My G73jh is dying... Need some advice

Hello all!

You may not have seen me here before, but I have been lurking around here now for a couple of months. I have found this community to be a great one that always seems to give out good info.

Today I registered my account out of fear.

I... I think my G73 is finally on its last leg.

From the day that I got it, I have loved it. I went though many of the problems that have been discussed here on these forums, and have always found a solution here readily available. Anywhere from a GSOD to the random freezes because of RealTek.

Over the last few weeks though, I have encountered a problem that I simply cannot fix. Real hard freezes that culminate in a BSOD. It started slowly, now it happens more and more frequently, and yesterday my hard drive simply refused to boot.

Today I come to you guys looking for advice. I'm a HS student that is rather broke. This laptop was my investment for college, and now it seems to be failing me just before I go to it... I have a budget of about $200 and I need some form of exit strategy.

I have looked at all sorts of different options, and I'm not sure where to go,

• Do I wipe my HDD clean and do a fresh install?
• Do I send out my laptop to ASUS?
• Do I buy a new SSD/HDD and do a fresh install?
• Do I give up?

For you guys these may be trivial questions, but for me I'm drawing a blank as to where I go from here.

Can anyone on this forum provide me any insight into where I should go from here, and perhaps provide some useful links that are relevant to your solution?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

seems you have a dien HDD you can wipe it and fresh install windows run some test for the HDD if it was ok then put your stuffs back again.
if things didnt work properly then i think its time to invest in a new HDD SSD will be a nice upgrade but i think the momentus XT 500gb hybrid SSD will do the job fairly well.

you said you start slowly then you got BSOD if the bsod error ended with 07b at the end or any other error related to the hdd like 012a you can try wipe , check disk for error, run some test or get a new one.

 

Thanks for the response! Yes, I have been getting errors that are related to the HDD but it's not always that error. I have run Chkdsk, and it always finds some corrupted files.

The Momentus XT 500gb Hybrid SSD looks awesome!

So, you're thinking that a fresh install of windows on a new hard drive would be the best option?

 

egray2 - You could try ASUS if your system is still under warranty.
I can't vouch for how much of a help they are, since I've never had to deal with them, but I guess the impression I get is that they are okay overall.

FYI..I'm sending my G73 on RMA to Asus today, I'm also having trouble with my hard drive - second one in my case.

 

Unfortunately, I'm fairly certain that my laptop is no longer under warranty.

 

You've a G73JH, right? Mine was among the first few lots from this model sold back in Jan-Feb'10.
When did you get yours?

 

the asus G73JH has a two year warranty on the box. but if you are really hard up for cash and out of luck with the warranty you could take one of the second drives that is in the computer and swipe them over and install windows on it. if you don't mind losing your second drive and all of it's data that is. other wise I look into my crystal ball and I see you at a computer store buying a new drive.

those are your options and your future, good luck.

 

Thanks again guys,

I bought my G73 in my Sophomore year.... hrm. I'll have to check newegg to see when I actually purchased it.


Yeah, I think that I'll be buying a new SSD/HDD =(

Any recommendations on how to do a fresh install/which SSD/HDD to use?

 

Yup, they're all over the net! In short, get whatever fits your needs.

 

I don't think it's possible for the G73JH to be out of warranty. I got one in January of 2010 by squatting on the NewEgg site and snatching one as soon as the inventory updated. Back then there was a two month lead time to get one from a regular online retailer. Mine still has two months of warranty left. It's out for RMA right now. It has hard drive problems where it was corrupting data, blue screening, and finally disconnecting one of the drives. I too thought it was an HDD problem and bought a replacement. It wasn't. It's the hard drive controller, I think. Anyway, it's out for repair and hopefully they will fix it.

 

Wow. You just described my problem EXACTLY.

You think I should send it in for RMA?

 

you forget some of the Best buy models don't have the same warranty or so I am told.

Egray2 if you have to ask I think you already know the answer. call asus and found out what options you have. a wise man once told me, if you don't ask, you don't know.

 

Sorry, I'm just really nervous about this. I'm fairly good with these sorts of issues and now that I can't really do anything... It's just not a good feeling for me.

I haven't heard the best things about ASUS RMA, but I'll call them tonight and see what they have to say.

 

if your laptop still under waranty RMA will be a good idea you can contact chastity and ask about the RMA thing.

 

I didn't forget. The Best Buy model came out waaay after the A1, A2, and X1. Based on the time frame stated, there's no way it was a BB model.

To the OP: I would send it back. I did a lot of troubleshooting on mine including tearing it down and reassembling it, formatting and loading the OS on a new hard drive, and swapping HDDs to different bays. I'm pretty sure it's hardware. There are three of us with systems about the same age that are having the exact same problem right now. (Three including you.) We sent ours back for RMA. Mine is in "Repairing" status right now. I just hope they fix it and don't send it back with some kind of "no problems found" ticket. I bet they'll fix it, though. It's sort of random so that worries me a little that the bench tester won't find the problem.

In my case, it only occurs with two drives connected. If I run one drive, it works for long periods of time. If I put the second drive in, it will run fine for a while. If I start copying large files to and from the second drive or try to fire up a virtual machine that is located on the second drive, it will die instantly. Sometimes it starts thrashing the hard drive before it dies. Sometimes it just shuts off the controller to the drive. Sometimes it throws a BSOD for "Disk read error". It corrupts files on both drives. It doesn't ruin the drives but it screws up some of the files.

 

Do a fresh install and if it doesn't work than get a new HDD. On the bright side, it sounds like it's only the drive. You should be happy in that regard, if it was your motherboard or GPU/CPU then you'd be screwed. The HDD is easily replaced and not that pricey.

 

Setting up my RMA tonight. The HDD is 100% dead.

Goodbye Files...