Help! I bricked my G73 with vBIOS

Asus has been telling me they are still repairing mine. Apparently putting a top chasis cover and keyboard back on, you know screwing a total of maybe 20 screws takes a few days...

 

After seeing firsthand what it can look like when they take it apart, there's no way it could be worse if you do it yourself.

 

rofl, true. Putting thermal paste on top of user applied thermal paste without even cleaning it off first. wth?

 

Sure does in IN, good thing you're in CA. Thank you very much for pointing out Gary to me ziddy.
He is putting Asus $ where his mouth is He has put me in direct contact with my technician in Fremont and set up overnight shipping.
My tech says he will keep in contact with me from receiving and throughout the repair.

This looks to be quality expedited customer service going to Fremont. Asus needs to take note as to what happened in IN, so I am not going to fix this myself. Since Gary has gone all out on his promise, it needs to go to CA.

Thank you Gary.

Q

 

Well it looks like I'm in the same situation as you are now.
The funny thing is I flashed this using a bootable USB drive with the beta vBios that was from Gary and followed Chastity's guide.
It even told me that the flash was successful with no error message. That is until I restarted and was left with no screen.

UPDATE: FIXED
After several tries at Blind Flashing I was able to successfully reflash the vBios to normal! I'm overjoyed! I just wish I had been here to

help you when yours died too. I will provide the steps on how I blind flashed my G73 and hopefully this will help any other G73 Owners

Blind Flashing Turtorial - Updated: 9/28/2010
Do this at your risk. I take no responsibility if this bricks your G73 even further.

1) Create a Bootable USB Drive using this guide provided by Chastity.

2) Download the premade Auto Blind Flash Files from here (This contains the New vBios by Gary Key and the procedures for flashing the vbios is also copied from Gary so it should work.)

3) Extract the files to your USB drive

4) Your USB drive should have 3 files (atiflash.exe, AUTOEXEC.bat, BR38352.001)

5) Take out both harddrives in the G73 and make sure there is no CD/DVD/Blueray in your Optical Drive. You do not need to take out the Optical drive!

6) Plug in your USB drive and turn on Laptop and wait for 5 Minutes.

7) After 5 Minutes press power button to shut off the laptop

8) Remove the USB drive from the laptop and press the power button again. It should shut off automatically the first time (at least that is what happened to me).

9) Turn it on again and you should have your laptop back to normal!

IF THIS DOES NOT WORK
1) Plug the USB drive into another working computer

2) Check to see if there is a success.txt file in the root of the USB drive (The autoexec.bat is also designed to create a success.txt file with nothing in it if the autoexec.bat runs)

If there is:
It is highly likely that during your failed vBios flashing process you somehow damaged the actual hardware. The only thing left to do would be to RMA. (Unless someone else has any better ideas)

If there isn't:
This means that somehow either the autoexec.bat is not executing or you are not booting into your USB drive. Test to see if your USB works on another computer. If it doesn't remake a bootable USB. If it does you may have to try a Bios Blind Navigation + Blind Flash

Bios Blind Navigation for G73
Blind Navigating the Bios is kinda complicated cause everyone's settings may be different. My tutorial is for the default configuration of Bios v211. If you have modified your Bios or not using Bios v211 I can't guarantee this will work.

1) Be sure to have both HDDs and Optical Disc drive plugged in

2) Make sure all your USB ports are empty then plug in your bootable USB drive

3) Turn on the laptop and keep pressing F2 for 10 seconds. This should get you into Bios and this screen


4) On your keyboard press the arrow keys in this order. TAP do not HOLD left once and down nine times. This should get you into this

(The PQI is the USB drive I'm using)

5) Press enter and this should boot you into the USB drive.

6) Follow steps 7 to 9 from Blind Flash Turtorial

If this still doesn't work:
I'm out of ideas....RMA?

Thanks everyone for providing ideas! Hopefully this helps anyone else in similar situations.

 

Cool Deal IceDragon7, glad you got yours fixed and I hope your instructions can help others. Mine crashed hard and caused damage, the blind flash was being done correctly and Ken @ GenTechPC even gave it a go.

Q

 

Ugh a way to blind flash and Gary's release of KB Light fix, would have saved me all this time with RMA!

Awesome job IceDragon7, if only you were here few weeks ago.

 

Should it not be: -f yourbios.rom instead of -fa yourbios.rom ??

 

I'm not too sure about this actually. -fa is what I used. I copied and pasted Autoexec.bat file completely so -fa worked for me.

Thanks, wish I could of helped ><;;

 

Asked Gary to investigate what Asus is doing. 3 days of repairing for 2 hours of work seemed suspicious to me. He said he'll be in Fremont, CA and see about it.

Also asked if they can finish it on Monday and expedite it overnight shipping to me on Tuesday since I'm leaving for University again this week. It'll be a real bummer having to have to come back here since I'm leaving the country.

 

Look's like Gary has been saving lots of folks here in the forum from "standard" support.

 

Well my notebook isn't here today. Someone it seems at request of Gary has decided to do more testing on my notebook and the temps weren't to his liking. Trying to drop the temps another 5C he said.

So, I'm leaving for University in Montreal without my notebook. But the tech said I can expect my notebook tomorrow in Montreal. I hope he is right

 

I also sent my notebook for temps and gary has been great along with the asus rep who is over looking my repairs. Computer left my house thursday of last week and is expected to be back tomorrow from Cali. Will post back with new temps after I get it back.

 

When it's time to RMA mine I better get someone at my door carrying it off on a red satin pillow with armed agents.

 

Well it seems the person who is unhappy with the stability and temps of my notebook is Gary and looks as though he may push the date back another day. I told Gary that I just want my notebook back if it's stable. I don't believe perfection is possible until Gary and the team identify and resolve the underlying problem.

In the mean time I do need my notebook for work and for school which are the primary reasons why I bought the machine. Doing my work, web-design, photoshop etc, is not fun on a 15" screen. Gaming will be a low priority while I'm at University and when I have time, I have faith Gary and his team will have a fix.

Anyways, I hope they ship my notebook today and I have it tomorrow. If Gary deems it unstable, looks like Thursday

 

Maybe he's holding it hostage and awaiting a ransom.

 

I have been informed they replaced the MB on mine. No explination yet

 

I hope he's not holding it hostage as a test unit, as I'm sure he has access to other notebooks for that. I just want it back in my hands. Still not here, I'm hoping they will ship it today.

I was told the notebook has been repaired for about a week and they just been using my notebook it seems as a guinea pig for different tests. I'm glad they want the notebook it excellent working order, but at the same time my patience is wearing thin and starting to get angry. I was told it would be overnight shipped on Monday, and it's now Wednesday, no shipment.

Heck, if they want to keep my notebook they can, just send me a brand new replacement unit then.

 

Can you imagine what will happen when I RMA my unit?! I'll wind up sending Gary my RMA number, and forget it, that sucker will vanish!

 

No kidding. But Gary got back to me and said it wasn't just testing. They replaced the motherboard, heatsinks, GPU card and now memory again... It's undergoing testing, again. Hopefully they will ship it today.

 

They also said they were repalcing my motherboard untill today when they said that it was someone elses computer. I think they were talking about yours. They replaced my heatsinks only.

 

Looks like my notebook is still in repair. I told Gary and the tech that I just want it repaired. If not please send me a replacement. Nothing more, nothing extra, just the notebook repaired and returned.

 

Was told my notebook was shipped last night. Got back from class so still waiting here. Awaiting my tracking # so I can check the status, so hopefully will get that tracking # soon at least.

 

UGH THIS IS TERRIBLE!!! Asus mailed my notebook to the wrong address...

 

well that will make some one happy!

 

Did they mail it to your home address, or some lucky fellow at your school?

 

My old address where I no longer live. Moved out, lease is over. But on FedEx looks the delivery is halted for exception awaiting a new address. Just hope it arrives here in Canada tomorrow.

 

Update #5 and seemingly the last

To sum it up, Gary did what he said he would do, Asus & NBR are lucky to have him. He saved Asus for at least one more round imo.

My G73 came back clean (no scratches), BIOS 211 and Gary's vBIOS that gives us the app dynamic clocking 405-700. The temps are different and I attribute much of it to BIOS 211.
My CPU max temps are higher by about the 4-5C range (Asus TT Off), but the idle temps remain about the same as all my G73's in the past.
My GPU idle temps have also risen a little on the 700MHz clock (say 3-4C) and the 405MHz non 3D downclock has them about the same as before with a 700 clock (I don't consider this a big deal since it's idle). However, the real improvement is on the GPU max temps (mainly MemIO and Shader) as they have come well down. Given that the idles are up, but the max are down, imo I can attribute that best to the fan profile in 211.

Differences from past temp experiences aside, I am pleased it is working correctly and so far has been crash free.

Thank you Gary

Q

 

ziddy, what's your situation?

Q

 

Mine came back fine also. I did repaste mine and using my own modification of Gary's vBios. Working good here.

 

Ugh!! I should come NBR first to see how to solve the same problem with me.
I have done the same thing as Quagmire LXIX, but I dont try the blindflash whether it will work.
Now I have bring it to RMA(Melbourne) since 9/20/2010

they said they have changed the motherboard but still not working.
now they have order the CPU and prepare to change it..
If it is still not working , which part they can change - -?
BTW, how long did anybody take it to G73 until repaired..

 

Unfortunately, there are 3 reported cases I know of where a vBIOS flash crash has caused major damage that a blind flash will not fix (I was 1). What seems to happen is the vga goes brick and the fan will not spin, this is after a windows freeze on 2 and a DOS flash on 1. You can start your G73, but it will hang on a P.O.S.T. error (one that we can't see mind you ) and therefore will not go any further allowing you to boot from anything to do another flash.

The fix is to RMA and have your vga (expected) and mobo (not so expected) replaced. If their thought is also to replace your cpu with no mention of replacing the vga, I'd have to wonder if they are even clear on the problem being a vBIOS crash.

Good luck.

Q

 

thx for reply.wait you a long time>_<
today I have phoned them,i said that my problem is vbios not CPU, they said they have changed the Motherboard ,and said the vga is in Motherboard!? what does it mean? Is the motherboard and vga card is not separated...

 

Yes, I waited 7+ weeks as they didn't have vga's in stock, then it came back to me in an atrocious manner which a seperate RMA managed to get it back together for the most part.

The vga is it's own device and is seperate/replacable of the mobo. It is not 'onboard' graphics as they appear to imply. If there isn't a communication problem, but yet they say the vga is part of the mobo, I would have serious doubts about their competence. I did some reading that implied the vBIOS and main BIOS do intertwine to a degree, it's not fact by any means afaik, but it made sense to me when I found out they were replacing my mobo along with the vga card.

Maybe you just need to roll with it for now as you may have more problems than originally figured, but I'm not crazy about how you're presenting the situation, something seems very odd about their answers.

Q

 

so Quagmire LXIX has wasted 7 weeks on RMA and at last RMA did not solve the problem and they make the hole deeper?
I am so worried about my G73 now.
Is there any case that RMA solve the vbios crashed?

 

it seems that send laptop to Gary is the best way to solve the vbios?
I live in melbourne,it may seems that the problem be worse ..

 

The 7+ week did solve the vBIOS crash, it was just repaired by incompetence weilding a pipe wrench, they did not put it back together right and therefore had out of control temps.

Gary Key did another RMA to fix that. Gary and/or Asus RMA will fix the flash crash, I just hope your tech isn't the one I had and he/she was at the Indiana repair center. Since you're where you are, I won't figure yours to go to IN. Gary works out of California (Freemont) and I have nothing but good things to say about the repair center in that side of town

Q

 

These two days I have submit a form for talking about my problem to syd's rma,finally,today they told me that I can collect my laptop now. It is a good news that I did not need to wait more weeks for this.
They phoned me that just replaced my VGA,haha,what about the CPU?

Now I am on the train to the rma
As somebody said,rma always not tell you what they really have done with your laptop..
Thanks to Quagmire to reply my post
Even my English is poor >_<

 

quARMIRE.

your should replace your zalman with a thermal take massive 23cm...

will drop temps 9-15c I promise

 

tonight I have tested the laptop from RMA.
they have replace my mobo and VGA
the bios of mobo did not have SLIC!- -,so my win 7 become abnormal...
and I tested the furmark.the temp is very high to reach 108...
Ugh~
I have fixed the slic
but the 108c it seems that hard to fix...

 

Well, I certainly won't have to position my vents for that monster fan , thanks.

Bummer, 108 blows. What kind of temps do you get gaming?

Q

 

Hi all.

I`m joining in club of us that have bricked ours g73`s with vbios flashing. I have done it successfully countless times on same machine till last time .
Now it will not load dos usb stick for blind flashing. I am living in norway and nearest repair service is in netherland . Laptop is purchased from USA. Not to mention long vaiting and terrible experience some of users of this forum haved with repair services maked me to take thing in my hands and fix gpu my self.
Have ordered spi programmer and will desolder vbios chip and reprogram it self.
So never be sure for 100% when come to this things, dont flash if you really dont need to.

 

jmhdj, I'm not sure you need to go through all that, see this first: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...lp-i-bricked-my-g73-vbios-16.html#post6647309

 

He already tried my method, no luck. I think it might be hardware related now...

@jmhdj Just to double check, can you post your autoexec file text here? Been quite busy lately so I haven't been able to respond much, sorry.

 

Hi.
Yeah I have read that side many times and spoked with iceDragon7 via private messages for couple days now.
Problem in my case is that somehow dead gpu blocks bios to load completely thus no usb acces.
In short laptop power on with keyboard lights on and off after two second and thats all. But when i removed gpu and put all together and started pc it loaded windows normaly even windows logon sound was heard.

autoexec file text:
atiflash -p 0 -f BR38352.001
echo off > success.txt

 

Hello all

Update on my status now. Just recieved SPI Programmer and it worked.

I have desoldered chip Pm25LV010 from 5870m vga board, connected it with Programmer and it recognised it at once. When I readed chip with programmer it readed just garbage which means something wierd happened when i flashed vbios last time. Found my original vbios backup ROM and writed it on chip. Soldered it back to 5870m and assembled all back It taked me 10 days from brick to working laptop, not bad service at all. Wonder how long time it would take asus to repair it.
Happy ending/new begining of life for my G73jh.

Want to give big thanks to IceDragon7, Xeven, Quagmire LXIX and ALLurGroceries for help they provide to find fix for my problems.

 

I'm glad everything worked out for you! And I'm glad to be of service.

 

Sad part is you still need to update the vBIOS....

 

No I dont as I never had gsod problems with original vbios. And as far as I know only card that can run memory at 1300mhz is my. When we speak about g73`s I mean.

 

I can't find a valid link to a vBIOS download.

Do any of you know of solid link for a vBIOS download for G73jh?

I've never done it before so if there is a link with a walkthrough, that would be stupendous.

I tried to update my Catalyst software and now CCC refuses to work. I've never updated the BIOS or vBIOS so I think that may be my problem.



Thanks