G73jh Bios 209 (At Your Risk)

rick07 brought this to our attention: http://forum.notebookreview.com/6271142-post92.html

The German Notebook Forums: ASUS G73 *Part 2* (Owners Thread ) - Seite 188 - Notebookjournal.de - Forum

Download link: http://www.mediafire.com/?q2kzmzryw3y

So I took the plunge, at work no less (extremely baka, as the G73jh is also my work computer). It works. Bios has no different options though, everything you see in 206 you see in 209.

So what did change? This bios fixed everything I wanted fixed.

Fn+Esc Freezing
Fn+Esc does not freeze anymore. I'm spamming it right now and no freezes anymore. Yeah spammed it 25 times to double check

Keyboard
No more I/O conflict. I didn't have any problems typing on this keyboard, so can't really say if anything has changed. But I definitely haven't been making any erroneous mistakes that I thought maybe wasn't my fault. Well for this post made zero mistakes so far. But I did have the I/O conflict before and glad to see that is taken care of at least.

CPU Throttling
No throttling until 35%
At 35% CPU is at 900 mhz
At 30% it drops to 500 mhz

Plug it back in, zooms to full again. So the CPU state after plugging in returning to normal is fixed! No restart needed.


GPU Idle Temps
Strangely it's lower by about 4C. My ambient core temps were usually around 56-57C. Ambient temp here is 72F like as it always is.

GPU Temp with DXVA

Click for larger picture

 

Sweet! I'll give it a shot when I get home today.

 

GPU Temps with DXVA, 720p video offloaded on HD5870



Click for larger picture.

 

Ziddy have you noticed that your GPU core is 500MHz now? That means that Gpu is downclocking itself automatically now or you just underclocked yours?That is the reason of so low idling now.

 

Wow, thanks for noticing that. Yeah it's dynamically underclocking depending on use. For DXVA it's 500 mhz. But for surfing the net it's 700, but guess that's cause I have it on high performance.

 

Yep,thats why it's still beta. I guess I will wait till final will be on Asus site.
Anyway it's nice from Asus just trying to do this, that will be super if our GPU will underclock itself depending on usage as desktop does.Thans for trying this for us!:yes:
Can you look what clocks GPU core have when it's idling? I guess that dynamic underclocking will be key feature of this BIOS. Thumbs up for Asus!

 

Well IDLE depends on the setting. For power saving it underclocks to 300. For balanced and performance it's 700.

BTW even though it downclocks to 500, I think the temps are impressive since those 500 mhz are still underload with video rendering.

 

Agreed! 4C with just bios update is nice!One quick question maybe you fans just spinning quicker now. That thing could be upadated in bios. Maybe they just increased GPU fan rpm for a little at idling.

 

I glad to hear that the beta BIOS didn't brick your G73, but I still wouldn't bother with it until it's finalized and placed on the ASUS website.

BTW, could you please fix your top image in your first post so that it fits into the 500x500 rule.

 

This is a nice find indeed. Very promising...to see that atleast Asus is tryin to fix these issues. +rep ziddy!

 

800/1100 Overclock in Borderlands for a bit reached high temp of 75C

 

comparison wise , what was your max temp for borderlands previously?

 

I`m glad that the 209b Bios can fix some problems, I`ll definitely try myself when get back to home, but does it resolve the GSOD issue as well?

 

WOW, any eta on when this is "official"?

 

bios 209 works fine so far

 

79-81C with 800/1100 overclock.

Wouldn't know as I've only gotten it once when I tried to overclock to 850/1200 while playing Crysis.

 

Good word. I might actually get one a g73 if the issues start to clear up. I've been between this and the equivalent sager for a long time.

 

What kind of Ati Catalyst are you using? Could you check for Gsod at the default settings 700/1000?

 

I'll be testing the battery and see if the CPU throttles.

 

CPU Throttling
No throttling until 35%
At 35% CPU is at 900 mhz
At 30% it drops to 500 mhz

Plug it back in, zooms to full again. So the CPU state after plugging in returning to normal is fixed! No restart needed.

For me personally this Bios fixed everything I wanted fixed. No more keyboard I/O conflict, no more Fn Esc freezing and gets out of CPU state after battery use without restart after going onto A/C again.

 

jumped on 209 and so far no problems at all
also as noted above keyboard resource confilcts are now gone

 

Nice find. Too bad fedex just picked up my G73 today. I wish I could have tried this first.

 

I'll still wait until ASUS releases it. There might be more goodies at that time, no sense risking a bricking, twice.

Image is still over sized.

 

Well, I just read on the forum that this Bios was received from the ASUS support centre, I`d say it`s safe enough to update, although, the final version isn`t released on ASUS web site yet,it may not be very different from this one.

 

Even though you've gotten on my nerves in the past....I have'f to applaud you for this find and your thread.

If there was ever a reason to give rep this would be at the top.
Thanks for trying to be a part of the solution.
+1 Rep.

 

Great, ASUS still hasn't fixed the illuminated keyboard problem some of us are having after BIOS 206 broke it.

 

I love knowing that the Esc + FN issue has been fixed. I have noticed that my GPU fan is more audible with 209 as opposed to 206. I'm also glad that the 209 bios did NOT damage my keyboard backlighting. I wonder if the Creative/Ease of Access Center has been fixed with these Bios.....

Cheeseman why haven't you just RMA'd your G73JH instead of waiting for a bios fix?

I would have

 

I noticed the fan coming on a little stronger as well (coming from 205). This is a very welcome change for me since I have been experiencing high GPU temps. I'll be monitoring my GPU temps over the next few days and see if this helps any.

Asus Flash Utility sure makes flashing nice and easy.

Thanks for the find guys!

 

Ziddy, which version of the catalyst Drivers are you using? Asus's ones or Ati's ones?

And rschauby...which utility did you use to flash your bios? Easy Flash (directly from the Bios) or something else?

Btw, gotta find Rick07, and rep him for this amazing find aswell!

 

I tend to take care of my things and even though I have to travel long distances with this beast it bares not a single scratch or signs of wear. I've owned many laptops and I've experienced how the tech guys treat your laptop while they service it. Once I handed a laptop for warranty repair not more than 11 months from the date of purchase in perfect physical condition without a single sing of wear, only to receive it back within 3 weeks looking banged up full of scratches with a wonderful case of LCD back-lit bleed added on top. In short, I rather not lose my laptop for 3 weeks, have the HDD drives formatted, and on top of that my few months old laptop man-handled cause the folks at warranty care don't really care that much. In my opinion manufacturers warranty is only useful for very serious issues and I think in my case its worth the wait for a BIOS fix instead.

 

Cheeseman, just to ask the obvious, but have you gone into the BIOS and forced it to load defaults? After that, Fn+F4 when running to enable the backlighting?

 

would you recommend updating to this if it becomes final??

 

I would

 

If you tired from the G73`s problems like Fn+Esc, CPU throttling and keyboard issues then I would do it. I think the official one is not released yet, because ASUS probably trying to fix more issues...

 

btw, if this is .209, where is .207 and .208?

 

Honestly, It`s a good point, no one knows it... I guess. I wouldn`t surprised to see in the official release for 210 version...

 

Yep, I've done all that and the darn thing just wont light up anymore. You can visit the ASUS forums, there are tons of other people having the same issue after BIOS 206 "update".

 

Well, I updated to the 209 Bios and was checking for GSOD...it seems my GPU was really bad, I got GSOD on ATI 10.4 driver when gaming. I went back to the stock driver and trying again to restart the game, GPU was completely crashed... So I do not know whether It's due to Bios updates but do not think so. For those, who had GSOD on Ati drivers, but using now the ASUS stock driver, I wouldn't recommend to update your Bios...

 

i'm using asus 10.1 driver with this bios without any troubles
left unreal running for few hours and then had metro in game with very bussy spot in view left overnight, no problems at all
very happy here

 

Same boat here.
I have the same reason,not to return the laptop for repair or even replacement(don't want to take a risk of getting ddr 1066,instead of 1333 with the one i have).
However,i reckon that ASUS may have a small chance to fix the backlit issue, not only because they didn't solve it in this 209 bios but also the backlit problem seems like to be irreversible. Normally, a bios problem can be fixed by fresh back an old version, but it doesn't help in our situation.

 

Would be nice if you could still answer a couple of questions...

 

I threw the 209 BIOS on a flash drive and ran the Easy Flash utility in the BIOS. Worked like a charm, and make sure you do it with the laptop on AC power.

 

so any luck for anyone running the Cat 10.4's on the new bios?

 

Great find Ziddy, appreciated your effort and guts to try it out.

Really looking forward for the official release...

 

ziddy, nice find and rep +1. Dropped my GPU temps in BFBC2 from 94 under load to 86c, so that is enough for me.

It did manage to break my keyboard backlight and rolling back to 206 did nothing. I really do not care at this point and I am sure Asus will ( I hope) get it fixed in the next official update...

 

Nosir... same problems. meh

 

Whell, that helped me to decide to try it or not

 

Welcome to the club. After going through 5 different ASUS notebooks and constantly running into issues like this I'm starting to doubt ASUS really cares.

 

For me the Cat 10.5 Beta 8.74 are still the best for me. Both for DXVA support and for overall compatibility. I tried the 10.4 officials. Asus drivers don't have DXVA support so I passed on those.

I always use the Bios Easy Flash. My keyboard lights still work. Wonder if those who lost keyboard lights used WinFlash?

 

Can you change your backlight during BIOS configuration? If I remember correctly, sometimes changing BIOS can "break" the software that handles the backlights, so you need to uninstall them and reinstall the software itself, keeping the new BIOS.

Pretty nice update for G73 users.