantage
Battery Eater Pro
Cinebench
Coretemp
CPUID HW Monitor
CPU-Z
Everest
Fraps
Furmark
GPU-Z
HD Tune Pro
PCMark 05
PCMark Vantage
Pov-Ray
Prime95
QCheck Net Bandwidth Mark
RightMark
Sandra 2009
SpeedFan
SuperPi
wPrime
x264 Bench

 

joined the club

so far I know: me, MichaelKW and ryzeki don't get BSOD while gaming

anyone else want to joined this exclusive club?

 

/joins club

 

The only games from the above list I have is Call of Duty 4. The only games I have and can test on are as follows:

Battlefield 1942
Battlefield Vietnam
Battlefield 2 -----------Tested with BSOD, but the problem went away
Half Life
Half Life 2
Counter Strike
Counter Strike Source
Day of Defeat Source
Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare ------Test with BSOD, but now also gone
Armed Assault 2

Hopefully when I get some free time at the end of the week I'll test a few of the games above and I'll report if I experiance any crashes.

 

@MichaelKW, have your personal army burn it in with CoD4. several runs at a few hours per run if possible on any multiplayer map/game (pauses in spec never induced it for me). iirc, it usually happened as i shot someone.

XP has been flawless for the past month, so it could be something with win7. no reports of other i7-based laptops (alienware, acer) with this issue.

 

My eldest played mostly MP Warfare 2 on this machine over the weekend. He played it 4 times if I remember correctly: once for a half-hour, twice for around an hour and a half and one three-four hour session. Is it the original CoD4 that you have the issue with or warfare 2? If the first, I'll see if he's interested in logging some more time with it (if he gets his homework done early tomorrow)... I'm sure it'll be a tough sell.

 

only MW1 has issues for me, even though both MW1 and MW2 are on the same engine. and even then most of the time it runs for hours until i quit.

no need to go out of your way to check, especially since theres a small chance (in my experience) that it would happen.


edit: one thing to check if you have 20 mins; fire up prime95 and have it do some FFT calcs, check with HWmonitor that CPU temps are increasing and the wattage is at 55, then run furmark with xtreme burn (4x AA, 1440x900, windowed). does the CPU drop to 15W as soon as furmark starts? (and returns to 55 when paused?)

 

I get a BSOD while playing Modern Warfare 2 anywhere from 30 minutes in to several hours in. I have the 204 bios and latest nvidia drivers.

Sometimes, during a blue screen, my hardware makes weird vibrating noises and I hold the power button to power off.

 

could the voltage change just be Intel's vdroop? I've heard that the i7's are voltage sensitive...i'm no expert on this stuff but you can read about vdroop here http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=126

EDIT: Also, I've clocked in several hours with Dragon Age with no BSOD, seems like that game is generally safe...

 

No problem checking, thalanix... I'd like to force my system into a bsod so I know where its coming from, if possible.

As for prime95 and furmark, indeed the cpu does drop back to normal idle wattage of 15 when furmark is run. That is a good thing:

During light cpu usage (web browsing, etc), the cpu temps average around 50c and it is clocked at 933Mhz with a 7.0 multiplier. The 260M is throttled down to 200/120 Mhz core/mem and runs around 61c. Exactly what you'd want your CPU and GPU to be doing when a lot of power isn't required (if a bit too high temps to start with):



Once all four cores of the CPU are stressed, like running Prime95 for five minutes, the CPU averages 85c and is clocked at the 4-core standard of 1.7 GHz with a 13.0 multiplier. The GPU, even though its not being stressed and is still clocked at 200/120 MHz, has raised in temp to 71c, a full 10 degree jump. That makes sense because the CPU and GPU share the same cooling mechanism and fan on the G51j:



Now start stressing the GPU to the max with FurMark and the CPU is throttled down to normal idle rates at 933MHz with a 7.0 multiplier. Thankfully, since the GPU is now heating up, the CPU temps drop to an average of 67c instead of 85c, even though Prime95 is still running. The GPU, of course, really heats up running at 500/800MHz core/mem with an average temp of 92c once stabilized:



In my estimation, the G51j is doing exactly what its supposed to do to keep the CPU and GPU within reasonable temperatures considering they share the same fan, etc. This behavior is what we need on a good gaming laptop.

Thats my 2c analysis, at least.

 

it would seem more like inadequate cooling or power to me, most likely the latter as a 75W gpu + 55W cpu + extra for peripherals > 120W power brick (going from memory, could be wrong).

a sudden drop in power very well could be the cause of crashing/bsod, but MW1 and borderlands are hardly at the demanding end of the spectrum.

 

I guess I would agree that there has been a design tradeoff made between number of fans/noise and pushing the hardware to its max. Asus seemed to want a somewhat quiet and subdued design with some of the best components out there, but traded a bit of performance to get there. I personally like the tradeoff as I don't enjoy using something like the Alienware as an example instead: its too bulky, loud and "out there" in design.

To each their own of course, but throttling the CPU when the GPU is being pushed to the max to keep temps in a manageable range seems a decent design to me.

As for the bsods: I can't see how clock gating of the CPU could cause the crashes as its done hundreds of times a second all the time on the i7. If anything, I'd think its the extreme heat of the GPU on this deck. Although, as stated before, I personally haven't had any bsod's yet. But I'm trying.

Thanks for your feedback, its appreciated.

 

it would depend on what handled the drop. normally it would be ACPI-issued, and have no direct effect on operations. in this case it might be a loss of power type of interrupt, which in win7 could be programmed to mean a power supply issue, hence the 124 uncorrectable hardware stop.

but i just don't see games like MW1 or borderlands pushing it that far, and would also expect prime/furmark to trigger it.

 

Strange. Theres only three moving parts in the deck, cooling fan, hard drive(s) and optical drive. Does the vibration sound like the fan, only going crazy?

 

I think it's the optical drive. When I installed asus driver and utility from their provided disk, the optical drive vibrate alot. I thought there's something wrong with my optical drive, but when i insert other disk in it after installation, there's no more vibrating effect.

 

Yes, it is a heavy vibration noise. Everytime it happens, I freak out and hold the power button.

 

Yeah, I've had that extreme vibration during install of some games as well. I didn't take much notice of it because most notebook optical drives are pretty noisy, but this particular model does seem excessive at times. I just can't imagine why it'd be spinning up to full speed during a bsod... that seems strange.

 

i don't recall the drive being excessively noisy while installing ubuntu. pretty much average compared to my old g50.

 

Hi All,

Alot of information to sift through, but rest assured we are investigating this issue.

In regards to the COD4 and MW2, BSODs - Do they occur during online or singleplayer gaming? We would like to approach all possible issues and address them accordingly. Also, please PM your everest logs, dxdiag logs any logs that you feel useful to getting the issue resolved. Also may we request driver versions used for chipset, vga, audio.

The unit does show significant vibration from the ODD. We are not aware of a firmware update in the works at this time to reduce that.

 

attachments in PM's are disabled, so i attached it here. no changes in dmesg etc from page 7 -> http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5517801&postcount=72

- DxDiag.txt (32,497B) -> from win7, before starting CoD4 mp @ 64.1.29.15:28960 [MwG 24/7 Broadcast]
- HWmonitor report (58,121B)
- GPU-Z temp data (46,930B) -> while playing until it bluescreened 5 minutes in
- Everest report (993,860B)

forceware = 195.62, audio = R2.37 (maybe 2.35, idr), chipset = whatever was most recent on november 8th.

 

Good to hear Asus are still on top of this BSOD problem, hope they get it fixed for the users who are suffering from it.

 

Well, I've played MW1 MP for just under three hours this evening (my boys actually didn't want to play... better things to do I guess).

I didn't have a BSOD, but I did have my first glitch on this machine. It froze with a repeating loop of sound. I successfully ctrl-alt-deleted and ran Task Manager and was about to kill the process when the looping sound all of a sudden kicked back to normal again. Alt-tabbed to MW1 and it was playing fine again. Kept playing for about another hour or so.

So, no blue screen but did have a weird lock-up for about 30 seconds before it 'fixed' itself. Otherwise, no issues.

 

I only play the multiplayer aspect of MW2 and I'm running bios 204 with all the default drivers from the asus website.

 

what if you disable ATKACPI, for those that have it installed. either in device manager, or HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MTsensor start -> 4. will post my results later tonight/tomorrow.

that (and bluetooth) are the only things i installed over top an RTM disc, and all signs point to software.

ive never had cod crash on 7, but that sounds about right for when it crashes on XP (assuming it's a longer sound loop and not the ultrashort kind).

 

Sounds like the GPU overheated and downlocked itself. Fortunately even downclocked the Geforce GTX 260M was sufficient to run the game at acceptable FPS which is why in this situation it probably didn't trigger any noticeable performance drop for you to realize the change. Kinda sucks to hear the GPU in this machine overheats to this extend to downclock itself. I've had 2 of my previous ASUS machines suffer from the same issue (all nVIDIA cards).

 

I was playing in Win7. I should have been logging both CPU and GPU but forgot to start them first (silly me, since that was the whole point tonight). Tomorrow I'll repeat another 3ish hr session and see if it repeats so I can catch exactly whats happening. I've had games glitch like that in the past on a variety of machines so I'm not sure its this particular hardware related, but with no evidence I'll reserve judgement. I've had around five 3ish hour sessions with MW2 and none of them have glitched or BSODed, so this was a first on the G51j.

As for ATKACPI, I'll try disabling it and report back.

 

for the people with the BSODs

cod doesn't top 87c for me, maxed settings @ native, 16xAF, 2xAA, High Quality, TB, vsync in nvidia's settings. 60fps all the time.

 

is that temperature with cooler and IC 24?

 

stock and no cooler, 20c ambient.
furmark equalized around 91-94, i don't remember exact.

 

damn, is your gpu better or something. I have cooler and IC 24, and I got max 86C on COD World at War.
How did you get 87C without new thermal paste and cooler

 

vsync.
10char

 

mmm, i don't get it.

 

vsync on caps fps at 60. If the GPU is powerful enough to draw more fps, it will be cooler with vsync on as it's not working at 100%. vsync off, the GPU will draw all those extra frames but as the display can only refresh 60 times a second it's just wasted really.

Just turn vsync on, that's all you need to remember

 

I'd love to PM my experience but I apparently do not have the privileges on my account. So I will post my experience to date...

Got the box on October 27 received 29th, reformatted the second drive to one partion, and installed steam games on that drive.
Reinstalled OS clean as well with one partion for C

Fired up games tired it out on Friday 10/30 BSOD on COD 4 Constantly.
Played some games over the weekend, Fallout 3 got a couple BSOD after extended play. Tried COD4 and got pretty consistent BSOD with just me in multiplayer. Fire gun in air, and BSOD..

Random times for BSOD worked with ASUS a couple times. One tech said would put in RMA and didn't. Called next day, this tech did do the RMA, shipped it back on 11/4 they got it 11/6 and it was put in repairing 0% where is stayed till 11/17. I contacted repeatedly for progress, and was never given any. I was told it would be escalated repeatedly and never got any update. Finally after call on 11/16 where I was once again told it would be escalated I see it as repair complete and ready to ship on 11/16.
I receive it on 11/19. The repair notes state:

Corrupt OS Reinstalled OS. No signature, no other news.
Needless to say I was not happy as this had been tried at least 2 X by me at their direction. The notebook also had the 203 bios so they did not even do that. No signature on the work order either. Call Asus, and tell them I'm unsatisfied with the repair. They initiate another RMA this time it will go to CA. I inform them that I will try the Bios upgrade to 204, and test it prior to returning.

Thursday night played Borderlands for 3 hrs before BSOD.
Friday played COD 4 on lunch no BSOD.
Saturday Played COD4 with friends on LAN, with 8 players I was unable to complete a match without a BSOD at least 6 in a 2 hour period...
Sunday played Fallout 3 some lockups no BSOD.

Monday looking at a short week with the holiday, and will probably play the games that do not crash and return it on 11/30. Maybe there will be a bios, or fix this week? I would like to at least have it in my possession as long as fed ex, and ASUS. Due to holiday I did not do much with the notebook.
Sunday night 11/29 Tried COD 4 multiplayer again with just me in the room got another 124 BSOD on it just firing rounds into the air and moving around the screen.

Checked for further updates on sites ASUS site, this forum and others, none found.

Drove an hour to nearest FEDEX return station (again) to send it out, this time to California RMA center on 11/30.

Received there on 12/1 AM their time.

This time my RMA status doesn’t even log on the site…

I look forward to a solution to this ongoing issue. I have been plagued with this since purchase and no one at support or the previous RMA center has been able to resolve the issue. The responses I have gotten from support have been poor, and my first RMA experience was also poor. I am hoping for some redemption on this issue. So far this notebook has been a source of great frustration, and expense for me.

 

magnusjager, I'm confused. Why are you sending in your laptop for RMA again if you know full well that it's a software issue and a fix is not yet available?

What do you really expect from Asus at this point? I just don't get it.

If you want to get rid of the BSOD downgrade to XP and use DOX drivers. Or just use DOX drivers in W7. You may still crash but it'll be very rare.

Really your options are either wait, demand a different model from Asus, or a refund from your retailer.

 

I have yet to get a confirmation from ASUS exactly what the issue is, nor have I been directed at any time by their support to wait for a pending fix. I am following their procedures, and providing information to their support. I have also provided my notebook to them via RMA to investigate this issue.

I hear a lot of "solutions" and "causes" on this board and others. None of them have come from ASUS.

The fact that not everyone in the same situation with like software, and can not make their notebook do the same thing, may indicate something other than what you believe the case to be.

 

Do you REALLY expect Asus to come out and say "Hey so umm, yeah we screwed up and we don't yet have a solution for your $1.5k BSODing paperweight. You just hang on there and as soon as we're done with the xmas festivities we may start working on getting a BIOS fix out for you." If you're waiting for an official word from ASUS, give up now. It won't come.

Do you expect the RMA guys to fireup Borderlands or COD on your laptop to find out what exactly the problem is? Really? Come on, they got a stack of laptops higher than you to get through. Unless your laptop does not turn on, it won't get fixed.

Do you know why your laptop is coming back with an OS reinstall? Because they turn it on, it works. They blow away the OS and reinstall just because they have to do SOMETHING before sending it back.

I'm sorry if what I'm saying upsets you. I'm sorry your laptop isn't a wonderful trouble free device. If you wanted that, well, welcome to reality. No such thing. No not even Apple laptops are trouble free...

So you can either wait, call your retailer and ask for a refund or ask Asus for a different model.

Also, it's been pretty consistently the same thing and affecting the same games with a specific driver/OS combination. So yeah, pretty much the same thing.

 

ATKACPI is not the cause, bsod' after 40 minutes. can't check if it's sound, as cod won't start without it.

 

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 124
BCP1: 0000000000000004
BCP2: FFFFFA80041898D8
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\120209-16504-01.dmp
C:\Users\Peilong Du\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-45365-0.sysdata.xml

Edit: Running bios 204 and all the stock drivers.

 

Could you G51-J owners run a test for me? Here are the settings:

Furmark: 1600x900p 8xAA, stability test, post processing, xtreme burn
Prime95 v.25.11: custom, 8 threads, 3000 MB memory to use
GPU-Z to monitor clocks

Please run all 3 programs at the same time and monitor your furmark graph in full screen. If the graph cycles between full GPU speed and throttled GPU speed, please post a screenshot (F9 in furmark). I'd really appreciate it if someone could take the time to do this.

Thanks.