Yep, its the ATK that has the last driver, glad ya got it! And yes, it does appear that someone has dissembled your laptop previously... I would take that one back, I can't see how it actually came from Asus like that. The top panel does snap in on the sides, it appears someone used a butter knife or something to quickly pry it apart.
A few thoughts based on a couple of days of usage for those still wondering about this little machine:
Build quality is great... feels very solid and sturdy. Also, based on a disassembly to swap the HDD for an SSD, it looks well built from the inside too. Don't see any major concerns at all in this department. Have no indication of issues at all with touchpad, and the buttons feel nice.
Cooling is fantastic! It runs super quite and cool, never hear the fans in normal desktop usage, and only slightly while gaming... it's multitudes quieter than the Alienware m11x, and even quieter than my G73. Very impressed with Asus' cooling here. Plus, as a plane nut I do like the two rear exhaust vents
Biggest issue thus far is the stock 5400rpm drive Best Buy is having installed in these things... it's like running the machine soaked in honey. It's noticeably slower than even a 7200rpm drive. Good news is that it's fairly simple to swap, but is not in an easy access panel... it's under the keyboard/top panel and does require some disassembly. Screen, motherboard, etc can all stay in place however. A CPU or GPU repaste will require the motherboard to be removed from the bottom case.
Installed the SSD listed in my signature, and between that and the cooling, the machines runs silent and is what I was expecting in snappiness and feel. Windows and simple tasks that would hesitate and take a second on the stock 5400rpm drive are now seemless and instant. The laptop boots in ~5 seconds. It really is as mentioned before by others a night and day difference. As a comparison, I didn't notice anywhere near the difference when going from a 7200rpm drive to the SSD in my G73.
Screen is going to be an issue for some with the G46. It's decent but no where near great. It's about on par with my other G series Best Buy laptops (G51,G73) which have never had great screens. Viewing angles aren't terrible, but if you get out of the sweet spot colors are quite bland and blah. The matte screen is a plus to eliminate reflections, but it doesn't have the vibrant colors at all that a glossy screen offers. Bottom line for me it's acceptable, but when a better screen is available I'll be first in line to try it out. Games however do look just fine on the screen and it's only really an issue when trying to nitpick. Resolution is fine for my purposes, and as a plus games look nice and perform great at the native resolution.
Optimus hasn't been an issue yet as others have struggle with in the past with other laptops. It appears Nvidia has sorted it out with newer drivers.
Will test performance in more games as time permits, but Far Cry 3 runs great, both on the laptop screen and hooked to a 50" HDTV.
Overall nice little machine for those interested. If ordering from HIDevolution, best advice would be do something about the stock HDD, and go with either a 7200rpm drive or if funds allow an SSD. Other upgrades or choices aren't nearly as big as that one upgrade. If buying from Best Buy, it's a great machine for the money ($999.99), and know that if you ever do want to upgrade down the road it is very doable in an hour or so. The 750GB size is really nice and I do miss the space, and gaming won't be affected or even change between drives, but simple day to day things are a bit slower.
Well, sorry for the novel, and as a side note, it's got a nice backlit keyboard.
![[IMG]](images/storyImages/5aa.png)
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
