G73JH-A1 Questions.....

I have been reading in this forum for a while now, but I still have some questions about the Asus g73jh-a1 and possible upgrades. I am going to be getting a new Laptop and was thinking about an Alienware M17x-R2 until I saw the Asus G73JH-A1. I think it is a good fit for me. I was a little concerned because all of the reviews were great, but when I came here, all I saw was threads about problems. After a little more research, I think that most have had good success with the g73.....am I correct? Or will I have problems most likely? Anyway, on with the questions.....
1.) Does the A1 come with the Seagate Momentus XT HDD's or is that another model?

2.) Is there a real advantage in upgrading to the Intel 6300 wifi card over the 6200 wifi card, know all of the work involved? I use my laptop to surf the internet and game.

3.) Has anyone upgraded the CPU on their own yet? I saw the disassembly guide, it doesn't intimidate me.....I've taken my P-7805u apart more than once and not messed anything up.

4.) Anyone with the 820qm, 840qm, or 920/940 cpus, was the upgrade really worth the money? or is the 720 good enough?

5.) I am a big fan of ICD7 thermal paste, I have seen some that have it, but no good evidence of if it would be worth disassembling the unit to apply it or not.

6.) I currently have a modded Cryo-LX Laptop cooler for my P-7805u, will it be of benefit for the g73 or not?

7.) Anything I'm missing or should now/think about?

Thanks for the help and information!

 

The A3 comes with the SSD hybrids. The consensus however, is to buy the A1, save the extra money, and buy and install an SSD. Cheaper and much more bang for buck.

The power users of the G73 on this forum did the upgrade to 6200, (along with SSD upgrades), and apparently upgrading to the 6300 is much harder as it requires removing the LCD to align antennae or something. I forgot as I skimmed through that thread.

According to some its a hassle, but there's a link in somebody's sig for the full dis assembly guide. Pictures and video. Resellers like Gentech, PowerNotebooks, and xoticpc offer upgrading options while purchasing.

A few NBR members with deep pockets got upgrades. iirc, only 2-3, and not extremely vocal about the performance improvements so far. Its more of a green issue in my humble opinion. And I'm not talking about trees.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/475907-asus-g73-series-disassembly-guide.html

Based on the posts I've read, offers anywhere from 15-30C reductions in temp at load with after market thermal paste.

If you're using it as a desktop replacement, any cooler is beneficial. In fact, any elevation of the laptop off a surface plus circulation of air under the notebook is beneficial.

As of now, Asus has released a bios update to 209, which fixed some bugs, including a CPU throttling bug that was borked on previous versions. (Throttled permanently after battery levels wore down and could only be fixed with a reboot). Other issues addressed were a keyboard I/O conflict. The majority flashed with a fat32 formatted USB drive using EasyFlash (not WinFlash) and successfully updated to 209 without the loss of kb lights.

Also, Ziddy has compiled a modded vBIOS for the G73's GPU which offers undervolting for lower temps, and stability with the new ATI drivers. AFAIK, the stock ASUS drivers were the most stable for the G73, and any driver updating (10.5 to 10.6) resulted in GSODs, lockup and freezes on the stock vBIOS.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/488683-g73-cat-10-5-gsod-debug-thread.html

And lastly, the Creative issue.
Kalim recommends a total and utter removal of all that useless shizznaz because "there isn't any Creative hardware", while Chastity has a debug thread on this particular issues where an enabling of CMSS-3D + upgrading to Realtek's latest 2.49 audio driver resolves everything and doesn't lock up with Steam and the Ease of Access center.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/488279-creative-software-debugging-thread.html

That's all off the top of my head.

 

Thanks for the fast reply, I appreciate it. This looks like a really nice laptop.

 

I edited my post to include more info as I remembered them.

 

I got the 820 in my G73JH while my wife has the 720 in her Alienware... save your cash and go with the 720 imo.

 

Re-read your posts, Thanks for the help.....Still sounds like an awesome Laptop! I was looking at an Alienware M17x-R2, but just can't justify spending that kind of cash.....especially when there is something like the g73 out there.

 

Really? Doesn't help out that much? Thought it might have some higher headroom for Overclocking. What model does your wife have? Was looking at an Alienware M17x, but they are EXPENSIVE.....lol

Thanks for the info.

 

Yea she has a M17x with the single 5870, pretty much identical to my G73JH down to the 1333 memory.

For gaming (TF2, BC2, WoW) we really see no difference at all. Spend the cash on a SSD.

I don't overclock though, so I can't speak to that.

 

Cool, Thanks. How are the build qualities between the two? is the Alienware Really worth the extra money? Or would you recommend the G73JH?

 

Is it true there is no option for a RAID 0 set-up?

 

there's no hardware raid support in the g73jh models. buy an ssd and use the hard drive it comes with for storage.

 

That's what I heard. Sucks....I was gonna do a RAID 0 Set-up, but I guess if I get the g73, I'll install an SSD in place of one of the HDD's.

 

You will get better performance with an SSD. Or you can try the A3 variant with the Momentus XT hdds. Also, you could call Alienware and haggle down the price on the unit you were looking at too. You should be able to do 20-25% off.

 

Yeah, that's true. Just don't know if the AW is worth the extra money.

 

I mean.....They have the RAID ability, but no CPU OC ability. I am not really a fan of dual GPU set-ups, but the 5870CF set-up looks really good in benchmarks. My decision is really, pay more for Crossfire, or pay less and be able to OC the cpu....both seem to be good on the quality front.

 

bumble answered most of your concerns, and as for coming here and seeing all the problem threads... you'll note that pretty much every other subforum here is the same way, it's the degree of seriousness that you should be looking at Minor correction for bumble on this though:

We found out that asus has been using AC5 on both CPU and GPU stock, so 'upgrading' the thermal paste is nearly pointless unless you are getting a new cpu. ICD only seems to improve the temps by ~2c.

And as far as XF goes, if you want the most current mobile gaming power the AW wins hands down, but you pay through the nose for it. I for one don't see the point of XF in a laptop - if you really need that much power just buy a desktop.

 

Apparently I have memory issues of my own. Some latency issues. Where should I RMA my mental faculties?

Mild cognitive impairment from over-gaming.

Thanks for the info of ASUS's stock thermal paste. Much appreciated.

 

To find out what all the bloatware does, you might want to check out the top link in my sig.

I may have also used the words useless garbage in there at some point.

Oh, IMO of course.

 

Your placebo-driven opinions aren't warranted.