How to Fix Your GSOD Blues

thanks a ton, got all my stuff updated and its running great. definitely keeping on following this thread! =)

 

Hi all G73jh users!

I just wanted to ask Garry or other Asus representative if you are as a firm going to relase new video bios for g73jh hd5870 with fixed power play plans, so it looks similar to MSI video bios? This would be nice to have a low,medium and high settings on ac and on battery running. And what about overdrive. As some of forum members demonstrated it can be enabled,but there an issue with it freezing the memory clock with overdriven setting and not downcloking.

Well, I just think it is not so hard to setup power plans with your lab app for modifing G73jh vbios.

Can you please release vbios with morre powerplans and fix memory downclocking after overdriving it. I just refuse to accept that this bios is final work and there will not be any more. I just can't imagine MSI did it with their bios, and ASUS won't/is anable to do it. Please at least live up to Msi standards and fix the vbios for us.

Just noticed Asus pulled notebook forum from their forums site. My last logon in vip.asus.com was 06.20.2010 and now I log in and the notebook forum is gone. ASUS why did you pull that forum from your official site? Are your notebooks clints really that?
I can only see my post in G73jh forum when I access My Posts link. Anyone can confirm that notebook forum is gone from asus site?

Regards

 

I know right!?

Wow. I guess if you really think about it that was a long time ago (especially in computer years).

Cheers,

 

I remember the first IBM PC and the IBM PC jr.... first time was faced with subdirectories ... took me a while to figure out where all the files had gone.
And a great TI994A where I programmed a PacMan with 5 levels... with 16K or RAM.
and I don't even feel that old!

 

Back in 1987 my friend had IBM PC with 20Mhz processor and 20Mb Hdd from Quantum,was making some wizzg noise. And he had norton commander on it nothing else. We used to play games like crazy on it. I got an Amiga 500 in 1988,that was some hot piece of hardware back then. The graphics and sound amayzed us when we moved our gaming from xga ibm pc to amiga.

 

ah yes....good old days on the Amiga 500... I'm still upset over "the one that got away" Moonstone. never really figured out the point of that one but was still an awesome game though

 

I am on 211 . and using 10.8

 

WOW. Never thought I'd see someone in this forum of the same "vintage" as I. I even had the expansion to the PC jr with two floppy drives. I programed my TI-994A to play chess. STAY YOUNG!!!

 

Why not? It's full of cranky "get off my lawn" style comments

 

Sorry have another seemingly dumb question

After I see the flash completion screen, is it safe to just remove the flash drive? What do I type in Dos to power down the system?

 

I am a new owner of the Asus G73JH. Just wondering if I want to update my bios and vbios, do I need to remove any ATI Drivers? If so, how do I do that? Thanks in advance.

 

Thank you Gary!

Today I was finally planning on selling off my ASUS G73JH-A3 on Ebay. I was very disgusted with the GSOD horrors since they day I bought it on June 9, 2010. I first installed Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit, thinking it might resolve the problem, it did not! Then I went to ASUS website and updated the Bios to latest version 211. This stopped GSOD whenever I would be watching a streamed video using WinMediaPlayer. But in Photoshop, it still crashed whenever I would do graphic intensive tasks. I also went with ATI's latest drivers, problem continued!
This morning when it crashed it corrupted a Photoshop file in which I had invested over 2 days worth of work. I had enough! I stopped using 64 bit Photoshop CS5 and went with 32 bit; same problem. As you may know, Photoshop work is not an exact process; it is an art form and once creativity is lost, it is gone forever.

Today, after I read your article the first thing I did was to use Driver Sweeper to completely remove ATI drivers. The next step was to do a Bios update from your link. After doing your bios update by booting off of a flash drive, I used the included driver CD of my ASUS and installed older ATI drivers. I then tried to push Photoshop CS5 64 bit to it's limit and so far it has been pretty stable. I hope this is not just a lucky occasion and instead it is a permanent fix. I do not play games on my laptops, I only purchased this laptop to achieve best possible speed and functionality while working with Photoshop CS5 64 bit, Illustrator CS5, and Premiere Pro CS5.

So, all this is to say I am grateful to you for posting a solution, but what concerns me is why does the ASUS support site ( ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support-) still not reflect your bios update and continues to list an older verison as the latest update? Many buyers must have had to suffer before they found a solution. Most people do not have the good fortune of digging and digging through forums and by sheer luck finding the answer. They probably swore never to buy an ASUS laptop ever again.

With your solution, it seems you may have restored my faith in ASUS and I may finally feel comfortable suggesting ASUS to my friends and family.

I always believed in Toshiba laptops even though in the past 6 years, I have built over 15 PCs with ASUS mother boards only and they are running strong as ever. I often wondered why Toshiba's laptop were so good, stable, and reliable; was it because they were using ASUS mother boards?
Such was my faith in ASUS.
As soon as ASUS came out with laptops, I started suggesting it left and right to everyone-remaining confident that this will certainly start a revolution in the PC world of laptops and I will never have any reason to switch to a MAC.

In today's economy it was certainly a leap of faith for me to purchase the best ASUS laptop for $1,900; I was expecting nothing but the very best. I made the purchase on June 9 2010 and have had nothing but horror and disappointments ever since. Let us hope from today onwards I will not have any more trouble with GSOD.

My old Toshiba Satellite purchased in 2006 is still far more stable and reliable and NEVER crashed even if it gets stuck with Photoshop CS4 but then it resumes. It is running Win 7 Ultimate 32 bit and only has 3Gig Ram. The video card is only 512 Ram Nvidia, yet it has never failed me. I wish I was able to say the same about my ASUS.

I hope you will forward my comments and feelings to the engineers and support team at ASUS. They should be proud of having you as their valuable representative.

I will keep you posted if the problem persists. Meanwhile, if you have any other suggestions to further the stability of my ASUS G73JH-A3, please advise me.

Kindly give me any suggestions regarding transferring video data from my camcorder to this ASUS since there are no firewire connections or even a high speed USB 3.0 (something I never thought to look for before buying it).

Best Regards, Martin

 

I just did mine and it worked perfect provided you follow the following post and instructions by Gary of ASUS. If you are doing this with the objective of updating the bios on your ASUS G73JH laptop, the only thing to remember is once you successfully boot up using a Flash Drive, you must dig into it to CD\93vBios ...only after you are in this directory will the VFlash command work. You may have to type VFlash.bat, not sure because I forgot this minor detail. Of course, this only applies if you are trying to update the bios on your ASUS G73J. If not and you are only interested in creating a bootable flash drive, the beginning part of Gary's instructions will definitely apply to you.

Anyhow, you cannot format and create a bootable flash drive just by doing a format via My Computer, read Gary's post carefully and follow his steps step-by-step. You have to use the software he includes in the RAR file which are necessary to create a bootable flash drive. Don't give up, it is very easy and you will succeed.

Here is the link to Gary's post:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...5309-how-fix-your-gsod-blues.html#post6667252

 

I ran into the same problem because VFlash is NOT located in the root directory and you will have to go into the subdirectory to get to it and then type VFlash. This is how I did it:

Once I booted into the Flash Drive I typed CD\93vBios at the command prompt, this will take you inside the subdirectory '93vBios' under which VFlash is located. Then you you can type VFlash or VFlash.bat and it will work...Good luck!

 

The same thing happened to me and it did not make any sense. All I did was unplug a USB cable from another USB port, freeing up all my USB ports. Then I moved the Flash drive to the USB port by the network card, tried again and it worked! ...Win 7 is a bit crazy like that
...I think it is equally crazy when no matter what you do, some applications will always require running as Admin even though I am logged in as Admin...

 

I think we deserve some form of credit or compensation from ASUS and ATI for all the misery and hours of frustration we had to endure with the G73J series.

One thing I am willing to be my life on; this all happened because of ATI video card. If it had been Nvidia, this would never have been the problem! I have been building PCs since 1998 and ATI has been an ugly thorn in my side ever since. The days when they made the All-in-wonder-pro, they shipped them with the wrong drivers. I would then have to make international calls to ATI in Canada where they were rude, arrogant, and extremely cocky when providing support. Finally a beta version worked. I swore never to install or choose ATI cards for my computers. But this ASUS was so attractive and I was sure ASUS is using the best of the best, and that with the economy ATI would have straightened out their act; NOT SO!

Solution, whenever building a PC, stay far away from ATI. When AMD acquired ATI, AMD lost over a billion dollars (this I was told by an AMD executive here in Austin Texas where AMD Corp is located).

I hope I do not get blocked for making this statement; just that I have been through so much frustration and hours of misery with GSOD until today when I discovered this forum. Now I am confident that Gary's fix is the solution for most of us, including myself. I still say, stay away from the ATI 10.8 and go with the version which came with your ASUS G73J in the drivers CD Rom (at least until someone from ASUS suggests a newer version like maybe 10.10).

 

Thanks for your earlier reply to my post! Could you explain here why you used Driver Sweeper? In Gary's post he did not mention anything about removing existing drivers. Did you remove only graphics drivers or also audio drivers?

 

If you are having trouble with GSOD (gray screen of death), then I think you should remove all you ATI drivers as well. The best way I found, from this forum, is to download Driver Sweeper ( download from Guru3D.com ). Driver Sweeper successfully removed all ATI related drivers from my laptop. I then followed Gary's instructions ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...5309-how-fix-your-gsod-blues.html#post6667252) and updated my bois to the version he had to offer in his post on the first page of this forum. After I was able to update the bios, I then installed the ATI drivers which originally came on the CD Rom with my ASUS.
I think this might be the solution I have been looking for over 4 months. My recommendation is not to install the latest ATI drivers until they release a newer version (like maybe version 10.10) and even then only update your drivers if it is recommended in this forum. In any event, if this works for you there will be no need to install newer versions of display drivers unless you are still having some type of trouble...good luck!

 

I never said the question was dumb

It's probably safe to remove the drive but it's for sure safest to leave it in. It is your system drive at that point...

Just use the old three finger salute to reboot. Ctrl-Alt-Delete

 

Hello folks!!! I've been reading a lot about the vbios and there's something I don't get. Some people said and quote: "Reboot and quickly start tapping the ESC key to enter the boot menu. Select your USB stick and press enter, the unit will boot off the USB drive now." And other people said I should do it on the SAVE & EXIT tab on the bios menu. So which one is it? Maybe it's the same? Thanx. Bye!

 

It's the same, but IMO using the ESC key is much simpler for something you're only going to do once.

 

I upgraded to bios 211 and installed the 10.8 drivers yesterday. I've played about 6 hours of BFBC2 and no GSOD lockups. I did however get a brief flash of a GSOD for a fraction of a section. Only did it once though.

 

Did you also update to the v93 vBIOS?

 

When I was going through this thread I noticed someone recommending Driver Sweeper to remove ATI drivers. It is a free utility and it successfully/thoroughly removed the ATI drivers.
I did not remove any audio drivers as I am not having any trouble with the audio drivers.
As far as Gary's post not mentioning removing the existing drivers; I had attempted to upgrade ATI drivers from AMD's website and I felt it was important to clean out the old drivers completely and start fresh. Additionally, I read in this thread somewhere that it was better to stick with the older ATI drivers vs the new ones available. These were the main reasons why I went with Gary's bios update and got my ATI drivers from the CD which accompanied my ASUS G73JH-A3. So far I have tried my best to make it crash, flicker, or hesitate but it has been very smooth!

If you have not altered your ATI drivers and still have the same which came with your laptop from factory, you may as well stick with them. The bios update and ATI driver update are unrelated and can be done independently. I feel it is ATI which is the main thorn in our side, had it been Nvidia, all of us would not have been plagued with GSOD, which is something I have not experienced in any of my other 5 yrs + old computes running Win 7 Ultimate (maybe because I have Nvidia video cards).

Hopefully this answer's your question.

 

Yes, I forgot to mention I also upgraded to the new vbios. Just got done with another 4 hour stint of BF and it didn't happen. I don't know if its relevant but I did all my updates from stock catalyst 9.12 and bios 206.

 

was it a real GSOD or just a screen flicker?

 

The purpose of the vBIOS upgrade was to have no issues with using the newer AMD drivers that AMD releases. So what you read about using old drivers is OLD INFORMATION. Please use the newest drivers AMD has available for Mobility after you upgrade the vBIOS.

 

Thanks, will do...

 

To anyone: the vbios that Gary uploaded is 012.020.000.032.038352? is this right?

 

To Chastity: So if my intention is to keep the stock bios, stock vbios and stock vga drivers... I shouldn't get any GSOD ?

 

I'm no Chastity... hell, I'm not even Chaste!

But NO. If you stay stock, you are EXTREMELY likely to encounter GSOD sooner or later. (unless you somehow have the right vbios as "stock".

and yes, the number vBios is right

 

You're not supposed to see one. But this is only based of what we know.There could be a 5% chance who knows.
If you don't feel upgrading your vbios / bios, don't do it If it work fine. If you ever encounter the GSOD or you simply need a new feature in newer driver, then you could reconsider.

 

Thats how it was before i started getting GSODs again on the beta vBios... After a week or so, it started flickering and flashed a few times in SC2 (before you jump to any conclusions, powerplay was disabled, so clocks were constant), than the next day it just GSOD.
Im back to using the MSI vBios now. Unlike the Asus patchwork it has fully working powerplay and is actually fully stable, but as its been said, HDMI and VGA ports dont work with it (flashing to this vBios is unsupported, i am not suggesting you should use it, i am just making a comparison here to illustrate that Asus still hasnt done their job properly since MSI vBios works perfectly fine while Asus' still has problems).
I expected Gary & Asus to finish their work and develop a fully stable vBios with fully working powerplay and overdrive after all the commotion - one that they would actually consider good enough to be released as official on their support website instead of giving us a half baked product again to just keep the majority from complaining and posting on their facebook and review sites. But development has stopped as Gary reported...

I also got a laugh out of the notebookcheck review of the JW today. Asus hasnt changed one bit, they are still following their old habbit of releasing new models with problems from their old ones - the G73JW still has the latency problem with the touchpad/Synaptics - the very same issue Gary promised to release a solution to for the G73JH weeks ago...
Old habbits die hard right?

Im really interested if your machine will follow the same pattern as mine HaleFire7. Keep us updated .

 

It's rather disappointing that the issue still appears to exist and hasn't been fully addressed. And aside from that, the numerous other issues with the G73 appear to be in limbo for an unknown amount of time.

I'll admit, I'm disappointed. When I eventually get my laptop back, I'll test it and hopefully all will be well. If not, at least I gave Asus a try. But I'll probably not get another, just like I probably won't get another Acer.

 

I was also using MSI vbios without problems before Asus v93 version was released. I've yet to encounter a gsod with the new Asus vbios but I don't consider myself a heavy gamer so it still possible I just haven't seen the problem behavior yet with the new vbios.

However, I've experienced a slight perfomance decrease with v93 vbios compared with what I had before. Nowadays my 3dmark2006 score is something like ~12100 when before the vbios upgrade it was ~12800 with stock clocks. Could you check what is the score you achieve with MSI vbios, is it closer to 12k or 13k?

I'm still a bit afraid that the Asus vbios 'fix' is just some artificial 'brake' or perfomance degradator that significantly delays the onset of gsod for most users but potentially leads to problems later when various GPU/memory components age or new Catalyst drivers get released...

 

To HellCry: Hi there. Let me see if i got it right... you are now using a msi vbios and it's working better than the one Gary posted? (that is of course leaving the vga and hdmi thing aside). Bye !!!!

 

stock vbios with stock drivers don't generate GSODs
when you update your drivers with the stock vbios you may bet GSODs (I for example haven't got one since RMA yet)

 

Hi,

I recently bought the Asus G73JH. I updated to ATI Drivers 10.8 since I was not able to launch FF14 (Was getting the error program is not responding under windows 7 64bit).

After upgrading the drivers, I was able to launch the game but I got the GSOD as soon as I clicked on start...

I then tried ATI drivers version 10.5 and 10.4. I was able to enter the game but was getting GSOD after a couple of minutes...

I was kind of frustrated at that point, I installed the game on my old PC but it was kind of slow...

I then found this forum today

I upgraded my BIOS to version 0211 (using the Winflash utility from ASUS Website).

I then created the USB Boot, copied the files for the vflash and followed the procedure.

Everything went as expected, My laptop did boot just as usual after both flash and my keyboard light / led is still working.

I re-installed ATI drivers 10.8 and launched the game (finger crossed at that point).

The game seems to be very stable now. I used the highest quality settings with 8x AA and 1920x1080 resolution. I'm at the office so I did not really play for long (I did stay connected for at least 30 mins before logging out) usually the laptop was crashing after a couple of minutes.

So far So Good ! I'll let you know tomorrow if I was able to play all night long

Thanks a lot for this great hotfix !

 

Hellspark, I'm using the G73JH (OC specs below) to play FFXIV as well. Runs the game at max res and max settings better than my crossfire 5870 desktop (makes tons of sense right?) Anyway, plays great. Hope you enjoy it, its a great laptop!

 

What's the difference between updating using the Winflash utility and updating from the bios menu?

 

Hi, Chastity (or anyone else who might have the solution)-

Issue 1:
I went with your bios update; " updateod.bat" but it showed up as the same version I had obtained from Gary's original post, which is; 012.020.000.032.038352
Kindly guide me to the right vbios update so that I may proceed with installing ATI 10.7a which you had recommended in one of your posts. Additionally, are there any benefits of installing ATI 10.7a drivers? ...Please advise.
Incidentally, I have not had any GSOD issues ever since my first posting where I had gone with Gary's vbios update and the original ATI drivers which came on the CD with my ASUS G37JH-A3.

Issue 2:
What is Net4Switch? It has started to appear all of a sudden whenever I reboot. It seems to want permission to start, I tried that but nothing happens and it remains asking for my input. The only thing I have been able to do is to ignore it. I have tried google searches on Net4Switch but keep getting ambiguous articles. Please help me understand Net4Switch and how to disable/enable it.

Issue 3:
What is " Decrypt/Encrypt by ADSM" or " Build ADSM Vault"? After doing some google searches I thought it was a neat utility provided by ASUS which can enable user to lock folders of choice from being viewed by others, however, I am unable to make it work regardless of whether I click on "Decrypt by ADSM", "Encrypt by ADSM", or even "Build ADSM Vault". Please help me understand this utility. By the way, this can be found when you right click on any folder.

Issue 4:
What is " ATKGFNEX Service". I have googled it and found a lot of people confused regarding this service. Please help me understand this utility.

Thanks to anyone who can help!
Regards...

 

Gary's and chastity's r the same js that Chas' has the overdrive enabled(unlocked) for easier overclocking......Chk ur CCC u would see the OD option..u then have to unlock it......

 

Thank you for your response...

 

ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

Go here for latest ATI drivers

 

A few of us already pointed out that the MSI vBios gives better performance (~1-2fps in some games and ~500 points in 3dmark06 for me) .
I dont know what Asus did since they wont tell, but the beta vBios is called a beta for a reason - its NOT finished work. Powerplay, overdrive still arent properly working, there is a noticable decrease in performance and at least for me it still isnt 100% stable (and im damn sure this 3rd? replacement GPU works perfectly fine since i havent had a single hiccup on the MSI vBios, and the temperatures are holding under 80C at gaming).

 

Could the decrease in performance be related to the PCI.express 1.1 thingy? I somewhat believe that the v93 vbios changes the PCI-bus from 2.0 to 1.1 (haven't checked though, can't be bother to flash back to stock vbios ).

What it says with your MSI vbios HellCry?

 

that is a hardware specification not a software one, and even if 2.0 boards are backwards compatible I guarantee you that it's not the case, and furthermore there is no decrease in performance, just lag spikes for certain users mostly under 10.8 drivers.

 

They both do the same thing.

The biggest issue with the WinFlash utility is if you use the wrong (original/older) WinFlash version you could kill your keyboard back-lighting, but there's a fix for that now. Another issue with WinFlash is a slim chance of Windows messing up the flash process but I've personally never heard of that happening - you shouldn't be running apps when flashing firmwares from Windows anyway. I watched the BIOS EZFlash utility brick my G73, so it's not just WinFlash that can fail.

Just use the BIOS flash utility....it's safest since there's no operating system running

 

There is a noticable difference in performance. Proof of it has been posted by some other user that encouraged the use of the MSI vBios back in the day when Asus was still denying the existance of the GSODs, but im not going to spend my time digging for that post or reflashing just to humor someone.
And we didnt even have 10.8 back then, nor did i use it now to compare the vBios (i used 10.7a which is still the best driver around) - i keep advising people against using 10.8 (or those 10.9) since theyre a step backwards in performance and stability.

 

Following my last post, I played yesterday all night long and didn't get any GSOD.

I can confirm that this fix is working great for an ASUS G73JH Laptop !