Took a plunge, traded laptops

I am a frequent contributor on the site where I bought my sager NP8690. The only upgrades I made to the 8690 were 6300N intel wifi card and a Panasonic UJ-240 bluray drive. I recently saw a post from a guy there that had ordered the G73JH and he was looking to trade that for an NP8690. So I took the plunge. I should have the G73 by Thursday.

I am hoping that this G73 doesn't turn out to be a headache, because the 8690 was flawless.

assuming that his machine is more or less flawless, do we think this was a good trade?

 

Why did you do it? :3

 

I think it was a good trade in your favour:

- Better screen (one I googled had a 900res vs Asus 1080)
- Larger hard drive by 680GB
- Better warranty
- 4GB more ram

Only loss on your side is USB 3.0.

Plus, the G73 is worth several more hundred dollars.

 

Well... let's see. It is known that the G73 has a lot of problems... he wanted to trade... Put the two and two together? Hope you're ready to read through all the stickies

 

Of course I know the fixes for the common issues.

My 8690 didn't have USB 3, it did have the FHD screen. So all I really gained was screen size, 4GB of RAM and like 480GB of HDD space.

As to why he wanted to trade, he says its because the laptop is just too big to lug around all the time. I find that would more than likely be true, so I tend to believe it and he bought his G73 at the same place that I bought my 8690 so if there are any RMA issues I should be able to get it handled through them easily enough.

 

>.> Except the asus gets rma'd through asus not the reseller, I would definitely take the g73 over the 8690 and I'm a big sager/clevo fan, but they really dropped the ball on their recent laptops.

 

What is ironic is that even though the G73jh is larger, it can ACTUALLY be used as a laptop.

Because the bottom never gets hot, there are no issues. Your knees won't sweat, you won't have to worry about becoming sterilized from being scorched. Your skin won't become discolored from the heat. It's been shown that repeated heat from laptops can cause permanent skin discoloration, similar to if you just burned your skin from the sun repeatedly.

And lastly, G73jh is actually battery efficient considering the hardware and you can actually use it for class, either 2 hour classes or one, 1.5 hour class. And most people have time between classes in University so can charge up or simply buy a second battery.

And the keyboard is much better for school/typing/work than the Clevo. The Clevo keyboard is notorious for being idiotic.

Isn't it ironic? Clevo being smaller but being useless as a portable laptop. and G73jh despite being quite large is manageable. I think it's very ironic.

As others have said, once you update the vBios, the Bios and your drivers. Managed to setup your Power4Gear Hybrid settings perfect for your 3D gaming, Quiet Office and Battery mode you can squeeze out every ounce of overclocked performance and almost 2.5 hour of battery life. And the Power4Gear with Function Key + Spacebar is a mere second to switch modes for your needs. I think it's great.

 

Ruckus, how to i squeeze out every ounce of performance with Power4Gear? Any guides?

Im getting slightly annoyed when BFBC2 lags a bit when there are too much smoke. Hopefully after i squeeze more performance out of it, i can get away without any lag on BC2.

 

NICE. Why? Because with the GSOD fix, the g73 is awesome. Obviously a gaming laptop, the keyboard isn't as nice as some of the lenovos I've used. But hey, for REAL work, I use a desktop w/ my model M... the laptop is nice for lan portability and on-the-road work/presentations (where I can just turn the screen and show the 5-6 people I'm selling rather than having to set up a projector).

 

I would pay money to transplant a Lenovo keyboard into this rig. That would be the perfect computer. I even like the trackpoint joystick nub in the middle!

Maverick494@: I don't know if that was a good trade or not. I'm thinking 4GB of RAM is plenty for what most people do. The most I ever use is 6B and that's just because I'm running a VM in the background and playing a high end game at the same time which I don't really have to do anyway. Also, I guess you gave up an express card slot? Meh. This is a good laptop too. I don't know that it's better than the one you had but it is very good.

I have dropped keystrokes and there is no solution for that. I also have white static noise blasting from the speakers for which the solution is RMA. Someone tipped me off that there is a sound driver/processing package called Breakaway that is a good workaround for the static noise thing. I am running it now to see if it solves the problem. Disabling the TouchPad in BIOS is a good workaround for the dropped keys.

I do like the screen real estate of a 1080p LCD and 17.3 is the minimum size I would personally consider usable for that resolution so I would say that is a gain. All in all I guess I would say that you came out ahead IF you can honestly say that you'd never use the express card slot. It's a darn good laptop but it is not without it's drawbacks.

 

Swapping a "flawless" high end notebook for an unknown with a few marginally better features where, as we have all seen, it is a crapshoot as to whether or not you will have irritating problems for which there is no fix?

I hope it works out for you but I don't think I would do it. I remember back in the 80's I had a 3 year old Chrysler Laser turbo (ran great) that I swapped with a buddy for his 8 year old Datsun 280ZX (it had a T-roof) with some known problems (including rust) that my buddy said were fixed.

It was the biggest mistake I could have ever made. While it looked cool and felt great to drive for a couple of months, once I realized that the frame was about to collapse under all the rust, I realized that my desire for novelty got the better of my desire for a reliable vehicle. As a wise person once said, YMMV.

 

the really glaring problem i've seen on the jh is the trackpad / keyboard lag issue that does not seem to have a fix yet. other than that, most known issues have known fixes.

I've also wanted to get a sager but the abysmal battery life was a big turn off, according to several reviews it can't even break 1hr battery on low usage. So yea, i think it's a good trade unless you're getting a jh with the keyboard/trackpad problem.

 

>.> Its easy to fix it, uninstall synaptics and use the windows default driver.

 

Are you Maverick494 on the XOTIC forums, aka the guy who is a downright die hard sager fanboi?

 

You and me both. I was mentally preparing myself when I ordered a new laptop. It's pretty much a fact that Thinkpads have the best keyboards.

 

First, yes.

Second, I am far from a Sager fanboi. I am, however, a realist and saw the issues coming from the G73 official boards and was very glad I didn't wait months on a pre-order for it. I did stress to many people that it might not be the best investment compared to the sager, especially with the cost of upgrades to it.

Let me enlighten you as to the progression of my laptop ownership:

Asus G50 series - Stolen May 2009 to a
Gateway P-7805(purchased with insurance money and I got my wife a new toshiba too) - Sold March 2010 to a friend for 750 dollars allowing me to get a
Sager NP8690 - Traded November 2010 for a
Asus G73JH

Prior to any of this I was a custom desktop builder and owner, I still build em but I am limited to a laptop. I switched to a gaming laptop because I had a little one of the way and we needed the office for a bedroom. Even after we moved into a 3 bedroom house somehow I didn't get an office back instead it became a play room. Go figure.

here is what I am a fan of: performance. The sagers proved to have it in spades and very little problems from them. The ASUS didn't. The Asus had a plethora of problems. Now that most of the problems have been ironed out they seem to be very much what I expected them to be out of the box and I only have to wait 3 days for shipping with the trade instead of 4 months to get one out of the box.

If the G73JW had come out with a GPU that would perform better than the JH you would see me telling people to get a JW now instead of a JH, I just don't think it's proven to be a better GPU at this point. When the 470M hits mainstream (like in a few weeks probably) and it is shown to beat the 5870M by a significant enough margin to warrant the 500+ dollar price tag I will have no problem recommending it. (I am still waiting for this mythical driver everyone says is going to push the 460M up the 15%(average) it needs to match the 5870 in most games, I really do hope it comes)

At this point it is my feeling that the best bang for your money still resides in the G73JH B series, yes even over the Sager 8760, until you start customizing the laptop. the 5870 is a killer GPU and with OpenCL and DirectCompute taking more of a hold (see 3D mark 2011) I can only see good things for finally having a level playing field in the benchmarking world. Hopefully that plays out into the gaming world as well so that platform independence is truly achieved. Then hardware can be compared on its merits of features, performance and price without something like properitary physx getting in the way.

I am eager to test this G73, my NP8690 got to 940/1150 on the GPU and scored 9919 3D marks in vantage. I am foaming at the mouth to get this G73 loaded and setup and see if I can match that or beat it.

Sure I took a risk doing a trade over the internet with another user on that forum, for all I know I am getting a brick. If that is the case though I should be able to RMA the laptop no problem. Everything in life has risk, I minimized it as much as I could, and I think in the end it will work out well.

FTR the other user decided that the portability of the G73 left something to be desired as far as weight and size went so they were looking for a trade to the 8690 with the 5870.


edit: Oh yea and I have kinda large hands so I am hoping the keyboard is a little less cramped.

 

I sold my D900F for this wonder of problems... And i can tell you i still regret it...

There are still unresolved problems;
- missing keystrokes: Disabling the touchpad in Bios or removing Synaptics drivers is NOT a solution; it leaves you without a touchpad or with an extremely unresponsive touchpad and a touchpad and keyboard is just something that HAS to work on a laptop otherwise i dont see how you can really call it mobile...
- Erratic touchpad behaviour: No solution yet either.
- GSODs/cruddy vBios: Yes a few of us still have GSODs with the "latest" beta vBios from Asus. Its still not fully stable, powerplay is broken (too little profiles, downclocking laughable, doesnt properly clock up and down sometimes) broken overdrive... And its NOT a hardware fault, since ive been running the MSI vBios without a problem for months now, but i do loose HDMI and VGA ports using it so its not a complete solution either.
Theres a reason why the vBios is a beta and not official...

I highly recommend you rethink your decision if you still can, becouse even if the Clevo as you have it now is a bit weaker, you have a completely working laptop and thats worth a ton more than a bit more raw power that doesnt work properly. And considering someone wants to trade... well the chances of unresolvable problems coming with that machine are high - i mean dont you think he might have already come across this forum if he just googled a bit?
Also imo the Clevo is far better if specced similarly (build quality, keyboard, cooling, additional features...), it just costs a bit more to spec it out the same. You can upgrade ram to 8GB real cheap now if you search for a good deal, you can upgrade the GPU to a mob. 5870, cpu to a qs i7-940xm, all without voiding warranty...
Also regarding size, this thing is larger so i dont see how its more mobile... Its silenter, but after all the problems that fades in comparison...
And are we seriously discussing battery life with desktop replacement notebooks? You CANT game on battery on either one... think of it as an UPS system...
Using it for uni work would it would probably last 1,5hours with power saver, but who takes such large expensive laptops with them to uni?
And using it on your lap... well you can surf and use office with it on your lap, but i tried gaming and it gets too hot for comfort, your privates would get cooked just as with any other laptop.

This is coming from someone who basically traded, so at least think it over again. If you have something that works and can even be upgraded to beat what you want to trade for (that cant be upgraded where it matters the most - GPU department, or has warranty voided for upgrading CPU) why risk getting something that will give you more headaches than enjoyment?

 

Funny. I've never had one of those problems. And the large majority of the people who own this machine would most likely have much the same sentiments.

 

Hellcry had a terrible experience, and is bitter

I had a similar experience, and I'm quite happy to have my laptop back and working 100%. I'd be bitter too, I suppose, if I had less patience... I've got a flawless G73 after much frustration, and I'm happy I don't have a clevo ... if for NO other reason, than because clevos sound like baby jet engines.

 

I certainly have had a great experience.. Not one problem except for GPU refusing to downclock more.. if it could , its perfect for me. I remember seeing a low clock vBIOS from hell cry and it didn't work well for me.. is there a slightly more clocked up version of it? I remember seeing somewhere hellcry making 3 types of vBIOS's... low-med and high clocks one.. i need more AC battery life so i'd be grateful if he could or someone could direct me to his post.

 

First off, welcome Mav.

Second, I think you'll be fine. Given that you're already used to tinkering with the guts of laptops and other assorted sundry bits, plus the sheer amount of information on the jh's known problems and solutions, you shouldn't have too much of an issue getting the laptop up to speed if it proves to be less than perfect. If it satisfies your needs, that is what really matters in the end.

 

HC really does need a pat on the back for what he went thru, it was like he was cursed and sent other peoples' defectives instead of new machines.

@op: In the end I think it comes down to what you are using it for. If you are using it for business as well as games and need 100% reliability hardware-wise, then a sager might be better. But for even hardcore gamers a g73 is a solid choice, since you get a nice screen, silent cooling and most of the problems are gone.

 

Laptop arrived at about 1PM today. I got it open and started unbloatwaring it and getting everything updated.

It had the 209 bios on it so I installed the 211 bios from the ASUS site. I am in the process of downloading the 10.10C mobility drivers for it. I have the R2.54 realtek drivers installed. I will get AMD GPU tool and see what it can do in benches at some point. Also gotta get WoW updated and see how that looks.

This thing is HUGE, I mean I knew it was big, but holy crap huge.

 

I know it isn't a perfect laptop, but it is one of the quietest laptops I've ever owned. The downclocking issue isn't that bad for me because I'm used to making profiles for my desktop. As for hellcry why the heck would you give up a d900f that you worked on so hard on? I tell you its karma lol

 

Really?

Hmm...you must get used to it over time. Although I don't recall it being huge to me when I unboxed mine.

 

yea but you have to remember I came from a 15.4" laptop. So to me this thing is like going from a ship the size of a destroyer to a carrier.

other impressions so far:

The keyboard does very very very rarely drop a stroke or two. It's so rare it could even be still me getting used to how hard I have to hit the keys.

The GPU does not overclock near as well as my sager did. my sager was able to do 940/1150 and so far the Asus won't even do 840/1130.

I am in the process of loading WoW patches and after that steam games so I will get some real good idea how the screen compares in a bit, but so far to my eyes the screen is every bit as good as the FHD on the sager was.

OH and one more damned annoyance that my last Asus did too and I forgot how to fix is the desktop icons reappearing everytime I log back in after I turn them off. Gotta remember how to fix that.

 

And I came from my 15.4" Toshiba...which is even smaller than the Sager.

Also, you might want to do a clean install of Windows 7 on the machine with just the core drivers and services. It would most likely iron out that icon problem, and for me, it improved overall performance on the 7200RPM drive by a huge amount.

 

Even I thought it was big when I met the G73JH in person.

Though, I guess it was mainly because it was surrounded by netbooks. xP

 

Well since you already have it, do report back what you got. Im interested if its in good condition, well pasted (temps?) and if youre plagued by any issues we have (or havent) listed.
I wish you good luck with your testing .

And to answer why i sold the D900F... i built a new desktop rig and though i wouldnt want a laptop with a desktop i7 anymore... but i do miss it. I guess i learned something - dont trade something that works so perfectly...

 

so far the only issue it has is the keystroke missing a little.

The GPU idles @ 55-57C, I haven't checked the CPU yet. the GPU doesn't O/C for crap as far as I can tell, my sager did 940/1150 this one I haven't found its good point yet, but it locked up in test two of 3D mark vantage at 840/1130. Overall it is in good shape, it has one small scrape on the screen that you can't even see unless you go full black screen with the right reflection. The enclosure has a couple spots with minor cosmetic issues.

It had the 209 bios on it and I put the 211 + the 93A vbios on it. I put the realtek 2.54 drivers on it and the creative 2.21.04 volume control panel thingie works fine. I put the catalyst 10.10 drivers on it and played WoW and BC2 on it with no issues.

so all in all so far I am not plagued by most of the issues other G73 users have experienced.

 

just completed a full 3D mark vantage @ 830/1130.

9232 (8819 GPU / 10743 CPU)

 

I feel your pain on the returns, I had 5 RMAs and finally got one because of Gary intervening on my behalf.

 

Ive been asking Gary to arrange a decent replacement (jw, i dont want to risk another jh) for me for 2 months but im still waiting stuck with my jh.

 

why don't you ask for a B series JH insead? Don't think I have seen any of these issues out of them and it is a much more likely swap than to a JW.

Plus the 460M at this point is no 5870M.

 

I was pushing for a JW replacement, but got told no ... which is silly, considering how much time (and shipping) I've put into getting it fixed. My JH does work fine now, though ...

 

The B series is EXACTLY the same in this area, there has been no debugging of any sort, my friend has similar problems as me with the G73JH-B1 (and i advised him not to buy it, but as it seamed so good priced as he said, he just had to get it...), the only difference is the i7-740qm CPU (which is really pretty much the same thing), so no, i really dont want to take another risk with a JH, that would just be a waste of my time.
Another problem is they now said they want me to send my laptop back to US and send me a new one from there, but the shipping cost to send mine there and the customs, taxes and fees id have to pay to get one from USA are insane - over 500€ in total, just to get a (hopefully working) replacement (our laws suck, you have to pay 20% tax of full value+shipping + processing fees for any import even if its warranty repair or replacement).
So i want them to contact their EU partners and arrange for a replacement to be sent from here and i can give mine to an authorised repair center... i mean is that too much to ask for?

 

I am not saying its too much to ask for, but a JW might be too little to ask for given the fact that the 460M is just not up to the 5870M. I suggested the B series because I have yet to see anyone with the B series with these issues. That doesn't mean they aren't out there having them, I just haven't seen them being posted about.

I am finally having a second recurring problem. I have a razer Orochi that I use in bluetooth mode. it randomly stops working from time to time for minutes. Most of the time it comes back on its own, but I am impaitent and I find that turning the bluetooth off and back on re-enables it instantly. that tells me there is something funky with the bluetooth on this machine.

 

@ Maverick494@: I have the same mouse, try upgrading the firmware. I've had connection problems with it too, but I've resolved them by upgrading fw and tweaking the bluetooth connection parameters in Linux to prevent it from sleeping (not sure how you can do that in windows).

 

it has the latest FW on it. I upgraded the BT drivers on the laptop and it is better so far