How to Fix Your GSOD Blues

PowerPlay works 100% it's the OverDrive + PowerPlay that doesn't work friendly. (When you overclock the card, it will not downclock to power saving clocks)

Otherwise everything else works so far as reported.

 

First time poster here.

I've been following a lot of the problems here on the G73 so that I could eventually get the required fixes for mine.

I already have BIOS 211 from the Asus website, and want to try the new vBios with Cat 10.8. However, the link to the .rar file Gary posted is not working anymore.

Where can I get this file?

 

Same bios + Overdrive is able to be used. If you don't want it, don't use it.

 

From reading this thread, there seem to be problems with Overdrive. Even if I use that file, but don't touch Overdrive, will I still have downclocking issues?

 

whats the difference between what chastity linked and what gary linked?

 

No like I said. If you don't mess with it it won't be a problem. The Overdrive issues are not really an "Issue" parsay, but more of an "Overclock stability feature" since when your overclocking you don't want the GPU flipping around its speeds when you are looking for it to be stable and such while pushing it closer to its limits.

 

Gary = Overdrive Disabled

Chastity = Overdrive Enabled (But not in use unless you choose to use it)

 

Sometimes megaupload may say that the file is temporary unavailable, in this case just refresh the page

 

My package includes everything in Gary's, plus a modded vBIOS with Overdrive enabled and 250/500 battery clocks, and an extra updateod.bat to make using my vBIOS easy to install. This way, if you want the stock vBIOS, you can use VFlash.bat. Plus, Gary's download links tend to go b0rk.

 

sounds good. the 250/500 battery clock happens automatically in yours?

 

Yep, it's part of the PowerPlay configuration

 

Your screen will probably flicker though every time you go from AC to battery or at least back and every time you run a video on battery (going to UVD), since most GPUs flicker when changing memory clock. Thats also something to note when choosing your vBios .

 

Go flicker yourself, buddy.

 

little bit of flicker + more batter life > no flicker + less battery life.

 

I wish there was a way have another uvd setting to make one for battery mode and another for plugged in.

 

Why would I care about overdrive and down-clocking?

Is this only a battery life issue? If so, I can just ignore since I never use the system unplugged.

Cheers,

 

So the vbios file link listed on page 1 of this sticky is the official vbios that was scheduled to be released this week by Gary?

I must've missed Gary's announcement? Some clarification would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

 

You don't need to run the GPU at full 700/1000 stock clocks when doing 2D tasks.

The new vBios supports Powerplay to allow dynamic up and downclocking.

Its more a heat/lifetime of component issue. Why spool your engine to max when you're only cruisin' etc.

 

K thanks. I'm fine since I only play games on it. No need to worry about something I will never need.

Cheers,

 

Any boosts in game performance with this new vbios??

IS there more voltage going to the gpu??

 

I am on stock drivers, vbios and 209 bios, and SC2 and furmark run just fine with temps hovering about 92 max (2 weeks old lappy), with no keyboard missing strokes, etc. Basically everything is fine..
BUT, I am really torn as to whether I should update to 211, new vBIOS and 10.8. Would there be a significant performance improvement if I update?
Please be gentle in your replies..

Edit: ugh.. never mind.. I see many have already asked, and consensus seems to be to update anyway. cheers.

 

Lets be nice now, i just gave people some more information ...

Do you even know how much more battery you get out of 250/500 vs the stock 300/1000?
Becouse im using real brutal downclocking on mine - 100/150 on battery and i get around 10 minutes more battery life than 300/1000 only so the difference isnt really earthshatering...
Im doing it cause i get no flicker, but most people do, as i also did on my previous stock and replacement GPUs.
The thing i like is 100/150 is low enough for temperatures to drop so low, that the fans go completely silent, but as some users posted, many GPUs cant handle downclocking that much...

 

Just to let you know guys, that I'm currently working on a new method of fan speed monitoring (CPU ande GPU)..
See here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/516164-monitoring-g73-temps-fans.html

 

Any boosts in game performance with this new vbios??

IS there more voltage going to the gpu??

 

Yeah at 250/500 my fans stop spinning and I usually sit under 49C temps at idle- that's why I like it. It's great for use in the office.

 

Got my g73 back, and they flashed the new bios before returning it. Now I occasionally get black/grey bars flashing across the screen. Wonderful "fix". Considering this is the 2nd repair, and 3rd g73 I've had, it's really frustrating. They won't replace the GPU because in their eyes, it's not having problems (Apparently, it's user-error/software).

 

I've noticed a drop in frame rate.. albeit 3 or 4 FPS in games like MW2. I've noticed frame rate drops in benchmarks as well. Unigine Heaven and 3dmark. My 3dmark06 on MSI vbios 10.8 just broke 14,000. On the new vbios and same 10.8, I can't get over 13,000 for some reason. I didn't look close to see if the processor was scoring less or the 2d, 3d marks scored less. It's possible that I had another process running at that time, but I don't think so. So my gut feeling is that better performance all around with the MSI vbios. Someone else want to post similar/different results.

 

I've noticed the throttling is more aggressive - I don't know if that's because the techs didn't repaste it properly (temps seem the same, but...). Maybe it's all in my head.

 

Ive also noticed im getting worse FPS, benchmark scores and half second to two second freezes in some games. This all started happening after i flashed the new vBios, but never on the stock, MSI or Clevo ones... If i reflash back to MSI vBios i can play without any freezes and get back full performance so its definetely the new Asus vBios...
Its true i am GSOD free now which is much better but this is still annoying me (freezes being the most annoying, i could live with 2 FPS less)...
I really want to know what exactly they changed in this vBios...

 

My hunch would be looser memory timings (followed by a hair less performance). Just a hunch since that seamed to be what ASUS did with their Top Bios for the 4870X2 which would clock higher than a stock X2 bios (but the fan detection was messed up. The bios version of 100% was only 50% on a stock fan)

I really wish we could tweak the full extent of a VGA bios, timings and all.

That and get eyefinity working with the laptops display + VGA + HDMI.

Hey HC. Have you tried say the 10.4/10.5 drivers with the new bios to see if the little 2 sec freeze is driver related?

 

I havent experienced any freezes at all and game performance is the same as old vbios..
am using with stock clocks with OD unlocked...

 

i got the same performance with the msi bios and the new beta vbios

 

What a huge pain in the rump for a new $2K laptop! This is my first new laptop in 5 years after purchasing a Compaq Presario that has worked flawlessly since day 1! I am definitely going to have to go back to building my own desktops with name brand components and forego to the convenience of a laptop. At least I know I will be getting way better performance and reliability with far fewer headaches.

I see that most ppl here are using this pc as a game machine – which is what it was designed for, but it also has the desired features for architectural 3D rendering and imaging which is my bread and butter. I can see gamers frustrations with GSOD’s, but consider showing a client a walkthrough, or working on a tight deadline only to have your system crash and have to go through pages and pages of forums and downloads and “experiments” to “see” if something will cure this hassle.

I am glad that I am not computer ignorant as I know there are lots of people that if were faced with this issue would be asking for a full refund and an apology! There is no reason for us to have to go through all of these loops to get new computers with the best of the best on them to work reliably! God bless those who have been vigilant in working on the fixes and coming up with solutions and resources for us to try.

Here’s a big fat raspberry to ASUS and ATI for useless tech support and hardware. Long live Nvidia and the name brand!!! (my apologies for the whining and moaning but my wife won’t listen to me anymore…

ASUS G73JH | i7-720QM | 8GB RAM | 500GB + 500GB HDD | 4x Blu Ray | Win 7 Premium | (GSOD – free of charge

 

I get it on all drivers... It happens rarely, but it does happen. If i revert to the old vBios and stock drivers or the MSI vBios and any driver i do not get these short freezes so i cant explain it with anything else than the vBios...

 

Powerplay seems to be working for me just fine, with the little video glitch at first startup, but I haven't lost any noticeable speeds.

In regards to the MSI vBIOS, it could be that it's smoother switching modes since it doesn't support the 2 additional video outputs.

 

1) Apparently you missed the new beta vBIOS which fixes your raspberries.

2) Have fun with your luggable desktop.

 

And it is IT techs like you that pollute the web with nonessential banter that is not useful or helpful and expect everything to be perfect out of the box.

On a normal laptop with integrated graphics and such, there is not much emphasis on performance vs reliability. It does what it has to and that is all you can ask of it or expect of it. (Have a Toshiba that has been great for the last 6 years, still works great, can barely push 3D in todays lowest settings).
When coming into the "High Performance" level of todays laptops, it does not matter what maker or choice of chipset you get, you will always have to gamble with the fact that there is no standardization so things may not be perfect. The GPU's are made in a more custom way depending on the laptop and in turn, are not as mass produced nor do they perform exactly the same as the next mobile version of the same card. This makes for a driver/bios nightmare for devs that are trying to make the card produce its peak for performance while also keeping power usage, heat and performance all balanced so the card works correctly while also performing like it should and hopefully lasting over 2 years.

Sure Desktops are easier since there is a lot more reference designs that do not have near as many problems since usually the reference design is proven to be reliable and fast. Some Makers customize their cards around this and hopefully things work out well, but often times there are a few that slip through and cause emorage issues with their users who expected everything to be hunky dory.

Sure it is a bummer waiting for however long it is to get a fix, sure it stinks to sometimes have to hack together a solution until a fix is produced if ever, but since ASUS has continued to support us and does continue to create some awesome designs with amazing balance for the price, can you not at least give it to them that they are trying to get things dialed in and the small % of people with issues vs the thousands that are more than likely out there working oblivious to any updates of fixes because they don't see the need for it.


/AntiRantRant...

I have continued to see this crap from users in all hardware areas (ATI, Nvidia, Laptops, Desktops, Soundcards, etc) It continues to amaze me how everyone things the grass is greener on the other side of the fence (Going form ATI to Nvidia, AMD vs INTEL, etc) where they have the same amount just different types of issues all the time. If you can't deal with it, look for fixes, or work around till fixes are made no matter what part is giving you issues, if you can't, get out of Computers and go get a PSP/DS for portable gaming.

 

So wait, you don't expect a product, brand new, in this price range to actually work out of the box?

If so, I have quite a lot of vertical property and some bridges you might be interested in buying, seeing as a working product out of the box is not a requisite for you when you buy stuff.

Its techs like you, good sir, that allows companies to release horrible products in the first place.

That you actually have the nerve to reply to him as you do speaks in volumes of the sort of product quality people expect today.

It's frightening.

 

It did work out of the box. It was when everyone went updating to the newest ati drivers that everything went to ****. ASUS was just a *little* late on getting out a new Vbios like most other laptop companys did.

 

Yup, I've tested it enough, no issues here. Back before vbios update, I kept blaming the freezing on the drivers/ video card but never realized it was windows fault all this time. No.. I also considered creative playing a part in it even with latest drivers.

But even after applying the windows fix, I actually still did freeze but less. This was however on bios 206.

At this point, I updated to bios 211 and the new vbios and now I have no issues at all. I'm wondering if the bios fixed some freezing issues or the vibos or both.

 

Just wanted to log my experience:

I received the laptop last week. I had read about all the GSOD issues so I decided to stay stock everything initially. I experienced no GSOD's, my idle temp was 64c and the highest in-game temp was 90c. I decided to try the ATI 10.8 drivers after several hours of normal gameplay on stock. Within one minute I got a GSOD. I tried a couple of more times after with the same results.

Yesterday I went through the upgrade process. First I flashed my bios from 209 to 211 followed by the vbios, using the instructions here. The only issue I ran into was that I never saw the flash drive show up in the list of devices to boot. I believe I navigated over to the advanced tab and that's when I saw the usb listed so I selected it, pressed enter and it automatically brought up a command prompt. I threw caution to the wind and proceeded with the VFlash command which worked perfectly fine. I eventually went on to update ATI drivers to 10.8 as well as Realtek 2.52.

My gpu idle temps are now 58c. After several rounds of Bad Company 2 last night, I hit a max of 86c. When I was on stock drivers I forced BC2 to use dx9 for added performance. After the upgrade to 10.8 I went back to dx10 and noticed that overall the game was much smoother. I'm not sure if the complaints about a decrease in fps are because people here were using newer drivers than stock? Maybe I'm seeing a difference because of the jump from 9.12 to 10.8 but it's most definitely there and improved for the better.

I did notice some stuttering early on but it was fairly minimal and went away. I will continue to keep an eye on that but I'm not sure it's an issue for me. I'm use to some stuttering/lag due to hardware/latency.

In conclusion - if you were like me and were all stock, I would definitely recommend updating everything so you can use the latest drivers.

Thanks to Gary and all of those who suffered a lot longer than I did to get this issue noticed and fixed!

 

Show me 1 Top of the market bleeding edge product that actually works flawlessly out of the box for every single user who owns one.

Its not that I have low expectations. I expect the product to be damn close to perfection and have been let down many times. (There is a big difference between Working and Perfect out of the box. You can say any laptop that boots on the first try to be "Working" out of the box. ) The thing is Instead of just b**** and moan about how things don't work and threaten to go to X or Y Company, Brand, Etc, Just shut the heck up, look around for a fix, and get thing right while also giving helpful feedback request to the company to maybe help them get the product to work like it should.

Every computer I have built works 100%. Did they "Out of the box", Hell no. But after a bit of time, research, finesse, and some massaging, the true computer harmony does eventually break free.

 

Try telling that to Maya (which I don't use myself but others in here have been trying to use) or SC2 which told me it wouldn't work with the old drivers and, thus, started my whole gsod nightmare.

The product was faulty, now it works as intended.

 

Guys, can we stay focused on the topic? If there are still GSOD issues, then post here. Otherwise, pick a different thread to argue pointlessly in.

 

What video glitch at first startup do you mean?

My screen goes completely black for a second (turns off) at windows boot, just after the windows loading logo dissapears and before you see the blue welcome screen before the desktop appears. Does that happen to everyone? I cant remember if it did that all along or not, but it seams strange to me so im assuming it started doing this just now...

 

Yeah I get that. If memory serves me correctly I would say it's always done that.

 

Just felt like it didnt do that before, but i probably got aware of it becouse i rebooted around 30 times in a row trying different drivers just now and my memory is real bad so im really not sure ...

Can someone else also confirm theirs also does the same?

 

Yep, here too.

 

My Desktop has done that forever. Think it is the res swap from the booting screen res to the desktop res.

 

It goes black for a second for me too.

On an unrelated note, seems I might have to wait for official Overdrive support to use that feature. I have bios 211 and Chastity's Overdrive unlocked version of Gary's vBios, and whenever I set Overdrive past 800/1100, I begin to get artifacts in SC2. If I set it at around 820 or 825/1100, I begin to get GSODs.

The problem completely goes away (no artifacts or anything) if I scale it back to 705/1100, so I guess it might be a matter of a vBios being made with Overdrive in mind.