G73 Heat issue

I'm not sure if its worthwhile to post a new thread about this, but I'll do it anyway, and accept whatever is said to me about doing so.

Regardless, on to the problem. Got my G73 back on May 31, was running fantastically for as long as I had it. It came with 10.4 installed, and stayed that way until I had some strange issues with what I've come to learn is a GSOD, alternating gray vertical lines. I went ahead and updated my drivers and despite some flickering for the rest of the night (that went away), I had no problems.

Until recently. I got accepted in to the FFXIV beta, and found that it was outright crashing while playing. Sometimes it was vertical lines, sometimes it was a straight black screen, sometimes it wouldn't even turn back on right away. Going back to the drivers included on the CD I got with the laptop, all was well... mostly. I started having heat issues almost immediately. Suddenly I noticed that every time I had my laptop on, it was obviously hotter.

This has been some cause for concern for me, because now everything I do, I have to be very careful. If I am watching videos, it can overheat, playing simple games like Final Fantasy XI (a CPU intensive game), it overheats and crashes. I literally went from a constant 40-50C idle GPU temp to a constant 70-75C idle GPU temp. This is pretty dramatic imo. As I write this, aside from some background services, the only things running are Skype, Trillian, DaemonTools and Firefox, my GPU is idling at 72C.

For a bit of fun, I decided at work to leave the laptop running in a walk-in cooler (operating between 0.5-4C) for about 20 minutes or so. It didn't particularly help, and I noticed about a 5C difference. I also threw CCC 10.8 on there today (it was released yesterday), no help at all.

What the heck is the problem here? Forget trying to do any gaming on this gaming laptop, it overheats doing simple tasks... I basically have a $1600 space heater that can check my e-mail.

 

Do a search for TIM - thermal interface material.

Quite a few of these have some issues with horrible TIM on them causing them to overheat. RMA or fix yourself if you're inclined. Presuming of course, that this is a heat issue (which sounds quite likely).

 

As far as your GSOD issue is concerned, Asus is working on a fix. We can only hope they come through for us.

 

Doing it myself would probably void my warranty huh?

 

That has actually been a bit up for debate. Some ASUS reps says it does, other says it doesn't. Your mileage may vary. A lot. Here are various threads on the issue:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/512795-repaste-gpu-g73-send-asus.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/507854-thermal-paste-g73jh-gpu.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...m/513038-g73jh-warranty-voided-if-opened.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...ld-warranty-voided-redoing-thermal-paste.html

 

So I'm concerned about RMAing my laptop solely based on the fact that I outright -need- it for school right now. Would repasting this thing be the best bet, or might this be a deeper hardware issue?

 

After seeing this
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...lp-i-bricked-my-g73-vbios-15.html#post6638326

I am not too crazy about sending mine in either, I KNOW I can do a better job then a "Certified Asus" tech, Applying heatsink paste is a pretty simple process and if they cant get that right I dont have much faith in them repairing my laptop.

I am pretty tempted to perform the repaste myself voided warranty or not if it means I wont be out the use of my laptop and wont have to begin a chain of RMAs because they cant fix problems right the first time...

 

If you decide to do it yourself, please watch the video of the G73 disassembly before and during the time that you are taking the laptop apart. I did it this way and I can now take it apart by memory and have avoided damaging any components.

 

I agree its actually a pretty good video, there are also pictures for the factory service manual on how to take apart the G73 which is very helpful too

 

I did watch it, and aside from a few parts where I cringed when he said "just yank it", it doesn't seem -too- terrible. Now I just need to find a place within walking distance that sells decent paste

 

Double post, sorry.

 

Taking it apart is a pain in the behind. Make sure you buy some really good paste. It's too much work to just throw average stuff in there. Chastity has a really good repaste thread. I like IC Diamond 7. Other people really like MX-3 and MX-2. Some people like Arctic Silver. I think ICD7 is a few degrees cooler than AS5 from what I have seen posted. MX2, MX3, and ICD7 are all close.

 

I'm going to do my best to find ICD7, it seems to have the most favorable reviews around here and elsewhere.

 

When i did my repaste i wanted the ICD7, beacuse of the positive feedback ppl gave it here. However, i wasnt able to find it here where i live so i bought the MX-2 and the result is similar to those with ICD7.....Im a happy camper

 

Toxictaru : The same has happened to my G73 (w/o GCOD's),when I first got it idle temps were in the mid 50's(with out a cooler) now idle temps w/cooler 64 -68 C.I have diamond paste coming in from Frozencpu.com today.Hopefully this weekend if I get time I will be doing a repaste job.

 

Quick question, figured I'd throw it in my old thread instead of starting a new one. When I do my GPU repaste, would it be worth my while to repaste my CPU as well? I know there is a void warranty sticker there, but I figure while I'm in there voiding it anyway...

 

depends if the cpu temps are good or not.

 

Haven't observed under load, but idle is high 50s to low 60s. Not terrible, but could be better I think.