G73jh Bios 209 (At Your Risk)

Hello to everybody!
Well I bought my Asus from BB two days ago and had a problem with the games. I saw somewhere that I have to update the BIOS and I did it with 205 using win utility... All the problems began from that point! No KBD lights, Win 7 not genuine and so. For a whole day I was looking for a solution and tried the 209 bios, which didn't change the situation. Then rolled back the old bios but the lights were still off and windows not active (even after a fresh new install).
So frustrated!!! What to do?

 

Your looking at a RMA...but since you got it from BB, Im sure they will give you a replacement quickly.

Had you spend a little time on this forum before attempting to flash your bios (or any other forum for that matter), you would've found out that using winflash with the G73, is a pretty surefire way of killing the keyboard lights...next time if you have the urge to update, use the easy flash utility from the Asus bios.

Secondly, try stayin away from the 206 bios...they are known to kill KB lights for a few users. Also, the 209s are still BETA. wait for a proper release from ASUS (though I have no idea when that might be...and I said might, not will).

And do read up on what ur flashing to before you do.

Regarding the Windows activiation, did you restore from the hidden partition, or install windows from your own DVD? If it is the latter, then you need to call microsoft, and they will give you a new key that will work. The G73 uses OEM OS, so using your existing Win7 key wont work.

Goodluck.

 

"Had you spend a little time on this forum before attempting to flash your bios" No! That was my mistake! I just saw that the problem is from the bios and I don't have to install 206!
Well I've never returned anything, do you know what is the procedure to do that?
I hope that Asus will post new bios update and remove 206!
Thanks!

 

I have not returned anything from BB so far, but there are a few users here who have. And most of them will tell you that BB usually replaces units pretty easily.

Give them a call, tell them what your initial problem was and how flashin your bios killed the KB lights along with the windows issue.

 

And, if it's true that Best Buy is phasing out the G73JH, you might want to do it quickly.

I wish you had read the link in my sig, it might have saved you some trouble. Also, you don't have to manually quote someone, you can used the "Quote" button on the right side and then further edit it down in the editor what you want to include.

Good luck.

 

Just box it up and take it back to Best Buy, they will swap it for another, just tell them the keyboard is defective and the gpu randomly had issues in games as you initially had... I wouldn't even mention the bios, etc... no need.

That's the main reason I buy laptops from best buy, as long as you are withing 14 days of purchase, they swap it out for another no problem. The geek squad might question you a bit, but just tell them the problems and they'll swap it, or if they don't have any in stock, they'll refund your money.

 

Ziddy, it looks like my fan speed using GPU-Z with BIOS 206 is at 30% during idle. Can someone with BIOS 209 check their speed?

BTW, is there any other programs that give good fan readings for laptops? I've tried HWiNFO32 and HWMonitor but neither post fan speeds when loaded on a laptop as far as I can tell.

 

Bios 209 says 30% also.

Guess throw that theory out the window then, fan speed seems to be the same.

 

New bios 209 firmware released. It is available on asus web site
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

 

sorry, somehow maybe cookies werent deleted so i kept seeing the old bios download. i see the 209 now. thanks!

 

Bestbuy included the G73 in the Sunday ad today. Would they do that if they were discontinuing the G73 model?

Cheers,

 

Still not listed as available in my area.

 

I agree. Nothing in Atlanta, North FL, NC, NY, DC, Pittsburgh or Chicago. Why advertise for something you don't have unless they believe they'll have stock soon? Hmmm, perhaps just bad inventory control for advertising set weeks/months ago.

Cheers,

 

Maybe, but I did say, "if it's true".

Maybe by placing the G73JH for the first time in an ad, they hope that it will sell off the rest of their stock? Maybe once the current stock has been depleted they won't order more? Maybe it's being replaced? Who knows, it's Best Buy, they do goofy things.

Keep in mind that this is the same company that has a service department call the Geek Squad, enough said. They have consultants that charge $100 to plan a home theater, only they're useless and then offer a rebate of $100 that can only be spent in Magnolia, and not Best Buy as a whole. They send you limited time rewards card information and when you go to use it before it expires they won't honor it. They tell you that they will beat any brick and mortar price and when you show them a good deal elsewhere at a brick and mortar, they say their Manager won't approve of selling it that low. Speaking of which, they have Managers that would rather lose a long time customer, than make good on what an employee wrongly said. They have employees that huddle in groups of three bad mouthing previous customers, while you stand there listening to it waiting for your turn to ask for help. So, when a forum user here mentioned that Best Buy told him about "phasing out" the G73JH, well shoot, why not?

 

Hmmm.........funnily enough, I really have nothing to complain about, regarding BestBuy.

I spend a lot of time in 2 or 3 of their stores close by me, and have mostly had a good experience. I get their rewards cards (or rather, they notify me by email, and I go online to print them out), and they have always honored them.

I bought a G60VX from them, and 3-4 weeks later, I came across the G73JH. They had just one in the store, I spoke to the manager, and they put it on hold for me while I drove home to do a system recovery on the G60VX, packed it up, and drove back to the store with it. I returned it without a restocking fee, and picked up the G73Jh. Their normal return period for computers is 14 days, and they were not obligated to do this for me.

Their Geek Squad might not be the best, but then again, the store really doesn't carry high end stuff. In the past, I have had them do some minor work for me that I was satisfied with. There are a lot of horror stories about tech support from system manufacturers, so we really need to be realistic regarding the level of technical service we can expect from a retail store.

At the end of the day, I guess it really depends on where the store is located, and the caliber of people employed in that particular store. As with everything else, one shouldn't really generalize.

Just thought I'd throw this out, "In defense of BestBuy".........

 

What about the Creative drivers? Does now work fine?

 

Realtek 2.48 + Creative working fine here.

 

Chastity, pls confirm:

Bios 209 + Realtek 2.48 + Creative = all working fine?

 

Yessir. I haven't had issues with Creative addon ever since upgrading to 2.47, then 2.48 afterwards (206 and 209 BIOS). However, I did find one caveat, which I discovered when I did a fresh install, the order of installation makes a difference. I think the Creative install sets a registry setting that mucks things up, which a later Realtek install corrects. So installation from a fresh standpoint would be:

1) Install Realtek driver 2.47 or later (needs to be installed before Creative addon will install)

2) Install Creative addon

3) Reinstall your Realtek driver, which will uninstall, reboot, and reinstall driver.

I play NeverWinter Nights 2 with ALchemy installed for the game with full EAX, and works as expected. I also haven't had any strange lockups, overheats, or whatnots. In fact my only issue with my unit is the vBIOS and Cat 10.3+. I also play plenty of Steam games, ala COD4:MW and Dragon Age, Torchlight, Batman AA, Civ 4, etc.

Realtek 2.47 or later corrects an issue with Steam locking up the system. If your Steam app causes a lockup, just reinstall the Realtek Driver. It'll be fixed again.

 

OK....thanks for the info.

Will give it a try, following your order of installation.

 

Let me know how it turns out for you. I'll repost this info in its own thread for others to benefit if I get enough feedback reporting success.

 

OK....some feedback.

I have 209 Bios installed no problems.

I went ahead and downloaded and installed Realtek 2.48.

I then installed the Creative software (off the Asus Utility/Drivers disc), and then reinstalled the Realtek software.

As soon as it was done and rebooted, the first thing I tried was Control Panel > Ease of Access > Ease of Access Center. I got in with no freezing or other problems. I then went to the Creative Audio Center, and enabled Bass Boost. Tried Ease of Access again, no problems.

Next was to try Steam. With Bass Boost Enabled, the Steam client does not even launch before the computer freezes, required holding of power button down to turn off.

With Bass Boost disabled, Steam client launches normally. I loaded COD:MW2, and played single player like 5 mins, with no problems.

I also discovered, that if you launch the Steam client first, AND THEN enable Bass Boost, everything works just fine.

These are just my initial findings, and I really don't know what will happen when into extended game play.

Pls confirm you have your Bass Boost enabled, and still not experiencing any issues.

 

That's the way the Steam/Creative combo has always behaved, but thanks for verifying that the problem still exists!

 

As outlined in the guide, there is an install order. However, your caveat does take it one step further by installing the Realtek driver package after Creative, which is normally the other way around.

However, IMO even if there is a way to install Creative that doesn't crash the entire system, it still worthless. What isn't already duplicated in the Realtek driver package only adds more fake DSP sound, and due to the way the speakers are wired the Bass Boost and the EQ are a joke. Without the Creative hardware, which the G73 doesn't have, all effects are done in software, so no benefit there. I'm trying to remember what else Creative did, and then it occurred to me, I'm not missing anything.

 

Ok....I didn't even know that. Thanks.

I guess when I first got my G73, I didn't have the Creative software on long enough to even discover that.

I agree with you. I really wasn't missing the Creative software either, but as usual, I just had to try this out...........

 

LOL, if it makes you feel better, I tried it too. Same result as before- lockup going into Ease of Access Center, which defines that there's a problem as usual. I rolled back.

 

Isn't there a realtek update that removes the need of the creative software for the subwoofer? Or am I going craaazy?

 

It offers EQ, which effectively kills any need for bass boost and the like. However, I had to mess around and give it a try. I did make a restore point first though.

 

I don't know about later versions of the Realtek software, but since the G73 doesn't have discrete 2.1 sound, and because of the way that the sub is wired, as I understand it, when you increase the bass, you are dynamically taking the sound away from the other two speakers. That, to me, sounded horrible.

 

I am using realtek drivers and the subwoofer works, although instead of just bass boost coming out, it acts sort of like another speaker, so it sounds like a 3.0 instead of 2.1

 

Seeing how this thread has been hijacked about Creative I went ahead and started a new thread.

 

Good call. Because the bios update is now official on support.asus.com

 

And don't forget, if you flashed using the beta BIOS, it's the same one as the official, so no need to flash again.

 

I finally saw the 5870 Downclock, seems like it automatically downclocks once I open a video with DXVA rendering, cool!

 

Yeah but it's not enough.

Try downclocking your GPU to 200/300 and play DXVA. No loss of performance. That's because the DXVA I believe is being run off a hardware decoder, not going through the shader cores or anything.

If you open on GPU-Z and play DXVA, you'll notice only uses 0-1% of GPU resources.

Asus needs to go further IMO. And do the automatic downclocking at 2D or Idle like desktop cards do.

 

Why does this matter? Why would you want to downclock at all? Is this a battery play? Since I only use it connected to power and playing games under what circumstances would I desire my GPU to do this?

Forgive my ignorance as I don't see the point.

Cheers,

 

Auto downclock would be nice when surfing the internet and not doing anything intensive. Less heat means longer life.

 

+ lots lots. I'd rather have less heat and less power used, than not. I want this feature as this is a feature that ATi likes to promote for their mobile series. And yes, I'd like my GPU to last longer safely

 

Interesting, I'd never considered it an issue. I tend to replace my equipment every 12-18 months but I have a couple of 5 year plus laptops and they are working just fine. Perhaps it is the advanced capabilities of modern mobile GPUs that have you guys concerned about heat and longevity. However, I do wonder how many of you advanced users actually keep a laptop long enough for this to be an issue?

Cheers,

 

If you would have read the forums you would have read by now that it significantly prolongs the battery life. Also less MHz on both the core and memory reduces heat which means the fan can run slower.

Looking at the AlienWare BIOS settings for the clocks it looks like they made the right call but MSI has also fixed this. Asus is the big absent here.

To be honestly I think Asus support sucks.

 

Still wrong. MSI has not done this for the HD5870M

 

That's not actually how it works. While I can't confirm, I'm pretty sure that they're using a passive crossover. It doesn't "take away" sound from the other two speakers, but sends the lower frequencies to the subwoofer. This is the same as any bookshelf or tower speaker you'd purchase- if it has more than one speaker, there is a passive crossover network inside to make sure the highs are played by the tweets and the lows by the midrange/sub.

 

hi guys need help,
i did flash my bios using winflash, now my keyboard led is disabled, what must i do to make it works again??

thanks

 

A couple of thread on the ASUS support site claim a fix.

This entire thread
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- Potential Keyboard Backlight Fix!

Look at Post #4
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- 209 BIOS Official

Cheers,

 

nothing happen, do i do it wrongly?
1. i open uninstall/remove software from windows and remove ATK Package, restart computer
2. re-install ATK Package, restart computer

do your keyboard led works Panzer?

 

Yes, mine came with bios 206 and after updating to 209 mine kept working. The people who claimed sucess at restoring their keyboard lights may not have had the problem at all. Much of this is not being done in a controlled manner where each step has been documented to prove any particular cure actually works. I provided the links in the hope that maybe their methods might help some people but am by no means certain they will help everyone with this issue.

Cheers,

 

some says need to check if the komputer started the led are checking,so it turns on and off, but mine didn't do that...is that the end of my keyboard led?

 

It could be your keyboard lights are finished. One last thing to try. Have you tried restoring defaults in the BIOS. I think it's on the Advanced page and says something like restore optional settings or something like that. Save exit and reboot. See if they come back. It's a long shot and can't hurt if it doesn't work.

Cheers,

 

yup, i tried that to already, the led still not working...
yes it not make problem while gaming or typing, but the feature is there and also the hardware, but not functioning...i feel not good with that...LOL still waiting for solution... T_T

 

Unfortunately many of your peers have needed to RMA their G73 to resolve this issue.

Cheers,