The G73: An Ongoing Battle

Let me start this off by saying that I really did try desperately to love the G73. It came highly recommended, its stats were by far the absolute best one could hope to find for a system of this particular size and power, and when it was working well, I could not have been happier. However, this machine has thwarted my attempts at love.

I am currently in possession of my 5th G73. It is conveniently named "Number_5." I have owned both the A2 and A1 models. I purchased the offending parties from various Canada Computers locations in the GTA (never Best Buy) and have had roughly the same problems with each. It wasn't until last week that I discovered the Furmark software through this forum to be able to test the units for GSODs. Prior to that I was feverishly searching online for any possible fixes. Everyone that posted seemed to be suffering from the same problem, but this problem was being brought about through different ways for everyone.

I've had some units that were more functional than others, however they all seemed to GSOD during play of Steam games. Specifically, ones that use the Source Engine. These GSODs occurred using both the stock and BIOS209 as well as on various ATI drivers. While some seemed to increase play time, GSODs were inevitable.

Half Life 2 - I can get about 30 min of play time max before a crash.
Alien Swarm - I can go online for less than 15 before a GSOD.
Crysis - Here's the anomally; the game runs damn near perfect for hours, with the CCC mod running fairly hot. And when I say fairly hot, I mean that if anything were going to cause a crash, one would think that Crysis would have managed one, if not numerous crashes before Half Life 2 and Alien Swarm.

I don't even begin to understand this. Especially considering that Furmark can usually bring about a GSOD or one of the more colourful varieities in under 5 minutes (and generally under 3).

My current state of mind is frustrated beyond belief. However, as I said above, I really do want to love this computer. I plan on exchanging this unit for another (hopefully getting one of the store's techs to run Furmark before I make the exchange) in the hopes of eventually getting a unit that works.

I should mention that I called the ASUS hotline on two occasions and the support staff were unhelpful at best... and complete s the rest of the time. Having previously owned Macs, I'm not exactly used to having access to PC games. However, I am used to having my computers work straight out of the box.

Anyway, just thought I'd share that and thank Chastity, Hellcry and hakira for their wisdom and ongoing support for those unfortunate enough to be on these forums in the first place.

 

5th one wow, how can you take it?

Best solution is to oc the gpu. Play with different numbers until u get little or no gsod. I have mine set to 704.95/1100 and never gotten a gsod. This is with driver 10.6 and stock bios. However, although I never get gsod's, I also don't play very many games. I haven't even played a high end game yet. Normally just warcraft and some fighting games.

The reason y oc works is because drivers from ati changes virtual memory which is causing the gsod. I can't explain it very well but I'm sure someone will. Pretty much the 5807 has an hardware issue. The stock drivers will not cause any bsod's since it was designed for the g73. on the other hand, the 10.6 changes memory quite a bit causing it to have a panic attack. At this point, it starts to hate you.

edit - Its not bullet proof. No matter what, it seems like no amount of oc will stop gsod while using FURMARK. Pretty much, If oc can't fix your favorite games, I would probably return it and wait for nvidia's new card if asus decides to add one to their collection. Or go with the gtx 285 which is very close.

 

OCing the gpu or flashing a undervolted vBios will again just lessen the issue not solve it. And OP seams to be in the same boat as me wanting a Working laptop that Doesnt GSOD.
To the OP - if you havent read yet by any chance, 9.12/10.1 drivers will actually work without GSODs, but on those there are many more bugs and some games that work on 10.7 drivers dont work on those old ones, plus the new ones have many improvements and nice additions so its definetely not acceptible having to use the old ones, but you can play those games you listed on the old ones while youre trying to find a solution or until you get fed up and finally return it (policy here is if you return it 3 times already and it isnt fixed youre entitled to a full refund - i hope its the same at you).
And its no wonder Asus wasnt helpful since they dont want to admit their GPUs are getting GSODs on newer drivers becouse they use cheaper inferior hardware - id imagine they dont want to make a public announcment admitting that based on how they acted in the past when previous laptops had the same problems and also nothing was really done...
Youre sadly another example of how bad the issue is - 5 replacements already and none works. Im only on my 2nd gpu, but i went to test the gpus in our service center and none works, so its practically the same as you - i cant get a working one and i concluded all Asus mob. 5870 are the same becouse of their inferior hardware.
You really have a lot of patience there i must say.

 

Thanks for the sympathy.

I don't doubt that overclocking could help my situation, what I would rather do is (because I have had so many issues and am still under warranty) is call Canada Computers today and request that they use Furmark to test their machines BEFORE I exchange it. I have a 15 day direct replacement warranty and I plan on making the most of it.

At the very least, what I hope to accomplish with this is to have such a huge number of faulty units going back to the supplier that they'll have no choice but to do something about it. The RMA that I spoke to on the phone told me that my problem was an "isolated incident." What a ing joke.

I'm fairly certain that even with the stock drivers, my units have crashed playing Half Life 2 in under 20 minutes so making the techs at Canada Computers test the units straight out of the box will take some stress off of my end. I've actually befriended one of the techs at Canada Computers through this issue and he's just as willing to get this thing fixed as I am.

Speaking of hardware issues, has anyone aside from Chastity made an attempt at replacing the thermal paste on their machine?

 

The problem is the techs will only install 10.1 drivers, since by Asus instructions thats the only official supported driver, and those machines will of course pass their tests as well as yours should on that driver. Only the newer drivers give us problems, but we need those drivers to normally play some games and Asus response to just use the stock drivers is by no means acceptible.
And many have repasted including myself, but only Chastity is reporting such success so far, but her temperatures are in an ambient 7-8C lower than most of us, so i believe wed get pretty similar results in her cool room (i got it down by around 15C from my previous GPU which was overheating on furmark due to poor TIM and pads application, i hit a max of 94C on furmark at 27-28C ambient now).

 

Hmmm I never knew about Furmark while I was running the stock drivers earlier, however on at least 2 of the machines, Half Life 2 and Alien Swarm did crash with them.

Will Furmark cause a G73 to GSOD on stock drivers if the hardware is functioning properly? Or will it only do that with the newer drivers?

 

It wont crash on the 9.12/10.1 but only on the newer ones.

 

Hmmm... Well, thats definitely strange. While my current unit has had crashes with both Half Life 2 and Furmark, I distinctly remember at least 2 of the other units crashing with stock drivers on Half Life 2. Albeit I did not know about Furmark at that time and thus couldn't test the units, but I will return my current unit to factory settings and run Furmark to check the state of the hardware.

 

I've been a g73jh owner for 2 months now, and I've never had any problems with it. Not a single GSOD or anything (Yes I feel lucky). The point is that I use my machine with the original BIOS (206) and with the stock vga driver (9.12). I haven't attempted to run Furmark mainly because I don't see a reason why would I want to use a tool that was designed to stress test the hell out of my vga card. This laptop is a gaming machine, therefore I test it with games. I have played Crysis, Metro 2033, GTA IV, Dirt 2, Prototype, CoD MW2, Dagon Age, Assasins Cred 2 etc. without any problems. I don't blame Asus for the fact that the new GPU drivers provided by ATI don't work properly on this rig, due to the fact that this is a laptop, and it has a uniquely optimized Ati card in it. But Asus is rightly blamed for not releasing new Asus VGA drivers. Maybe they think if the stock driver works just fine, why would they rush to make a new one.
Anyway, my point is that if your G73JH does what it should (play games without GSODs) then you shouldn't bother with it's temps running high and Furmark tests. If it gives you GSODs with "normal" use, then you have to give it back and request a replacement.

 

That is weird because I've only read people crashing after updating the drivers. That is the reason I left them stock until(if ever) Asus releases official ones for the notebook. I haven't had any problems and I play WOW, SC2, Steam Games, and older games(D2, original Starcraft, etc.)

 

It definitely does not do what it should. However, I want to revert it back to stock drivers for a couple reasons.
i) I never ran Furmark on the stock drivers and thus I do not know if this will produce a GSOD
ii) I have confirmed that Half Life 2 crashes on these drivers with other machines. Thus I am trying to determine whether or not there is a hardware issue (on top of the obvious software problem) with my specific unit. I will attempt to play Half Life 2 as well to reconfirm these with this machine.
iii) If I am able to crash a G73 with Furmark using the stock drivers, not only will this confirm that my current hardware is faulty, but also that Furmark can be used as an "out of the box test" that I can have the tech at Canada Computers perform in order to determine whether or not ever single G73 that they have in stock is faulty or not.

While Furmark's benchmarking test has caused my current G73 to GSOD, it has passed numerous other tests and benchmarking programs without a problem.

 

I'm on my third G73. I returned the first due to rampant GSODs, the second because the screen was garbage (and because it GSOD'd on ref drivers), and now I'm the proud owner of a G73 that actually works. I installed the 10.7a drivers last night and I ran FurMark twice for 20 min each at 1920x1080 with post-processing. The GPU got hot enough to boil water, but I didn't get a GSOD. I sent a screenshot to my work email so I could post it here if anyone is interested in seeing it.

I've had this unit for almost a week now and I haven't gotten a single GSOD. I've probably logged 16 hours of SC2 and WoW in that time. Granted this is a very newly manufactured G73, it even came with the 209 bios. Also, in case anyone was wondering, this is the Best Buy RBBX05.

 

You lucky ... but in all seriousness, congrats! Here's hoping for some help for the rest of us sooner rather than later.

 

Just to be sure, you're crashing on non-intensive steam games using stock/10.1 drivers..? And is it a *SOD (color screen) or a straight up hard lock? Did you already use the creative tweak (link in sig), because that's really what it sounds like is going on here.

@mrwhite: you can easily run furmark for hours on end using stock or 10.1 drivers, it's anything released after that which causes problems. afaik, the only game recently released that doesn't run properly on 10.1 is FF, which is in itself a reason why asus should push an official update out.

 

Yeah mine is a Best Buy model as well and I never got a single GSOD on any driver.

So, are the Best Buy models more safe?

 

not that I know of, my best buy one GSOD really fast with furmark.

 

@apache: No, I don't believe that is the case. My first two RBBX05s GSOD'd like mad. They both had J0X-053652 codes on the boxes. The first would even GSOD on 2D applications. My current RBBX05 has a code of J0X-061113, has an LG screen, 1333MHz memory, and runs stably with reference drivers. I think it's a really a matter of luck of the draw.

I really feel this is a manufacturing problem due to the variety of experiences people have with this machine.

 

I currently have the 10.7a drivers running and performed the soundblaster and realtek tweaks that you suggested in your guide. I was then able to GSOD twice during Half Life 2 in approximately 15 minutes each run. When I get home I will be reverting back to the stock drivers to confirm that my unit is messed up. Personally, I have my doubts that that particular tweak will fix anything my machine but I am more than willing to try.

 

If you can not run asus stock 10.1 drivers then yes you have a problem and should rma or get it replaced.

 

Just make sure you completely remove the old drivers before reinstalling the stock Asus drivers. Chastity has a tutorial on how to do so using DriverSweeper in safe mode.

 

Well, 10.7 is your problem then You pretty much have 2 options; either install 10.1 and get 100% stability at the cost of not being able to play FFXI, or apply a slight overclock (705/1100 seems to be a favorite) to stabilize 10.7.

You won't notice ANY performance difference between 10.1 and 10.7 for source-based games, they all run above 60fps because the 5870 is overkill for them 10.7 is mostly aimed at slightly increasing performance for people who play bfbc2, metro, ect.

 

If you are mostly playing the HL2 / Source games, I would just run Asus 10.1 until there's an update.

 

Alright, I'll try the overclock before I try the uninstall as it'll be considerably quicker.

With the overclock enabled, will Furmark still GSOD?

 

As I said, I'm also running Crysis.

 

With an overclock, you have a better-than-average chance of getting stability, unless you are Hellcry. (Sorry, had to go there. Love ya!) I would first try 705/1100, but you can experiment to see what works. One person needed a slight underclock to get stable. (675/950 I believe)

 

Undervolting = stability

 

IIRC, Steam conflicts with the audio drivers.

 

Only the stock audio drivers.

 

Ok, got home from work, overclocked to 705/1100 and made it through a 5 min Furmark benchmark/xtreme burn. Longest I've seen yet at 10.7a

Will now attempt a 30 min test. Wish me luck.

 

If that GSODs, try with the ziddy v3 vbios installed.

 

Chastity by overclocking/underclocking or flashing that undervolted vbios you just get gsods later/less frequently, but wont gain real 100% stability. I tried every driver/clock/vbios combination i could think of and none really worked so i gave up on that. I bet i could make yor machine GSOD too on any clocks or voltages on the newer drivers in every single colour, provided i just run furmark, benchmarks or games long enough. As you said you still get GSODS on stock clocks so overclocking is just avoiding the inevitable and you seam to be very fond of that unlike me. But again youre entitled to your oppinion as i am to mine, so lets agree to stop discussing this and find a way to put as much pressure as we can on Asus to spit out a permanent solution.

 

Alright, well the thing ran fine for the 30 minutes. The GPU max temp was 100C however so I may get one of my friends to perform a paste for me as I'm somewhat of a n00b when it comes to PCs.

 

Actually, with my current setup, I am NOT getting GSODs on stock settings. I bet I can do a 24hr Furmark run.

 

Protip: He doesn't think so.

 

Well, he has reason, as I mentioned before that I did have GSODs with 10.7 at stock speeds, and needed a 705/1100 setting to stabilize for those 2hr runs. So I ran a couple of runs with the new drivers at stock, but I never made any screenies. Maybe a pic with a few hours would fix that.

 

Alright, ran Furmark for 30 minutes yesterday without a GSOD. First time its made it longer than 3 minutes. The temperature was running fairly hot however (approx. 100C) and now I'm thinking about getting my friend to look into performing one of Chastity's thermal paste replacements. He is considerably more knowledgable on the subject than I am. The only other option is to continue hounding Canada Computers for replacements until a new production run happens...

And that being said, which of these is actually more reasonable? Do work myself that I shouldn't actually have to do or waste money on gas every other week to keep driving this machine back to the store?

 

My machine consistently runs around 100C on FurMark, 105C unless I elevate the back end of my laptop. I ordered some ICD and I will be repasting the GPU early next week, hopefully without any problems. Honestly, I think the temps are fine, abeit a bit hot. But I would like to give my GPU a little more thermal headroom.

 

Ya, after reading upon Chastity's near 20C decrease in Furmark, I figure anything that will extend the lifespan of this machine is worth the time and effort.

Now, to figure out how to remove that keyboard without breaking it...

 

I did a Furmark run last night, and this time I put the unit away from my bed. The AC will blow air that way, and I found it can skew the temps. (Sucking in AC air) Temps went up to 85C with 700/1000 on two 1hr runs.

 

Thats what i got hung up on, didnt read any update like that. Please do show me though, since i see you feel much more confident running furmark now with your new temperatures .

 

Uhm, sure, let me go set her up...

 

Well... I had my tech friends perform a repaste. It was kind of frightening to see this thin dissected in that manner but a little Bailey's in my coffee helped with that.

After the op was complete, I ran Furmark. temps were found to be higher. They said not to worry because the paste may take a little time to settle. Today I ran the Benchmark again... temps got a LOT higher.

I set the test for 30 min, it ran for 10. The screen blacked out and the laptop shut down... Thoughts? Comments? HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

apparently they didn't do a good job, AND I have no pics to look at of the work they did. Also you didn't mention what paste they used, and how old it is.

Sounds to me you need to have it redone, and maybe by someone else.

 

Arctic Silver and I'm not entirely sure how old the paste is. I'll find out tonight.

 

I am on my 3rd G73.

The GSOD happen to sooooooo many G73s it must be at least a 3rd. Now more and more people start to install newer drivers and booom GSOD.

My tip RMA. Send it to CA not indiana. They work much more professional and don't damage your laptop and I say said being in Indiana ... I still would never send it there again.

Asus will replace you GPU (did it twice for me) and GSOD are gone.3 weeks of waiting yes but no problems after that is worth it.

 

The paste was about a year or so old. Maybe a year and a half. As for the procedure, I was discussing it and apparently what my friend did was spread the paste around rather than applying a bit of the stuff and letting it create its own seal. This was probably where he went wrong?
As for pics, I'll be sure to take some this evening when this job takes place again.

 

Yep. Less is more with pasting. You should let the heat spread the paste, rather than physically. It will do a better job.

Apply a small dab in the center, drop on the heatsink, twist left/right to remove air, and then tighten her down, and follow the numbers on the heatsink (1-4)

 

I read the directions on the site for the paste I used (ICD7). It said one pea sized drop in the middle of the GPU (or CPU) that is 5 to 5.5mm in diameter. Then apply the heat sink straight down so as to no squish it out from one side. The instructions specifically said not to try to make a layer all over the chip or anything like that. Twisting it probably doesn't hurt a thing, but trying to smooth out a film on it would be a very bad idea. Chastity's twist might have gotten her a little better seal. I'm running 85C on furmark in a cool room. She's running 82C in a similar environment so maybe a twist is good?

 

So, you mean you dropped a pea size dot and then tighten the heat sink down directly?

interesting...I wondered about how to apply it now...

 

That's right. I cleaned the copper portion of the heat sink really well with alcohol and q-tips. I cleaned the top of the chip to a mirror shine the same way. Then I put one 5mm drop in the middle of the GPU and went straight down on top of it with the heat sink. The thermal pads really squish out from the edges of the heat sink where the sink is pressing against the memory chips so everything looked tight and well connected at that point. There's no cure time listed for ICD7 on their site so I let it idle for ten minutes and then hit it with a furmark bench to heat up the GPU and flow out the thermal paste that I applied.