GSOD fix for G73 Owners - vBIOS update Guide

Yes.

Here's the info:

G73JH-A1
BIOS date/time: 01/04/2010 02:56
BIOS version: BR35992.001
Chip Type: BROADWAY
Hardware Specs: Asus G73 BROADWAY XT GDDR5 64Mx16 4CH ASID:A33G73.002$ UCODEv:1195
AtomBIOS version: ATOMBIOSBK-ATI VER0.12.017.000.004.035992

 

what did you use to read these?

 

After dumping using ATI Flash from DOS, I loaded the dumped vBIOS file using Techpowerup's RBE (Radeon BIOS Editor).

 

Nevermind, my bios is 01/04/2010 02:56 too, but for some reason GPU-Z sas 01/01/2010...

 

yes i think the same!
BUT why clevo 5870m are stable? or isn't true? i never hear gsod or bsod from clevo users.

P.s. another question: is it possible unlock overdrive using RBE?

 

If it would be because bad manufacturing, wouldn't they give GSOD with stock drivers too? Yes, the VGA that gives GSOD with stock driver, or even before the driver loads up is faulty, but I do not consider a VGA to be faulty if there is a driver which works without problem.
Would be nice to know tho that exactly what makes it possible for some people to use other drivers then the stock. I think if Asus+ATI really wanted to, they could have fixed this issue allready with a driver...maybe even they don't know what causes it lol

 

if u look also ati desktop card have gsod,bsod installing new catalyst drivers it's normal.
maybe clevo users are very few vs a lot of g73 users. I don't know, or a more stable clevo vbios that avoid ati 40nm problem.

 

Ok I did some more experiments and here's the summary (chronological order)...

1) 10.6 + no battery attached = no GSOD on WEI / DA / L4D2

2) 10.5 + no battery attached = no GSOD on DA (didn't try WEI and L4D2)

3) 10.5 + w/ battery attached = GSOD on DA under 2 mins

4) 10.6 + w/ battery attached = no GSOD on WEI / DA (didn't try L4D2)

5) 10.6 + no battery attached = same as #1

Conclusion (based from my tests)
On 10.5, GSOD can only be triggered if battery is attached. On 10.6, no GSOD issues regardless if battery is attached or not.

So from 10.6 -> downgraded to 10.5 -> upgraded to 10.6 -> ran ASUS ATI 9.12 setup to installs HDMI Audio and AVIVO which isn't available on 10.5 and 10.6 reference installers.

 

from your experience maybe it's a driver problem.
still the fact i never see this type of thread from clevo forum.
they are play game and install catalyst driver like you and many others.

 

Maybe I should go to the clevo forum and discuss about how I got a second GTX480 and a SSD drive with the money I saved in buying a G73

 

lol amen, and you still got a 5870M in the G73

 

lol out of mind price

 

For 2 days I've been installing and downgrading between 10.6 and 10.5 with my original BIOS. Somehow I can't trigger GSOD anymore on 3DMark06, WEI, L4D2, and DA on 10.5 and original BIOS. Maybe the GSOD got tired of me and just simply left me alone forever? I hope so.

 

mmmm i think gsod problem is a combination of 2 factor: asus card layout and catalyst driver. That increase the instability. Maybe also 40nm architecture doesn't help that much.
but in the end not such a big issue if you consider nvidia heat and power problem

 

I for one can attest to the vBIOS flashing making a difference. Before when i was using the stock vBIOS version i could NOT use any other catalyst mobility driver other than stock 9.12. I tried 10.3, 10.4, 10.5,10.6 Beta AND the official 10.6 and ALL would give me a GSOD. Most of the time the GSOD would happen in 30 seconds or less, one time it happened 2 times in a row in dragon age before my save game even finished loading up. I have been using Xeven's V2 vBIOS now for about 2 weeks and have only had 1 GSOD in The Saboteur but that was because i overclocked the card too high with the overdrive utility (850/1110). I put it back down to 800/1100 and did not get a GSOD again in that game. My system is extremly stable in games now and most will actually run fine with the card overclocked to 850/1110. I am currently running the official 10.6 cats driver with 0 issues so far. Games i have tested with this vBIOS are as follows and i tested them all for 1hr+ to see if they would give me a GSOD error and none of them did.
Bioshock 2
Blur
Borderlands
Brothers in Arms Hells Highway
Burnout Paradise
Call of Duty 4 MW
Call of duty 5 MW 2
Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena
Dead Space
Dirt 2
Dragon Age Origins (Plus Expansion)
F.E.A.R. 2
Fallout 3
Gothic 3
GRAW 2
GRID
Grand Theft Auto 4
Just Cause 2
Mass Effect 2
Metro 2033
Need For Speed: Shift
Prince of Persia (2008)
Resident Evil 5
Sniper Ghost Warrior
Splinter Cell Conviction
Split Second
The Saboteur

Almost every game i played before would give me a GSOD error and now all have disappeared for every one of these games. So whoever says this is not a vBIOS problem i think they are wrong because if it wasn't i would still be having problems instead of having a nice stable laptop now. I also tested out the Clevo and the MSI BIOS and both also worked but i found Xeven's V2 BIOS to work the best, I seemed to get slightly smoother performance in games using his. And for anyone feeling iffy about flashing their vbios it is extremly easy just make sure to follow the instructions on page one of this thread. Thats what i did and now i can game without fear of crashing anymore

 

Another 2 days of stress testing. I can say that GSOD is now a thing of a past on my G73. Running 10.5 and now 10.6 with stock vBIOS without any issues at all.

 

I'm not sure if this is the place for this but im wondering if anybody else has had microstuttering in games with the G73 even if the FPS is over 60 or constant 60, and also tiny freeze ups in some games like it cant load the textures fast enough or something and the game will "hitch" for a lack of a better word until the video card or RAM loads up the textures that should be there....it happens for only a split second but in RPG's when your in a new area and sometimes you turn around and it hitches cuz it doesn't have the textures in memory is kind of annoying....so is this somewhat normal for ATI hardware since games are more programmed for Nvidia? Or is that a sign that the card in my G73 might be bad? The game that i have microstuttering in constantly is Fallout 3 even when the FPS are over or at 60. And the main games that i have hitching problems with are GTA 4, The Saboteur and gothic 3. Other games have microstuttering as well but its not as noticeable as with fallout 3. Somebody let me know if any of this is normal and if anyone else has the same games if the same things happen for you. Thanks

 

Heh, people always have allegiance to specific products. I don't really understand why Clevo fans look down on the G73 since performance and hardware they are the same. Doesn't make much sense to me. And quality build wise, if the notebook doesn't break and can withstand travel daily from work and home, through the train and subway without a scratch...

Then who cares if Clevo has a slight edge on build quality. Because that build quality means nothing, it means zilch since the G73 build can withstand all of the above and still look flawless.

It's like someone claiming OMG this is better even though it doesn't do it any better than the other. It just means I spent more money for something I didn't need. Damn I'm really smart. My notebook is built like a tank, I really need it since it only sits on my lap and on a desk. Yeah it can withstand falling from a cliff, awesome, I'll keep that in mind the next time I feel like throwing a notebook off a cliff.

 

For me, I would duplicate the GSOD everytime by running Windows Experience Index. This was on the original BIOS, with any Cat 10.x version below 10.5. Original drivers that came with the laptop were fine, no GSOD in WEI.

Then I put the CLEVO vBios on my G73, and it made every Cat 10.x version work great with WEI and anything I play, NO GSOD.

Looks like some of the new Cats like 10.5 and 10.6 might be good with the original vBios, so I might go back to it and give it a try. The only bummer for me has been the HDMI being disabled with the CLEVO vBios, but I don't really use the HDMI too much.

I'll give the original vBios a try and report back. If WEI doesn't give a GSOD then it means that the 10.6 Cat drivers must have fixed the issue in another way. 10.6 Cats are totally stable for me right now with the CLEVO vBios.

 

Ok, I made one mistake, I've been running the MSI vBios for awhile, not the CLEVO.

Still, I just tried going back to the original Asus vBios that came with my system, and WEI gave me a GSOD almost instantly with Cat 10.6. So I'm back on the MSI vBios now...

One strange thing that happens to me, when I run these vBios tests and get a GSOD, after I reboot, even after fixing my vBios back to a stable one, I'll often lock up while browsing the web or doing some innocuous task like that. Sometimes the lockups continue until I reload my good system image with Acronis TrueImage (like Norton Ghost but better). VERY strange. But as soon as I loaded the original vBios, I noticed it detected and loaded the ATI HDMI Audio driver when I rebooted. Maybe that has something to do with it?!?!?!

Anyway, I can't support the conclusion that the Cat 10.6 makes the original vBios stable. For me I'm sticking to this MSI vBios...

 

Try this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/microsoft-windows-7/486478-fix-win7-i7-sluggish-performance.html

 

Also try this. It really worked well for me.
FO3 Ramboost
Just make sure IF you did the bUseThreadedAI=1;bUseThreadedAI=1 edit in your
C:\Users\[name]\Documents\My Games\Fallout3\fallout.ini
file to recreate the ini file. Just delete it and Fallout 3 will recreate it. Might wanna create a backup first of fallout.ini just in case.

If the new exe doesnt work for you make sure to edit the bUseThreadedAI=0 line in your Fallout.ini to bUseThreadedAI=1
also add the line iNumHWThreads=2 on the next line. (This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from
causing the game to freeze.)

I just did the FIX for Win 7 and my stuttering has stopped. Let us know how the FIX for Win7 works on for you.

Also one last thing. Right click on Fallout3.exe and goto properties>compatibilty and click the box that says (Disable desktop composition)
That stopped all my freezes. May help for you as well.

 

I've seen the same thing, but not for the reason you mentioned above. The fix for me is to have one successful shutdown. What I mean is, you can reboot the computer and everything seems normal, but it will lock up again. However, if instead of waiting for the lockup, I shut the laptop down and restart, the lockups disappear. So, a reboot isn't enough, you need to have at least one successful shutdown first, before continuing. Next time that happens, try a successful shutdown before you restore with an image.

 

Thanks for the replies and advice on how to get my stuttering and hitching to stop. The Windows 7 Core i7 fix seemed to work to make the overall performance of the system snappier but didn't seem to make any difference for gaming performance Gothic 3 still hitches like a motherfu**er when loading new textures into the map. I also tried all the fallout 3 fixes including the threadedAI change in the INI file and i still get microstuttering in that game. I feel like ive tried everything for that game and still having that problem. The game runs perfect other than that jittery motion its like the annoying frame judder u notice in movies when the camera pans slowly. But at 60fps or even anything above 45 the game should be running liquid smooth. I have microstutter in some racing games too like NFS: shift but its alot less noticeable because things are going by too fast to notice, but in a game like fallout where things move slowly its very noticeable and annoying lol. If anyone else has any other ideas please let me know.

 

Have you tried latency checker? If not, run the test.Here is the link. it could be some drivers that interfere your smooth gameplay. Try to play with battery out,that can help.

 

Not a gamer. As I understand it you don't want the game to produce frames over 60, so you enable, what is it.... vSync? This sets the max frames to the refresh rate of the monitor since anything over 60 could cause issues. Or, perhaps it has something to do with core parking?

Correction welcomed.

 

Ive tried Fallout 3 with vsync enabled and forced off and both have the same result with jittery motion. Yes your right that Vsync will sync the max framerate to a multiple of the refresh rate (usually 60fps or 30fps if it cant hold a solid 60) but this is not a vsync issue in most cases i leave vsync off because alot of games will drop the frame rate to 30fps if it goes anywhere below 60 and thats really annoying. Bioshock 2 is a good example i leave vsync off and i usually get over 60fps but its still smoother than fallout 3 at 60-70fps with vsync off OR on. Also another good reason to leave vsync off is it will usually introduce a small to heavy amount of mouse input lag. Also i have tried running FO3 at the absolute lowest settings @1080p resolution which gave me usually somewhere around 100fps+ and still had problems. Anymore insight into this would be greatly appreciated because if i can fix the issue with fallout im sure it could fix some of the issues i have with other games as well.

 

K I used the latency checker and and only every once in a while it would spike but 99% of the time my latency was around 120-200...I'm assuming that amount of latency is normal. The spikes were usually about 4000 but only happened randomly every minute or so. Also tried with the battery out, didn't seem to make any difference but i didnt think it would really. Keep the ideas coming guys something is bound to work since nobody else here seems to have microstuttering or hitching problems there must be a way to fix it. If anyone wants to see what its doing i can post a short video if need be.

 

I edited my post just before you replied. Did you happen to see the edit and do you think that could be it? I don't know, just throwing that out there.

 

I've actually already went and edited my registry keys to stop the core parking and that did make a huge difference in overall system performance but as i stated in an earlier post it didn't make any difference in gaming performance....at least not in the games that are having the issues. The games boot up faster but they still play the same as they did before with hitching and microstuttering.

 

Okay i put a couple videos up on youtube to show exactly what the problems are that im having so you can see for yourselves.

Gothic 3 Hitching issue video - YouTube - ASUS G73 video hitching issue in Gothic 3

Fallout 3 Microstuttering - YouTube - ASUS G73 Microstuttering issue in Fallout 3

Also I used to have the same video hitching problem with splinter cell conviction as u see in the gothic 3 video using the 9.12 drivers but it stopped doing it and started playing smoothly with any of the 10.x drivers i would like to try downgrading to some of the older 10.x drivers but i cannot find anywhere that has the mobility drivers older than 10.6

Skip to 1:14 in the gothic 3 video as that is where the map finished loading

 

*removed*

/10 chars

 

The delayed loading of textures happened to me on Crysis but I was using a different system (C2Q, 8800 GT in SLI mode, Crysis in High Settings). You could:

#1 From CCC Advanced, go to 3D settings and check your settings. My settings are mostly set to Use application settings, and some are in Balance or Performance instead of Image Quality .

#2 Still from CCC Advanced, go to ATI Powerplay and check the Plugged In drop down list is set to Maximize Performance instead of Maximize Battery Life

#3 You are running on High Performance and make sure on your Windows 7's Power Settings -> Advanced -> Plugged In is also set to Maximize Performance

#4 Download Techpowerup's GPU-Z, go to Sensors tab, and check your clocks. It should be at 700/1000.

#5 Lastly, check your running applications especially the background processes which might eating up your resources and possibly slowing down your GPU performance.

That's all what I could think as of the moment.

 

None of that is the reason behind the delayed loading because powerplay is ALWAYS set to HP and same with my windows power settings are always set to HP unless im going to bed and leaving the laptop on for the night that is the only time i will put everything on power save mode so that the temps stay low overnight. and my clock speeds on my video card are always at at least 700/1000 but most of the time if im gaming i will leave it OC'ed to 800/1100 or higher via the ATI overdrive utility in the CCC (enabled via Xevens V2 vBIOS). And no other process is hogging my video card, and nothing in the system should be able to hog the video card that bad to produce the utter distaster that happens in the Gothic 3 video i posted earlier as im running a fresh windows 7 64bit install with only the most absolutly necessary drivers installed (no bloatware)

 

If anyone knows of a link where i can direct download the full 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 catalyst mobility suites that would be great because i want to try and test those drivers to see if any of those other drivers will fix my issues with these other games because as i stated before when i was running the 9.12 drivers splinter cell conviction had the same problem as gothic 3 does now with the 10.6 drivers but i havent been able to test out the other driver versions with gothic 3 because the links for the older versions have been taken off of AMD's site and now they only have the 10.6 available and the versions available at underground.amd.com are for desktop only as far as i can tell because if you try to install them the display driver will not install from them.

*Found out how to download all other 10.x drivers. If anyone else is in need of downloading any of the other catalyst mobility versions other than 10.6 this guide is quick and easy and works, I just downloaded 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 all from the same link using this trick.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...deon-device-driver-catalyst-win-7-64-bit.html

 

On the off chance, can you confirm that the PCI-e bus interface is running at 16x? User goranstein found in this thread here, that GPU-z is reporting his bus speed locked at 2x.

 

Yep checked that for ya and i am indeed running at 16x bus link speed....and also downloaded 3dmark vantage and did a couple benches with that

First Run Stock clocks Twin Turbo off
P8301
GPU 7673
CPU 11005
Second Run GPU clocks 850/1110 TT off
P9246
GPU 8845
CPU 10698

One thing i noticed though is that in vantage it shows my Gpixels/s as only 3.44 and my Gtexels/s as 30.78 but in GPU-Z it shows those values as 13.6 GPixels/s and 34.0GTexels/s is GPU-Z giving me a false reading on the pixel fill rate or is my card seriously fu**ed?

 

Strangely, I get GSODs all the time.....and I have that bios installed.

 

From WorldofPlayers.de
"Here is a cleaned Gothic3.ttf

The original file has 438 KB, this one is just 47 KB (En version).
The original was highly unoptimized, some glyphs having more than 4000 points! So I removed a lot of unnecessary points (and there is still room for improvement).

For those who experienced low framerate in Gothic 3 and removing/replacing the font file was the solution, you can try this version of Gothic3.ttf.
I hope it will fix the problem, since I didn't test it (I can't reproduce the problem on my system).

Font with EN and DE characters (probably also works with FR and IT)"

From everything I have read VSYNC needs to be on to stop crashes in Fallout 3.

Hmm don't know what else ot try really but give these 4 things a shot.

1) Make sure your game directory is defragmented well
I use Smart Defrag

2) Disable Games for Windows Live (assuming you are using the Steam Version)

3) Enable triple buffering in CCC>3>Advanced
if that doesn't work reset your triple buffering and try step 4

4)Edit FALLOUT.ini

C:\Users\[your username]\Documents\My Games\Fallout3\FALLOUT.ini"
and change iFPSClamp=0 to iFPSClamp=60

if you get a slowmo effect try changing it to 30


See if any if that works for you

 

So, I tried installing 10.6, downgrading to 10.5, then back to 10.6....and that didn't work.

Then, I installed Xeven's V2 BIOS and got no GSOD on Metro 2033 (the game that contstantly get GSODs), COD4, or Half-Life: Source. I did though get a GSOD on HL2:EP2, L4D2, and Splinter-Cell: Conviction crashed as soon as it started.

Anything else that could help me?

EDIT: Fallout 3 also gets GSOD. And I updated BIOs to v209 from ASUS and that did nothing....

 

Well my worst nightmare has occurred. My ati flash failed for whatever reason and I now have to do a blind flash. Unfortunately no combination i have tried has worked so far. Does anyone have any pictures their bios that can help me out? thanks.

 

Yeah I tried 10.6 on Xeven'sV2 with BIOS 209, but oddly enough I got random flickers then ultimately black screen just running videos and streaming on the internet (and GSOD w/ a couple gams). Has anyone had this problem?

Also, how does your video playback look? Mine looks like crap on stock drivers. It's really grainy/pixelnoisy and gets quite pixelated with rapid movements. It looks somewhat better with 10.6, but my 4 year old Toshiba P100 looks softer and cleaner. Does anyone know why? I've tried tweaking the settings in th control panel, but to not much improvement.

 

Not sure why people bother with the older version. In ziddy's thread its pretty much everything accomplish here I think without this issues.

 

because a lot of us are bumbling around and don't know where to look for the most up to date solutions

 

SIG SIG SIG (Added v3 vBIOS link in 1st post)

Also I had some wonkyness with CCC when I updated to 10.6. Even wiping clean with DS didn't help.

What did help was wiping clean, Sweep, then installed Asus 10.1 package, then updating to 10.6.

 

I seem to be having a problem with Call of Duty 4.

The game keeps having these pauses every other few seconds. It's wierd because World at War and Modded Glitches 2 doesn't have this problem.

 

So I would guess from reading here that Asus still hasn't issued an official fix for this yet?

 

It's been suggested to mod your registry to disable cpu parking.

 

Officially, no. But we have made strides for getting it to work. See last sig link for latest.

 

I already did that.