G73jh Bios 209 (At Your Risk)

Same here. I always run with AC but forgot to plug it in. I didn't realize until it beeped a warning. It did not drastically slow down but it would no longer go above 1.6

I did a regular Windows restart and it worked again. Somewhat annoying but easily resolved by staying plugged in. I only use it for games and always on the desk connected to power.

Cheers,

 

lol, that was like taking your hand off the seat and watching your son pedal all by himself

Q

 

Oh yeah........that was one special moment indeed. Flashing my first Bios!

Especially after all the horror stories I'd heard.

 

Lol stories are just stories. XD Most BIOS update failures come from loss of power and corrupt BIOS file, now with a laptop, that has a battery, loss of power is out, with hash checking, corrupt BIOS is out, so the percentage of failed BIOS updates are pretty low these days.

 

I think it's safe to say that people who have lost their backlit functionality were people using WinFlash. So use the Easy Flash BIOS Utility ONLY.

 

While I recommend in the guide and to anyone who asks to use Easy Flash, I wouldn't call it safe to say they used WinFlash and lost their backlighting. If that were the case, they could simply use Easy Flash to repair and get it back.

 

Not necessarily. The damage may be irreversible (or not reversible by any means currently available), however, I agree there is insufficient evidence to conclusively state one method always prevents the backlight failure or that one method always causes the same failure.

Cheers,

 

Thanks to whoever re-upped the file. Grabbed it and am finishing up flashing now. Wish I had time to test out the typing and such but have to take off for work and can't bring the beast with me today.

 

I used winflash to flash to the 206 bios and didn't lose any functionality with the backlighting. Using winflash is not the culprit.

I have noticed a minor issue with the 209 bios, that being that the wifi connection is extremely slow upon waking up from sleep/hibernate, although this is easily fixed by disabling and re-enabling the wifi.

 

Hmmm...all this hype about a power notebook, then the bios issues...reminds me of 2006.

 

I used the bios utility to flash to 206 and lost the backlighting. Didn't do it through Windows.

 

Chastity was talkin about those users who updated to bios 209, not 206. Its a known issue that the 206 kills the KB lights, irrespective of the method used to flash it.

 

i know this has been asked a couple times but I have not yet seen an answer. Does anybody have any general time frame as to when this BIOS will become official and show up on the Asus website?

 

I think its safe to say only Asus has that answer.

 

No idea when. But the story behind the 209 is that it was taken from a Germany Asus support site.

 

That guy releases internal asus pre-release bios on his personal site, and he works for asus. It's legit, but not "official". He has released EEEpc bios' that fix issues months before asus does.

 

Heh just a short month or so ago I watched the Easy Trash utility brick my machine.

Amazing how efficiently a Core i7 can do that hehe

 

that sounds pretty legitimate then. Would you guys recommend I update to this? I know how to flash a bios and i read a tutorial about doing it with easyflash. Would you recommend i give it a shot or stick with 206.

Also how likely is it to brick and would doing this void my warranty?

 

Using Easy Flash was darn easy and straightforward for me.

But at the end of the day, only you can make the choice whether to do it or not!

 

Depends. I only did it out of curiosity. Unlike many I didn't have problems with the keyboard, I just learned to use it and it was fine. I never press Fn Esc. And I don't game or do anything intensive while on battery, just word, excel, web browser. I had no need to upgrade to 209.

But if you have those issues, then yes it may be worth it as it does resolve the Fn Esc, Keyboard and throttle issue.

But you can also just wait for the official official

 

Unless there is a need to update the bios I don't. Like ziddy, I can avoid most of the issue by not performing the tasks which cause trouble.

Cheers,

 

Some early posts mentioned the fan runs at a higher/louder setting after the update to 209. Can those of you who updated please confirm if the fan now runs faster/louder, or only kicks in as needed? Thanks.

 

Not sure if the fan sensor works. Try using GPU-Z and tell us what your fan speed % is at for your idle. And then someone here can post back with their fan % with 209.

 

Anybody know if 209 removed the overclocking section from the bios for the QX9300?

 

No way for me to tell since I don't have the QX9300 and doesn't seem those who have tried this have an Extreme Intel.

BTW Vicious do you have an Asus HD5870? If not have you tried flashing to a Asus Bios? Reading on Overclock.net that Asus has volt unlocked and people are able to play Just Cause 2 with 150 FPS with highest settings with 1000/1400 overclock with voltage increased and temps settling around 70C-80C comfortably not going over 80C, with an HD5770.

Also AnandTech did a review of the Phenom II X6 and were interested in overclocking, they overclocked that 6 core to 4 ghz across ALL 6 cores for measely price of $285, and they said no additional cooling was needed beyond STOCK fan.

 

updated to 206 about a month back... keyboard lights stopped working for a while but then mysteriously started working normally again soon after. updated to this 209 and now the lights on the keyboard arent working again. used winflash utility for both

 

I also read somewhere about this, but to be honest, I am yet to notice a difference in my fan speed/sound since the update.

It is possible that I haven't pushed it hard enough, which would indicate that it is only kicking in when required.

 

There are multiple warnings about not using winflash in this thread as well as many other ASUS threads. You're adding complexity with doing it while Windows is running. Better to do it before the OS loads.

 

Oh, and on the fan note- I'm sitting in my attic which is pretty darn warm, and my fan doesn't seem to be running. I know the GPU fan isn't. I don't have time to try any games today, but my pc beside me running at idle sounds like an air conditioner trying to push out all the warm air up here.

 

When did the G73 start supporting the Qx9300 ? or did i miss something ? ..

 

206 didn't kill my backlights. Easy Flash.

Q

 

206 killed mines - used winflash. After RMA I updated to 209 by easyflash and backlight works still.

 

This flashed fine. My hope was that it would solve the keyboard issues. I got a replacement keyboard which still results in missing keystrokes. The only thing that works 100% is disabling the touchpad in the bios. I am surprised considering the I/O conflict is fixed. I am convinced at this point that it will be a bios fix or keyboard filter driver fix, rather than a new keyboard. The idea of scraping the contacts on the keyboard ribbon didn't work for me to any substantial degree. Nice to see, however, that Asus is working on these issues.

 

My desktop 5870 is...HIS brand. I dont overclock it because it gives me a bad "the line" issue. Some people may call it tearing but its not. Its not there in normal mode just eyefnity mode. No need to overclock on a single screen it runs any game easy.

Ha, yeah well you know what I mean. So much stuff flying around in my head right now I forget to sleep.

 

Ziddy's write up convinced me. I've updated via easy flash. I just downloaded and saved the file to the root of my hard drive. I booted into the bios and used easy flash to load the new file.

No problems and my keyboard backlight still works. Perhaps those with the keyboard backlight problem flashed with the keyboard backlight on? I believe that when you enter bios, the lighting is always off. Not disabled, but off. If you flash from within windows it could be on or off. I think it's a mismatch between the bios data bit for backlighting and the actual state of the backlight perhaps at the time of flash. That's just a wild guess from a veteran process control programmer.

 

Funny you should mention about starting the flash with the keyboard lights on/off.

When I did my update, I consciously put off the keyboard lights (and the blue light bar under the screen, as well as the 3 blue button lights, top left of keyboard). And I also have no problems with my lights after the update.

I need to go add that to my newbie Bios Update Tutorial.

 

Seems to me if there was a mismatch between the BIOS data and the lighting state, wouldn't toggling it work in reverse and cause the lighting to come back on?

 

My lights were on when I did it. Well, they were turned on in Windows but since I was in the BIOS they were of course, not on.

 

Kinky.

Probably not since it would be a matter of corruption instead of upside down buttons. Just conjecture though.

 

If it's data corruption, it should be fixed by doing a hard CMOS clear and loading defaults.

 

If you guys could get them to give me the source code for the BIOS, I could tell you exactly why the backlight function gets corrupted intermittently. Anyone have a buddy who is a system level programmer at Asus?

 

You could try emailing the guy on the german site who leaked it.

 

i flashed 209 with winflash with no problems and my lights work fine, they were on when i did the flash

 

It's good to know that when you throw caution completely out of the window, the laptop still works.

 

I've already tried a CMOS clear through the reset hole on the on the lower right at the bottom of the laptop and still my keyboard lights don't work.

 

@Kalim

After reading your previous posts on this thread have you tried the 209 bios? Or are you still waiting for the official release?


Also, has anyone confirmed for an ETA on the official drivers yet? I still have backlights, and I don't dare try the FN+ESC trouble yet. I still don't know my BIOS, and I could careless cause its working fine.

I find it good to hear that many of you are getting results from the 209. Let's just cross our fingers that ASUS makes the officials swiftly, and better yet without bugs!

 

Just for information's sake, you could use CPU-z to check your BIOS version.

Mainboard > Bios > Version.

 

I doubt you could do that, bioses are written mainly in ASM and some parts in C, they are so low level that it's hard to debug them, especially considering that they've tested it and it seemed to work.

 

There was some guy who was creating custom bios for the G50VT trying to get the BB version to support quad core so I know some people know how to do this.

Cheers,

 

I'm waiting. There is nothing in BIOS 209 that I immediately need. I don't really use the battery, more of a UPS. I don't put the computer to Sleep. The fixed keyboard I/O conflict doesn't improve anything.