Updates from Asus

Let the F5 mashing begin...

 

You lost me there with the obscure reference

 

Gary,

appreciate it that you come into this forum where really anxious G73 owners are waiting for a response! (i am one myself)

I hope that the keyboard light fix would be put on the ASUS website asap as it's one cool feature of this laptop I would like to work with. Mine went dead after an RMA.

 

Gary,
no offense to you personaly, but what has Asus been doing for the last HALF YEAR? Ill believe something is being worked on as soon as i see some proof instead of some lame bios update that just makes the laptop run louder.

 

Gary,

I have a G73-A1 that I can get to crash on stock load from the factory every time running the Windows Experience Index. The fix is to overclock my 5870 to 705/1100. I can duplicate every single time. So if you have a fix and want me to test, let me know in a private message.

Right now I have a modified stock vBios that has overclocked my card to 705/1100 on boot so that I don't have to run AMDGPUClockTool to overclock in software.

Every game since has been flawless on latest Cat drivers.

Thanks for coming into the forum and actively taking on our concerns! Love to see that!!

 

Hit F5 and see what happens

 

@The Beast

I read it on the German where an Asus tech said that opening the laptop to repaste or flashing in a different video BIOS voids the warranty.

 

i can partly understand that flashing an unauthorized vbios voids it, but changing the thermal paste? seriously, W T F ? fixing what asus f*cked up and should have done right in the first place voids the warranty? fixing something so the notebook can be used without the risk of frying it voids the warranty? they cant be serious...

and what the f*ck is with this stupid language filter on these boards?

 

This is the email I got back from the US support chat

 

What if you break the keyboard, but replace it yourself? :yes: :rolleyes2:

 

I think your ok as long as you dont tell on yourself.

 

Well it's -10 geek cred for breaking it, but then there's +25 geek cred for tracking down a new one and fixing it. All in all it's bonus geek cred which should extend your warranty by one month, but I don't have any pull with Asus.

 

Dear Gary,

Its finally nice to see that Asus is actually doing something about this issue.. When i'd first heard about it in Aprill when i was still thinking about buying laptops and didn't have a chance, the GSOD issue wasn't rampant as it is now.
However , now when i'm trying to buy a laptop , this GSOD issue is really stopping me from buying the G73.It would help if u could give an estimation on how long it will take for an update to solve this problem as once done , i have no qualms about getting this notebook. This issue is particularly serious for me as i would be using this laptop for gaming , CAD and other GPU stressing activites and cannot afford GSOD's.. I don't want to spend money on a laptop which has issues and the maker is doing literally nothing to solve the issue and i have to spend tons of my own time to try solving it and have a half working product just like i did with hp Dv5t.. No offense but after spending $2500 , i don't want a half working laptop..

Cheers and Good Luck
Sean473

 

I'm inclined to 100% agree with this... I've been lurking around these forums for about a week now gathering information on which laptops I want to buy and this dark cloud that seemingly lingers over the G73 is starting to make me lean towards dropping an extra 600+ on a M17.

 

Just get the M17 then. Why bother waiting, its what i would do personally.

 

I hope we aren't all flooding the poor guy with hate mail about the laptop. I'd hate to see him rage quit us. It seems like a fix is in the works so I'm pretty excited about that. It would be great having somebody lurking around our threads who can actually look into things and help us out when we have problems that extend beyond what the average customer rep can do over the phone.

 

Hmm...being a professional game developer for 5 years with titles shipped from anything from Wii to PC to PS3, I find a small flaw on your furmark logic. I have been working with graphics PC system and consoles using both openGL and DX.

Furmark is an openGL benchmark filling up a strat heap to its maximum and using fur "shells" on top of in order alpha filtering with exact transparent precision. This stresses systems GPU's because its using calls on a frame per frame basis. Even though the rendering path is different (forcing full precision like in pro cards) and also recording temps, it stresses the gpu no different then your average high end game would.

Any high end ATI tech demo or Nvidia demo stresses the GPU just as much as this one does. Your not "pushing" the card past its limits, your just using everything the card has frame for frame. Games usually fluctuate but any cuda or direct compute program will stress the gpu just as much as furmark will (and most do) So saying that its pushing the GPU higher then its supposed to go is not true.

In terms of a car analogy, its like this. When you start your car you floor it to its max and just keep going for 5 minutes, thats like furmark. When your just cruising down the highway and speed up from time to time, its like a game. Now, when your running a game where you have a low FPS that the gpu cant keep up with (if the gpu is your bottleneck like in GTA4) your running the card at full speed for as long as your in the game.

So in short, furmark is no different then a game that is gpu limited and your pushing it to the max. If your stating that furmark is not a good benchmark, then neither is GTA or crysis with everything up all the way despite bad framerate.

 

He can't really say an estimate as to when it will be fixed, just asap. Lets say he says 1 week, but it takes 2, everyone would be angry. If he said 2 months, and it took only 1, it would be a surprise and everyone would be happy. Or of course there's the we are working hard and hope to have a fix soon . I for one am glad that finally someone came on here and acknowledged the problems, even though it was quite a bit late for their top of the line model right now.

 

Hi Gary,

I would like to second this. Could you offically tell us whats going on with the flashing of the Bios causing the keyboard lights to go out, and why Asus will not release a fix for this to the public without us having to send the laptop in? Thanks for your time.

 

Perhaps we should let Gary do one thing at a time instead of throwing everything at him. I mean like probably solve the vbios first, then move on to the keyboard issues. Its good enough someone is here to help us, but we mustn't take advantage of the situation. It would be worst if anyone who has the knowledge gets chased away due to a demanding community.

 

Gary's long post gave me more incentive to keep the ASUS G73 series on my bookmark toolbar. I'm looking forward to buying one even more now when I get the chance. Hopefully by then these issues will have been permanently fixed and I'll be able to play my games on the G73!

 

Umm, if he gets 'scared away' because of the customers complaining about a product that they bought that cost THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS with problems, then he should find another line of work because he would be ineffective doing what he is doing if a bunch of end users rightfully complaining about issues with thier end product would cause him to not want to read at least a few of these threads.

I highly doubt anyone in a position to help fix this issue would do anything but cringe at the amount of ing people are doing about one of thier flagship products. Now, that is not to say they haven't been dragging thier proverbial feet in dealing with these issues, but him coming on here and stating who he is and promising action is a much better scenario than what the rest of us have come to accept as the "black box" of support we get from many of our tech products companies.

But, I may also add that Asus is a VERY big company and has a ton of very expensive products in the marketplace (and with selling through Best Buy, amazon, newegg, tigerdirect, etc that is a really big marketplace). Having been one of the customers that have spent >$5k combined on Asus products of my own equipment as well as friends in the last year alone (let alone the previous 9-10 years of being a faithful customer), I do fully expect Asus to support these high-end products with proper fixes to issues and software/driver updates as are required to keep thier products in top-shape for the latest software I choose to run on them. If not, I can certainly vote with my dollars (and lots of dollars of my friends and business associates) and no longer support Asus in the future if they decide to burn thier customers with a lack of support. It is one thing to bring out a "best in class" product, but something entirely different to offer consistent and reliable support for said product long-term.

I would tend to agree intially, don't overload the situation, but looking at it from a business perspective, if you can't build a simple problem/resolution matrix and weight it according to public outcry/RMAs/etc, then you probably shouldn't be in the position in the first place.

What people SHOULD NOT do is constantly make assinine posts about hacking vbios to fix an issue that is firmly in Asus' court to deal with. In the last day alone there has been a few newbies posting ignorant posts with misinformation. All that does is give cause for the Asus representatives to start looking discouragingly towards this forum. If we keep things professional, on the level and at a point of demanding a resolution there will be more motivation towards fixing the issue as it will be clear how many people are currently being affected.

 

The guy is just someone who works in asus. He isn't asus, so there's no point in demanding everything unless he has a position in asus to say "Yes we will fix this" And whats the point of running furmark? So you can say "Yes i ran it for 24 hours?" If its like overclocking a desktop and running prime95 to test for stability i can understand. But for a gpu, we're not going to play a game for 24 hours straight, let alone 12 hours. Not to mention we already know its going to crash so why bother in the first place.

 

So you just want your issue fixed first and be happily on your way? I believe all issues need to be taken cared of asap. GSOD has been addressed by Gary and the fix is being worked on.

Apparently there is a fix for the Keyboard light issue, but have not yet reported what it is or why they can't just give us a patch or an update rather than having everyone send in their laptops. So as Gary has mention the GSOD issue it would be nice to hear about the keyboard light issue being addressed as well, at least by someone from ASUS. There was a member called "Asus Customer Care" who started looking into the issue, but never came back to give us an update.

A company this big, should not be overwhelmed with two problems from the G73JH that cost us $1500 plus. And if they want customers to come back to purchase another laptop from them, then they better be able to handle these issues from their flagship model. It's only now that someone from Asus came on board to help because of all the issues left unaddresses is scaring people away from making future purchases.

So if there is any problems that is unaddressed, lets have them at least address it and then take care of it so we know that they know there is a problem. This will make a whole lot of people feel comforted and assured that Asus is there for them.

 

Maybe also refer him to the M17 forum and the threads on their issues? It's what I would do personally.

 

So you don't think he could bring the issue to light and have Asus say, "We know that there is a problem and we will work on it?" Or at least, "I didn't know about that... I bring that up with the team at Asus?"

A problem is a problem and it needs to be addressed. You say that "there's no point in demanding everything unless he has a position in asus." Well he does. There's no point in selling a laptop that has all these problems, right? And if they didn't realize there was a problem and they want to continue to selling the laptop then they need to be able to fix them, right? So, lets not be selfish and try to have him all to yourself. BOTH ISSUES need to be fixed, not just yours.

 

Actually before i bought this, i almost went for a M15, i wanted the M17 but the price tag was just too high. Then there was a pc show held, if the promoter managed to drop the price just a little more, i would have gotten the M15. Then i saw this G73. It wasn't sold locally so i had to import it. The specs it came with was too good to be true for its price. But still i went with it, never thought updating drivers would be an issue. I was wrong... But still, i like my G73 as the work around are doing well for me. Would love to get a M11 to complement this thou.

 

Thats how I felt too when I first heard about the G73. It was the MOST AMAZING laptop for the price , but all laptops unfortunately have problems here and there. The question is will the company acknowledge them and fix them? As for the M11x, I just purchased it and have in sitting right next to the G73! But I'll tell you this, it's not problem free either (hinge problems...).

 

I envy you... But it is a very interesting little laptop. I like the size of it and the screen resolution is very usable unlike other laptops of similar size. I used to have a Msi Wind and the resolution was really a pain to work with. It was practically useless. It was more like a 10" media player that i could bring around. Not so much as a laptop.

 

I have an M11x-R2 I7 and I absolutely love it.

But like the other owner said. It has it's own share of problems.

You guys hate the update schedule on Drivers at Asus? Try Alienware and Dell. At least Asus will let you update directly from ATI, whereas with the M11x, you have to go through Dell's site or they won't be recognized and Dell is 4 driver updates behind Nvidia from the ones that make all games run on the M11x. It's taken some knowledgeable posters over in the threads there to re-write IMF files to get the Nvidia drivers recognized on the M11x.

I've had more problems with my M11x than my G73JH-A1, dust under the LCD screen in 4hrs of unboxing (Dell did send an in-home guy to replace it, who said the hinge issue is not going away until there's a whole case redesign as the stress of cramming so many components is what's causing that issue. Personally, I just am going to buy Dell's accidental coverage warranty and when/if it breaks, they'll replace it or repair it in home)

As well as only half of my games would play with one driver set, and the other on a different driver set. But Nvidia's 259.86 is a godsend for the M11x. Everything plays flawlessly.

But for my own personal experience, I've had issues with the M11x and a trouble free G73 with nothing but high temps.

And my problems with Dell have reminded me that there's always these types of issues when being an early adopter and gamer. So it has completely renewed my patience with Asus.

I actually went back to the stock Asus ATI drivers on a whim after running 10.7a, and I noticed that while playing BCBF2, I got an increase of 5-10fps and my temps dropped about 6 degrees. This enabled me to run everything High with HBAO on and 4xMSAA and stay above 30fps (this is for the SP campaign)

So I tested the stock drivers with Metro 2033 and found the same result. Higher FPS, lower temps while able to run High settings.

And I thought to myself, "If I can run any game I want and turn it up as high as I want on stock drivers with no issue or GSOD whatsoever, why am I tripping about these GSOD's everyone is upset about on the other catalyst drivers? I bought this thing to game and if it game's perfectly on stock drivers, playing any in game setting I want, crash free - then I can wait until Asus gets this worked out.

I'm still more than happy with the stock drivers that I can wait until this gets resolved.

Even though both machines have their issues, I would recommend either one wholeheartedly to any Gamer considering a purchase.

If you had to choose between the two, I'd go with the Asus G73JH. While the M11x kills the G73 in terms of portability, the Asus pretty much kills the M11x everywhere else. The Asus LCD is amazing, while the M11x is great for it's size, it doesn't have as good as black levels or contrast. The Asus pretty much doubles the avg. FPS on gaming benchmarks. And while the M11x plays 1080p video to a secondary monitor great, playing games at 1920x1080 takes a big FPS hit, whereas not with the G73.

And finally, it all comes down to price. After tax and California Recycling fees, my Alienware M11x core I7 640 with 4gb ram (pretty much the same config every review has) listed for $1319 and ended up being right around $1500. While the G73 was bought at Fry's for $1599 and ended up being almost $1800 with the same tax and recycling fees.

That's pretty much double the gaming performance plus a Blu-Ray player, backpack/carrying case and gaming mouse for only $300 more. The only thing you're sacrificing is size and battery life.

That being said, if you're a gamer who travels for a living and is always on planes, then get the M11x and don't think twice about it. If you appreciate the M11x for what it is and what it does, a gaming machine in an 11" notebook and that there's nothing like it, then it's limitations next to the G73 become much more tolerable and you realize that you have one sexy little Jedi netbook.

Also, if you're in a position to be able to own both, they compliment each other quite well.

But still, if I had to go with just one, it'd be the G73JH without a second thought.

Gary and Asus will come through. They have too much riding on the enthusiasm for this machine and the R.O.G brand to not get everything taken care of. I trust it'll happen. And I'll happily game with my stock drivers until it does.

Cheers!

 

Yup, thats the way. We should always be contended with what we have. And make the most of it.

 

Yes, we should just be patient since finding solutions to problems arent easy to sort out as the end-users want it.

Reverted back to stock driver until ASUS releases an official vBIOS or new driver set

 

Well, I believe getting an -A model gives you the asus 360 warranty (maybe all asus models?). And that is a 2-day turnaround time. Going on 3 weeks of no-g73-because-asus-hasn't-fixed-it-yet, I'd say that "soon" is probably even more variable.

Pretty sure the "stock" drivers don't accelerate cs4/5 properly. That's a problem if you're ever planning on doing any sort of professional work with a computer that's clearly up to the task.

 

Update - No real update as I have been up all night with R&D working on a solution. Hopefully we will have good news shortly.

 

Looking forward to the good news. Will definitely be sticking around in here.

 

i hope shortly is short..

 

I would be very disappointed if they did come out with a "new" vbios but had clock speeds of 705/1100 haha...

 

Unless they wan't to ruin their remaining reputation, they won't do that

I hope in "shortly" you mean 1, max 2 weeks, since you guys had at least half a year to find a solution.

 

I really dont understand - Is it so damn hard to make a new vBios, when you already have a sample that works (MSI & Clevos vBios) or are the engineers at Asus really that incompetent?

Gary_Key can you perhaps provide us with what wed need to do more with the vBios or at least edit the Clevo or MSI one somehow to make HDMI and VGA work, since all we have is RBE and thats not advanced enough. Im tired of waiting and if there is some documentation on how this can be done and if you can provide the software required i would be willing to read up on it and try doing something myself. Im really tired of hearing perhaps soon and being able to do nothing...

 

they out 211 up on the asus site, then took it off. something is going on... something

 

something...something...something...dark side!

 

No! How could you tell the secret behind the Star Wars success?!

You are a big fan of American Dad arent you .
Family Guy and Simpsons too perhaps?

But seriously... this bios is a joke. Until they release a new vBios nothing is really going on... just something... something... dark side!

 

Ye, I'm fan of the Simpsons, Futurama and anything that made by Seth Mcfarlane

 

I've been reading those too... I'm entering the whole process knowing full well all laptops have issues. I'm just taking my time and would like to give Asus a little bit of room to either fix the glaring issues (I can deal with minor ones) or I may just wait for the JW.

IMO I would take Nvidia over ATI any day of the week anyway.

 

Sweet, me too .

 

Second that!!!

 

Third one here.Maybe we should create little subforum

 

What should we call it... i vote for Cartoon Geeks & Freaks .

 

You've been waiting how many months for Asus to address this issue with the G73 and within 24 hours of someone showing up you're already yelling at them and trying to chase them off. Learn some patience man.

 

Gotta agree. HellCry (and others who have been striking similar stances), while I'm one of the people that agrees that Furmark is great at seeing the inherent flaws in a machine (but not for 24 hour runs!), and have been disappointed by Asus' customer service, it doesn't accomplish anything to strike such a rude tone when they finally do acknowledge the problem.

At the same time, I don't think we have to kiss Asus' feet just because they've acknowledged it. I'm not saying we need to hold back on our concerns and additional issues (someone mentioned it was selfish for people with the GSOD issues to expect them not to touch on the keyboard light issue, and I agree), but there's no need to bite Gary's head off because a fix hasn't come within 24-48 hours either.

As an aside, I did decide to keep this laptop, since it'll save me a bit over a NP8760, and my only real issue so far has been with moderately high temps... nothing a repaste won't fix. And yes, I have tested it quite well, from Furmark to BC2, the XIV benchmark, Dragon Age, and Arkham Asylum. Only two GSODs were while running the XIV benchmark, which I've also looped for an hour and a half with no crash. I'm content.