G73jh replace HDD with SDD

Hi,

I know this is not a new topic, but I have a few quick questions:

I want to replace my second HDD with a new 128 GB SDD. I see on youtube that if I remove the back panel, the HDDs are visible. Here are my questions:
1. How do I tell which is the primary HDD and which the secondary?
2. Do I have to loosen/remove the blu-ray drive in order to remove the secondary HDD?
3. Will the system automatically recognize the SDD when I boot? There is currently nothing on the two partitions of the secondary HDD (except for some standard Windows stuff).
4. As recommended, I made a recovery set when I bought the laptop (and have already had to use it once, - so I know it works ;-}. Like I said, there was nothing on the secondary drive when I made the recovery set, but will there be problems using this set with a different drive configuration. OS (W7 64 HP) remains on primary HDD, so I don't think this will be a problem, but ...

Thanks a lot.

 

1- I'm pretty sure secondary hdd is the one on the right, if you want to make sure just remove one and boot your system up. Only one Hdd will be able to boot up. The easier way is spend some time in youtube, there are plenty of videos explaining that.

2- You don't need to remove the blu ray

3- If you are using win7, don't worry about that

4- My recovery sets are a pendrive with win7 and an external hdd with the most updated drivers (from Chastity).

I wonder why you want a sdd as secondary, if you really want performance install it as primary and make a clean installation of win7, next grab every driver from chastity (making sure you install audio drivers first from drivers disk). I did that as received my unit and the speed blowed my mind that first time.

Best

 

Thanks so much for the quick answer.

As to your question, why the secondary drive: When I first got the G73jh - about a year ago - I wanted to replace the primary drive but it seemed from the forums that it was really difficult (ASUS hidden partition, etc.). Now it seems to be a fairly well worked out procedure, so maybe I should rethink the whole thing.

My G73jh was not working properly from the beginning (blue screens and failed memtests that got progressively worse), and I was about to send it back for repairs, but a BIOS update and complete recovery to factory state fixed things. That was about 6 weeks ago, so I am just now getting a chance to really see what the laptop can do.

I installed FSX and started playing with it. Things look really good, but I can only achieve 20 fps if I dial down the detail on the graphics. I read that an SSD would be the best performance boost I could get. Add to that that

a) I am not worried about installing the SSD (but I am about trying to turn the primary into an SSD) and
b) I am trying to keep costs down (i.e. don't feel too bad about spending 170 € for 128 GB, do feel bad about spending almost 4 times that for 512 GB)

and you have my current (fuzzy) logic.

I believe you when you say you were blown away when you changed over to the SSD. This system really is great and the hard drive is the bottle neck. I've often thought, "Imagine what it could do if ..." But, for my every day needs it's fast enough. It would be nice to have the extra performance for demanding games, though. And, maybe in another 6 months or so, I'll spring for an SSD as primary.

If I do, how big do you think it needs to be?

Thanks again.

 

Ok, I'll tell you my experience. Before to get the JH model, I investigate a lot about pros and cons of the g73, since I really wanted a gaming (and powerful machine). Also, my previous units were asus and I stick with asus for stylish and performance. But I was aware about the crappy software that came pre-installed and more important, the A1 came with the DVD drivers. So I don't hesitate in preserve the hidden partition since I used to reinstalled everything from scrach in my older unit. When I got my A1 version, the first I made was replace the primary hdd for a sdd (Intel x-25m 80gb and the most I can afford actually), enough for speed and for win7+office and others programs. The first impression was : wwwooooowwww, that fast since I came form 5400 and next 7200 rpm in notebook hdd.

Probably is the most used combo/configuration here in NBR, with the secondary hdd used as storage and gaming device. Give it a try sdd primary and hdd secondary. Do a clean installation is a nice exercise and you will get of rip of all the crap. All my game runs in the secondary and everything run perfect -but the touchpad for some-.

When you write FSX I assume you are playing Flight Sumulator X. It's kind of weird you get only 20 fps, since is an old directx 10 game, and we are here able to run SCII, NFSHP, Crysis2 at 1080p (among others) with incredible details. Probably you need some tweak in the game more than in the system and also, keep in mind some game engines do not upscale as others, I mean, the are unable to run at high resolution (1080p) regardless you have the hardware to do it.

 

Secondary one is the one on the left (SATA port 4), if you look at it with the laptop facing towards u but flipped over.

 

OK. Checked my C: partition and it's only got 77 GB on it now - so, yes, I could use the 128 GB SSD as my OS drive. Thanks for the encouragement (still not sure I'm going to do it - but you've got me thinking).

There were some SPs for FSX (yes, I mean Flight Simulator X) that enable it to use multi-core processors - and I do have it running at 1080 - but it's still true that it is not optimized for Windows 7 64 bit and also not for quad core processors.

There's an FSX bug involving the task bar, and, now that I'm using the workaround for that, maybe I can get the fps above 20. Even so, though, monitoring my GPU with Everest/Aida shows it close to 80 degrees (C) doing the 20 fps, and this is the upper safe temp limit for that chip.

I'd really like to get a more modern game, but I'm not a shooter. Do you know of anything?

Thanks again.

Also thanks to Frosty for the location of the secondary HD.

 

If you like aircraft games, your best option is Tom Clancy Hawx. Here some videos of g73jh running at 1080p awesomeness.

Tom Clancy Hawx

 

If you want a modern serious flight simulator that runs and looks great on the G73, check out DCS A-10 Warthog... it's much more realistic than HAWX, both are great games involving jets, but TOTALLY different....

DCS A-10C Warthog on Steam

 

Cool thanks! I was going to ask if there was any newer ones like the old Falcon series I used to love playing.

 

sorry to be a bit off topic but i wanted to see if you own or have played this game solo? would you say it's worth the $60? was hoping it would be like 30-40 like sometimes steam games are, but still would consider it based on screenshots alone.

back on topic, i dont know much about which bay is for which drive since I haven't done the upgrade myself, but a friend has a G73 with SSD and I saw it for the first time just the other day and it's blazingly fast. Boots windows in less than 5 seconds. Definitely the only upgrade the G73 needs IMO

 

Thanks everyone for your input.

So, Nekki, you really DID get me thinking and I've decided to replace the primary drive, instead. I kind of got blinded by the fact that the G73jh comes with a terabyte of disk space, but I really don't need anywhere near that much: all of my media files, archive, backups, etc., are on a WHS anyhow.

I've made a Win7 disk (and hope it works) and saved the OEM key to a USB stick. As for the drivers, I found Chastity's post with the complete list, but I think I'm going to use the DVD that came with the laptop and then just update a few of the drivers after that.

Originally, I ordered a OCZ Vertex 2, but then read the Amazon.de comments and there were almost as many 5 star ratings as 1 star. I read some more and then ordered Crucial 128 GB. I won't get a chance to start the reconfiguration of my laptop until Saturday, so if any of you out there have strong opinions on either of these two SSDs, please let me know sooner rather than later. I'm planning on returning the OCZ Vertex 2.

I checked out Warthog on Steam. It really does look amazing. Like I said earlier, though, I am neither a shooter nor a bomber, but it looks like you could just fly and do reconnaissance missions without having to get violent. I also saw they have a sim game called Dive to the Titanic. Is that any good?

Thanks again, and ....

...wish me luck!

BTW

In another forum I found a good way to increase the frame rate for FSX, but it probably works for any other game: In task manager, right click the game process and increase the priority to high.

I also read somewhere (here?) that 80C is NOT the safe upper limit for the GPU, and that you shouldn't worry until temps start to exceed 95 - 100C.

 

A last update:

I did it - I did a clean W7 install on the SSD. Still need to do some tweaking (40MB/s 4K writes I finally achieved with SSD as secondary are now back to 20MB/s), but everything seems to be running smoothly and reliably (at least for now, who knows what things will be like in 3 months).

Anyhow, boot to desktop is now 15 seconds. WEI is now 7.0 (limited by the CPU!). So, thank you, again, everyone, for your help and inspiration.