G73jh Hybrid HDD problems.

Sometimes my G73 can't find my Hybrid HDD boot drive [and only HDD] and then does after a few presses of the power button on/off.

"Sometimes" being anywhere from a few days to a week or two.

Even when there isn't a problem, I've noticed [being curious and taking a look] that my boot order keeps changing

Usually when it does this, it beeps steadily ~2x a second.

Once, and only once, I was playing Torchlight 2 and it started beeping, the game froze and the system crashed and restarted.

Update: The laptop stated beeping again shortly after I posted. I closed the browser and was waiting for the laptop to crash ...it didn't. To add to the mystery, there was nothing in the events viewer.




SO...

Is this a normal bad HDD problem or something more specific to hybrid HDDs?

I described this to someone I knew who happened to have a friend with a Hybrid Drive and it was doing the same thing I described.

Q: Is there more than one Intel Driver needed for SSD/Hybrid HDD? I have Intel SRT driver installed? Was I supposed to install the matrix driver too? It looked like the SRT driver superseded the Matrix driver, so I only installed the SRT driver ( link to page)


I really don't want to have weeks of downtime without my only gaming machine, I may just go buy a normal HDD today, even though money is tight.

 

Could be a bad drive. I suggest you try another drive, also look to see if the drive you have has a firmware update. Run chkdsk and make sure you don't have any bad sectors or errors.

Since your Lappy can hold 2 HDDs I would buy another (if you do not already have one) and try it. Also check that it is seated properly. Make sure all drivers are up to date also.

I did just replace my XT Momentus because it became very unresponsive, started clicking and I was able to find a great deal on a 1 TB drive.

 

A malfunctioning HDD can cause VERY odd behavior so yeah worth checking it out and making sure you backup everything you need.

 

Its difficult to say, while a bad HDD could cause the boot order to adjust including the freezes. An issue with the connector or SATA port could cause the same.

Please swap your drives between bays #1 and #2. And see if you continue to experience the same symptoms. The freezes to match up with an HDD issue; infact I had a bad HDD that started failing 3-4months on my g73jh-x1. I had extra drives and eventually purchased a 500GB XT.

Check smartdata on the drive and if its a major brand like Seagate, Hitachi, or WD; run their Diag tools for the drive for a short test which will include SMART errors.


Short: Swap drives between bays, see if you encounter same symptoms. Run diag tools to test your main game/boot drive regardless!

 

My partner's g73jh has almost the exact same problem. Her 2nd HDD was disconnecting a few minutes after startup. I guess there weren't booting issues because it was just the data drive acting up.

Anyway, i swapped disks with my own g73jh and the harddrive was totally fine, which made me suspect it was the SATA/connector that was acting up. I took the laptop apart and saw that the connector looked a bit worn. I had no way of confirming whether it's the port or the connector, so I logged on today to try and find out where I could buy another connector for the sata port :/. I really wish i took pics ofthe connector.

You should keep in mind that the SATA ports of both bays are one single part. You may get a false positive swapping your HDDs around like Daverish suggested. If you have another computer to put the disk in you may want to try that instead (disclaimer: i am no expert and am not sure if that's a good thing to do with any HDD. That being said, that's what I did to confirm the HDD was working)

 

Also, I have the boot order changing issue on my own G73JH (not my partner's who has the other problems you have) I've had it for almost the entire lifetime of this laptop. No idea what that is but it may not be related to your booting issues.

Not to hijack or anything, but does anyone know what exactly those connectors on the mobo are called and where I can buy them?

 

Isn´t this related to my and other´s issues about the SATA ribbon to the HDD case? http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/702377-g73jh-hdd-sata-board-failures.html

 

I didn't have the time to get back here to check replies until now. I will try these solutions eventually, but I want to hold off because it seems my problem might be stranger still. I say this because it seems that my HDD doesn't get recognized on boot every Friday. I'm good all week, then I have this problem on Fridays ...or after a shutdown on Friday, the subsequent startup.

I'm not fixing it yet because I want to see how long this streak goes.

 

Try changing the bios clock to friday and see if it happens. If not then there may be some sort of electrical interference near by only on fridays....

 

When it crashed on that next tuesday I decided to wait until Friday anyway just to see. It did crash again, but with my curiosity satisfied I switched drive bays.

*When I did this, it seems a driver for the new HDD was [re?]installed. It was really quick, so hard to read, but that is what it seemed to say as I did eye the HDD model in the message.


Not to jinx it, but I haven't had a problem since in more than a week ...so if anyone is having this issue TRY SWITCHING HDD BAYS.

 

Interesting, maybe that driver got corrupted...

 

I used an ASUS AI Recovery backup to install to the new HDD.

Of course I just assumed everything would take care of itself, but should I have expected the new and different HDD from the original equipment to install whatever it needed to on top of everything else from the disc meant to return the laptop to factory condition automatically?

 

During any install occasionally on consumer hardware an error can occur and it mucks up, it's only on business class devices that have error detection and compensation this will never happen.

 

Then suddenly, two in a row.

...wondering if there was something in yesterday's updates, so I went to a restore point from Sunday.

 

Yeah that would point to a bad update somewhere, I would install one by one and see which triggers it.

 

It started doing this again even though I've not reinstalled any updates.

I'm giving up on this HDD and Hybrid HDD's in general. I'm backing up on dvds [no other medium available] and buying a regular 750GB when my tax return comes in.

 

That or get a 128GB SSD for your OS and a regular 500GB for other stuff.