Have you ever GSOD on your G73jh POLL

woohoo, GSOD is winning!

 

write to asus like helcry said
TECH.SUPPORT#amd.com

replace # with @

i did, it is the only way they will ever listen

 

I wrote to that address but they send you to a Customer Care Email Submission Form then fill out that form. Though through the selections there is no where to select 5870 mobile

 

Any idea if its only on some laptops? Or are all owners prone to getting the GSOD.

If a large percentage of people get it, then I might look for another laptop because I plan on gaming heavily.

But this one looks so nice.

 

I been running SC2 for a while now and some other games as well. Just reporting zero <.color.>SOD as of now. Although I got other minor issues like CCC crashes when installed. >.<

 

Well, 40 have had it, 37 not. I am fairly sure that more, maybe much more than 77 G73jh's have been sold. Now factor in who would come on here, my guess is that quite a few that had problems would research the problem. I would venture that a good many without problems would not research a problem. So.... this would hardly make a very scientific analysis. PS, Gamble, since nearly half of those that responded said no, I would guess that NO, all do not have this problem.

 

I was led to this site because I googled notebook forums to find ways to speed up my lappy. I also was in the process of researching other computers, such as the Lenovo Y560 and a Samsung model, as well as a Sony and a Toshiba. I saw issues other lappys were having, went to the store to test them myself, and found that paper specs ans reviews were very different from the real deal ( as I suspected, having dealt with computers for many years). I have had my lappy for about 4 months now and absolutely love it. No issues, no probs, just a ton of fun.

 

Not necessarily true, I know a lot of users right here in this forum who were members of this forum before they even purchased the machine. And as you yourself just pointed out, you came to know about this forum while searching for ways to speed up your machine, NOT because you had GSOD. Hence, the sampling bias can be perhaps +10% but not any higher than that. In addition, when you have a large sample size like lets say 150, you can get a pretty accurate estimation (accuracy of 12%) of what the machine is like. (Check the link on my sig if you want).

 

Yeah I was considering this.

Would you think that this GSOD is directly a hardware problem? As to the point if i RMA it, then my issue will be fixed?

 

I already posted many times the GSODs are purely hardware related - Asus using cheap components for their GPUs (vRAM, PCB...), so they are the only ones with this problem. Confirmed by ATI themselves and other reputable sources id say its a pretty solid conclusion.
Im already on my 2nd GPU with the same problem (actually its worse) and i cant find a good one in our service centre... Still testing more...

 

It's not just people with Asus laptops. It's not just the 5870.

 

Is there a difference between GSOD and PSOD? I had a PSOD.

 

While it may be true that it is indeed a hardware issue, it is definitely not exclusive to Asus. I would be inclined to believe that it has more to do with the DDR5 memory used by ATI. There was indeed a large section of the Desktop 5770 and 5870 users who are more than a little familiar with the GSODs. Now given that most of these occurrences have been reduced by subsequent driver releases from ATI, (check out their official forums to get an idea about the amount of users who have been having issues with GSODs), I think the area where ASUS is fully to be blamed is their lack of any support in cranking out newer, STABLE, drivers for their flagship gaming notebook. Or at the very least, a VBIOS which would eliminate these GSOD issues. That is, at least to me, is completely unacceptable.

Having said that, my last ATi card was a desktop 9800 XT (so I have had my share of crappy drivers, buggy installers, and corrupted installation files), and currently a very happy user of a XFX 275 GTX (for my desktop). As and when I do buy another gaming laptop, I will stick to a nVidia chipset. I would rather pay 20% premium for a stable product.

You can recover from a Grey Screen Of Death....if you have a Psychedelic Screen Of Death, restarting will not help. You will know a PSOD, because when you have one, nothing short of replacing your LCD screen will solve the issue.

 

only get them if I push the gpu too far but setting the clocks to 800/1100 on 10.7 drivers I get no gsod

 

I know there are rare single cases at other laptop manufacturers, but they get it fixed by a gpu replacement - their GPUs are fine, theres always a few defects in a production line, but with Asus the whole production line is bad with perhaps a few exceptions i cant find myself.
And i wont include those desktop cards in this discussion, since thats pretty irrelevant now, since were talking about mobility 5870 cards (and those desktop users got replacements with working new ones in the end), and only the Asus ones here are the problem - and when im talking about defective hardware it could just as well be the vRAM that is defective just like with the desktop cards you pointed out, but if all the other laptop manufacturers could choose good vRAM i think that Asus has no excuse to feed us these poor excuses of a GPU.

 

Hellcry: I'm not 100% in agreement with you, seeing that some people can get rock stability in using another company's vBIOS at the sacrifice of some hardware functionality. I still think it's a timing / sync issue, and an updated vBIOS for ATI's reference drivers would fix this.

The thermal issue is another matter.

 

The vBios update that was released for the W90 never completely fixed their isues, so considering that im sceptical, but am not excluding the possibility it could be the vBios seeing how poor the other Asus software is.

 

I missed out on the W90 problem, can you explain please what whas the problem with it?

 

Not sure, but I think it may have been a similar issue. Some user reviews seem to indicate BSOD's due to GPU's and GPU drivers, and random black screens.

 

It was pretty much the same as with our G73JH.
Btw. i managed to convince the techs here to arrange for a 3rd GPU replacement to be sent to me since some people claim they have no problems with their laptop, so im gonna keep trying to get a decent gpu from them.

 

The GSOD's are not hardware related. This is a timing issue between the current vBIOS and the direct download ATI Catalyst drivers in certain user configurations. I have been working with ATI for several weeks now on the GSOD reports here and to the best of my knowledge ATI has never confirmed it being a hardware problem. ASUS purchases the HD 5870 and memory kit from AMD along with the fact that AMD certified the motherboard (reference design) after several months of verification testing. That said we are working closely with ATI at this moment and will have a solution in the near future.

 

Thanks for the update

 

Thanks for the update Gary.

Can you also make sure that when this update comes it is a proper update?

Properly downclocking and modifying the vCore also with all options open. It has already been tested that if the 5870m properly downclocks and changes it's vCore also that idle/office work temps are much lower and the battery lasts longer. Much longer.

Regarding your other post. It may well be that the 5870m can work to 105 degrees without down clocking and eventually shutting off but these temperatures are not necessary with a proper applied heatsink. Even then temperatures easily can get to 110C. That is never good.

Also, what I read about the fan profile of the 211 BIOS......it is not good. The fan kicks in too fast. With a properly applied heatsink the 209 profile is good enough. Better yet. If the 5870m downclocks properly you could make the low temperature fan profile more silent so this laptop actually does what it says. Be silent.

 

Glad I found this thread through googling. While I'd like to believe this statement I'm not sure it's entirely truthful about it not being a hardware issue. I'm not saying it's entirely unrelated to hardware but it seems there may be a fault in the hardware as well.

I am now on my 2nd G73 (going to be 3rd after this RMA) as the first one completely lost all stability 36 days after owning it on all stock drivers & config. The original GPU would survive about 30 minutes of gaming or any GPU stressful tasks and then GSOD. Upon receiving my replacement GPU back from Asus Canada and firing up the laptop it crashed 6 seconds into Furmark right out of the box. Work log shows a fresh Mobile 5870 was put in and no drivers, bios or any system files were modified from going over my system with a fine tooth comb. This would lead me to believe there is in fact a hardware fault here as the second GPU was far worse than the first and showed artifacting, screen tearing and flashed the GSOD three times before throwing the BSOD I've attached to the post. Again, no driver changes or bios changes at all compared to the original unit I sent off.

 

Dear Gary Key,

The GSOD issue was acknowledge by ATI for desktop cards only never mobile onces. In addtion, you are correct that ATI itself has never said it was a hardware issue even for the desktop cards. From what I have seen in hundreds and hundreds of posts in the ATI forum it seems the GSOD is related to a timing issue (with the RAM) however only with some cards. Now although for those cards, at least most, a bios updated solved/delayed the issue (this was not done by ATI but the individual card manufacturers, ATI had a hotfix for 10.1 (desktop only)) many other cards never had the issue.
Fact is also that the CA repair center replaced my GPU without any software or driver updates that I could find (I even reset my system to the last backup before the RMA) and the new card did run with all of ATI drivers.

Now I do believe that some cards have this timing issue and it might be solvable via a software update. However, I still call it a hardware issue because it clearly does not effect all cards and an exchange of only the GPU did solve the issue. Btw. I had two GSOD issues and only one of them was stable with the stock driver. The first one was not and it also came quicker.

I see this as semantics. It might be that ATI only calls something a hardware issue if it is not solvable but that is easy in this case as not Asus nor ATI have not even acknowledge it to be there at all. The fact remains that many users cannot get any benefits or necessities of driver updates, and there are now many not just for BF2, because of this issue nobody really acknowledges.
I still recommend RMA as no one does guaranty you they will ever fix it.

 

Heres my deal,if the majority of the g73,s are stable on stock drivers and bios 209.

How can this be anything then a conflict between the stock vbios and updated ATI's drivers??

Also we know the clevo/msi vbios works.

if it was purely hardware issues we wouldnt be able to get anything to work reliably.

 

Hardware issues can be a matter of opinion. I worked in semiconductors for five years as a field engineer. There's a spec that every chip on a wafer must meet before it is sent off for packaging and ultimately sold. Chips on the low end of the spec get packaged just like the ones that outperform the spec. You could say that your GPU is faulty if your board has chips that barely passed spec. The manufacturers opinion is that is a good chip. I hate to call them borderline chips because they aren't, but borderline chips will have problems when timings aren't perfect where an exceptional chip will be more forgiving. Good chip vs. bad chip is not a binary test.

As the production line gets perfected and the yield begins to climb into the 90% plus range,the spec it tightened up so that all packaged chips are very high quality. I don't know what process is used for these but I imagine it's 300mm wafers and a 40nm line width. When I left the industry .25 micron on 200mm was the norm so I've been out of the direct loop for a long time.

 

Which is why it's called a "hardware compatibility issue". Since someone like Gary here is coming out and acknowledging the problem, I foresee a solution coming as well, especially if I and my trusty warmace have anything to do with it.