G73JH belly up

I have had my G73JH for about two months now, and found this forum very helpful. Now I'm in real trouble, I guess.

On boot, it hangs at the initial screen with the ASUS & Intel logos. Can't get into BIOS. Asus just said take it to Microcenter (where I bought it).

So, is it toast?

 

If your comfortable with it, I would recommend you try taking out both hard drives and see if it boots afterwards. If it boots to a cannot find disk then one of the drive is screwed up. Otherwise you can RMA it.

 

Update...

I called Asus tech support. They asked where I got it. Wnen I said Microcenter, they said to take it there.

Microcenter diagnosed the problem as a bad memory module, removed the offending module, and said they couldn't replace it because they are not an Asus authorized warranty center. They gave me back the computer & removed memory module and sent me on my way (with a computer that still won't post).

I called Asus and they would not send me a new memory module. They insisted that I must ship the whole computer (including the memory module) back under RMA at my own expense. Furthermore, they wanted me to aggree in advance to let them reinstall the operating system if necessary (wiping out all my data). I asked if they could call me if it came to that, so I could discuss data recovery options with the tech. They said no, either I agree in advance or if it came to that they ship it back still non-functional. The supervisor stuck to the same BS.

The offending memory module being Kingston, I called them. Their retail product has a lifetime warranty. It turns out this is an OEM module sold to Asus, so they said Asus had to make it good. However, the retail equivalent was $27, probably less than it would cost to ship the computer to Asus and I retain control. So, I decided to buy that. Hopefully it fixes the problem.

I have never encountered such "service" as I got from Asus. I've had companies ship me out parts. I've had them email me a prepaid UPS shipping label. I never before had anybody just insist that I eat all the cost & risk like this. Some warranty! I like the computer, when it's running. In a couple years when it is obsolete, its replacement won't be Asus.

 

If you think that's bad, you should see some of my saved online-support conversations Best of luck with your fix though, really sucks to hear that yet another person gets doinked by ASUS' "warranty".

 

Best of luck Barnacle Bill. I hope everything works out.

Now as far as Asus, theyve significantly dropped on my list. My replacement will not be an Asus, thats for sure...nor will any after that.

 

I'm debating if I should sell this G73JH-A1 I got for $999.99 at the end of November now. It'll all be too late if it dies and I'm stuck with all this RMA hassle.

 

Well, the memory arrived from Kingston & I popped it in.

Tried to boot - still hung just as before.

Was able to get to the boot menu via F1 now, though. Went into Bios, checked it saw all the momory (it did), exited bios w/o saving - it booted normally. Strange...

 

Sorry to hear about all of this.

This is why I hate some of the advances we have now adays.

 

Your problem never sounded like a bad memory stick. At least my opinion.

 

After looking around a bit, I tried a complete shutdown & restarted.

It hung at the ASUS screen. I pushed F1 once, and it started normally. It's done that twice now.

I'm open to other suggestions

 

Do you have Asus Fancy Start and/or animated boot screen enabled (I forget what the exact settings are)? What happens if you turn off those features in the BIOS setup?

 

None of that stuff is on. It is just a black screen with "ASUS Inspiring Inovation - Persistent Perfection" in the middle & the Intel logo in the lower right corner (both logos in white).

Apparently Windows agrees with you - it just popped up & announced my hard drive is failing. Looks like I will need to RMA it.

 

Yeah sorry but I just knew it wasnt a memory stick. But the hdd failing does sound correct as that would be one of the first things I would check. You should not have to rma for a hdd. I would call and tell them that after all that bull crap that they should send you a replacment and you will send you the broken one if your sure thats the problem.

 

It is sad that asus keep on making such a bad name for themselves. The company makes solid machines that push the envelope but the pen pushers in the company and management should all be sacked by the engineers lol. Perhaps that will make things good

I do agree with antisniperspy as RMA your laptop to asus the chance of them changing components right down to the motherboard is very likely. You might end up with a significantly changed machine that either is not fixed or is inferior where they have given you worse parts. This has happened to me and even after a 8 month RMA process they still couldn't make good. I will never talk to an asus rep again in the UK. In my experience do everything yourself is the key to make an Asus laptop the perfect laptop

 

Well, maybe they would send the hard drive, even though they wouldn't send the memory. Alternatively, I could just buy one and install it myself. Of course, the bad one would be the one with Windows on it. All the resources to reload Windows & drivers are right here on this site, though. The machine came with two HD's whose part# identifies them as Seagate Momentus 7200.4 SATA 3Gb/s 320-GB. In a pinch I could just swap them & reload Windows. Street price on those drives looks like about $55. Or, I could install something better. The 750GB version of the same drive is about $100.

 

"We can rebuild him, we have the technology...better than he was before..."

Dying 320GB hard drive replaced with new 750GB hard drive, Windows reloaded from the iso linked to on this site, Catalyst 10.12 installed, bloatware omitted from the Asus driver & utility install per reco's on this site, all software that was running before up again.

Now it is a clean, mean, gamin' machine!

Special thanks to the following whose posts were invaluable during this recovery project...

ValkerieFire
Kalim
Chastity

 

Damn, I only get the Bronze medal

 

I wouldn't take it that way...

In this specific case I was following ValkerieFire's thread "What to do with your new G73JH", which shelled out to Kalim's "Complete Walk-through For Doing A Clean Windows 7 Install". I got the Catalyst 10.12 from one of your posts.

In the bigger picture, in the 2-1/2 months I've owned the machine you were definately Gold medal. All the bios flashing early on leaned heavily on your posts, plus countless lesser things. You're a star!

Doubly so if I ever decide to repaste...

 

I was just joking It's all good.

 

Offtopic, really offtopic. How did you get that shield?

 

It's the Warden Tower Shield. The armor is a modded replacement set for female Warden Commander Armor set. For more info on the shield: Warden Tower Shield - Dragon Age Wiki

 

Lol at least you have a medal. Even though I really did not help at all I still want to feel special .

 

Turns out I did screw up one thing somehow, but didn't notice until tonight. My keyboard backlight quit working & Fn+F4 didn't help, although it flashed during boot. After wading through the first 30 pages of the big thread on that problem, I found a post by Gary Key in which he said after running a flash fix for that issue you might need to reinstall the ATK driver. I figued what the heck, and that worked. That driver was on the recommended list in both ValkerieFire's & Kalim's threads, and I'm sure I double checked both lists against what I had checked in the driver install utility. Maybe I missed it after all, or maybe it didn't take. Thought I'd throw the info in here, though, in case somebody else is ever searching with a similar problem.

@Chastity: I didn't think you were all that serious, but I wouldn't want to dis one of the Big Kahuna's whose mojo I might need again someday

Actually, yes - thanks to everybody who replied to this thread, even if just with sympathy

 

Any issues since then? Mines doing the same thing so I figure I'll just buy a new hard drive instead of RMA.

 

one of my seagate hard drives failed the other day as well. (g73jh best buy model) I am defiantly not allowing them to rma the whole machine for one drive. If they won't replace it there, i think I'll just buy another drive online. First and last Asus for me.