G74SX graphics help please

Hi guys,

This is part rant, but.....laptop in sig is the unit in question.
The issues-

-intermittent artifacts in game.
-full screen movies (youtube, DVD) doesn't matter, I get screen corruption and/or freezes.

This is repeatable and ongoing.

What I've done-
-At least 4 different driver sets, both from Asus and from nvidia, always using the clean install option.

-Disable hardware acceleration

Used the original hdd with factory install, momentus XT with a clean win7 64bit install, AND a new intel SSD, again with fresh new install.

Temps according to MSI AB, and HWINFO, and GPU-z (on a second monitor while gaming) never go above 65c.

Lastly - RMA.

Here's the rant - laptop sat in "waiting for customer confirmation" for a week. So I called them and was told by a "floor manager" that the customer rep forwarded me to, that they had duplicated the issue and were repairing it. Fair enough.

I get the laptop back today.

Laptop repair summary:
-Issue could not be duplicated
-Return Un-repaired
-Following hardware repaired/replaced - Other -NTF

- they have my home phone, my cell phone, my email and not once did Asus attempt to contact me, and I get a laptop back that I can duplicate the issue on inside of 3 minutes EVERY time.

Guys - is there anything else, anything that I might be missing here? I am wide open to suggestions, even if it makes me look like a complete idiot. I paid $1349 for this thing and it's barely usable for entertainment.

Ok, I'm sorry for the long post and rant, just very frustrated right now.

Thanks in advance for any ideas folks....

 

How do you duplicate exactly the issues? I'm curious couse I just bought a G74sx last week and fortunately for me everything is working fine and dandy.

 

The surest way for me is to fire up a you tube video, then set it to full screen. I get black blocks across the screen, usually within a couple of minutes.

My keyboard is also barely usable now. It was fine when it went out. Cursor is all over the place when I type.

dammit

 

That's one easy way to reproduce the problem. There could be a hardware problem with the gpu itself but i'm not that good to troubleshoot you out of it.

There was some program that when you ran it , if it would display artifacts it would mean that the memory on the gpu is busted, so might wanna try with that.

 

I think it was the vram too, but this is so strange - I've been using this for hours this morning and it's running fantastic. Even the keyboard seems to be working fine again. As a matter of fact it was never this fast and smooth, even when I first bought it. Heh, maybe I'm going crazy lol.

I'm going to put it through a few more games and reboots today to see if this holds up - I swear it feels like a whole new laptop today.

 

Try stuff like Furmark, or some other heavy benchmark.
If I were you, I'd do a full checkup on it, from cpu (prime95), ram (memtest), video (furmark) and pretty much else everything else that could "bring the beast down".

 

Yep, just tried Gear of War - still getting brutal artifacts. I'm going to install FRAPS so I can get some good screenshots of it to forward to Asus.

This is totally unacceptable.

 

When I was living in another city, they had the Asus Service there and when I turned my former laptop in for repair I went there and they let me reproduse the issue for them. Maybe you can try that if the service is nearby.

 

I wish they were. I'm hoping that with screenshots of the artifacting, and photos of the screen corruption, they will repair it.

The sad thing is, customer service told me to make sure I don't leave my SSD or storage drive in it and to not send discs or I may no get them back.

And the game it does this the most on requires a disc, of course. If I leave steam on there for the other games, I'm afraid my account might get compromised. Hopefully the printed screens will do.

Oh, thanks for the suggestions and help btw - it is appreciated.

 

Sounds like the videocard needs a reflow, they should have just replaced it if it was under warranty. I learned today that asus is from Taiwan. Though every computer i've owned from them has felt solid and doesn't have that cheap $300 laptop feel.

Anyway here's what graphic artifacts look like, these are from a halo 3 limited edition xbox 360 i repaired over 3 years ago (still running strong).





The tunnel in snowbound was just amazing


I also had a hp dv9000 intel based laptop that would work fine for awhile then start experiencing graphic artifacts. I ended up having to replace the board with one that was reballed with lead solder. I have a lot of hookups in the industry, if asus can't/won't fix your laptop for you i can help you out.

Also Mason from asus is personally taking over my rma (sending my g53sx straight to his desk). I'll let you know how that goes. Goodluck with your rma.

 

This isn't my shot, but it's very similar to what I see in game.


The thing is it's so intermittent. I can play for 10 hours problem free, then suddenly it's unplayable, yet next it's fine again lol.

Movies are another issue altogether. Within a couple of minutes of going full screen, say, on a youtube video, the screen fills with black blocks and eventually freezes..

DVDs will usually lock the laptop up.

What kills me is that I was told the problem was found and it was being repaired, only to see "no trouble found, no repair" on the work order.

If I can't get satisfaction out of Asus I just may look you up - I do appreciate your offer very much. Thanks.