Why so many problems with the G73JH

I visit this board daily, it seems like so many friggin people are having problems with this laptop? I am almost considering not getting this laptop.

I really love the specs and the looks of it, but if your spending 1500+ dollars you shouldnt have to Flash it, reformat it. it should work flawlessly out of the box. It seems from the people who bought this computer who visit this board, 9/10 people are having some serious problems. Did Asus rush this laptop? without properly testing it first? Bad production? What is the problem on why so many people are having problems with this model? Seems like both the Gameing models are having problems
G73 and the G51.

Anyone else agree?

 

Well, you are only looking at a small amount of G73JH owners here. This is mostly made up of people posting there problems and looking for answers. You are hardly going to see someone bother taking the time to praise the laptop.

I was like you, reading up all these problems, but the specs were so great and I liked the design, so I went ahead and got it.

You don't have to modify it in any way out of the box, it's only that some people don't like all the bloatware that was preinstalled so they clean install windows, some people like to update their drivers (most normal users don't, so nonissue for them), etc. This is where the problems arrived... except for maybe the creative sound thing, which you should uninstall.

As for me, it worked fine out of the box, except it froze once on me when I tried to play a blu-ray movie.

I then clean installed on an SSD and had pretty much a flawless clean install and installed drivers/utilities from the cd that asus provides.

Unfortunately, I do want to update drivers, so I tried yesterday. I installed 10.4 ati drivers. Today I booted up, went to play borderlands, and I got a GSOD, so I uninstalled and reinstalled the stock drivers again.

Another problem i'm having is high temps, so i'm thinking that something wasn't placed well on my GPU, since playing borderlands on max settings pushes me do 97C. I'm still not sure about this though. I mean, to the average user, the laptop is running pretty much fine and dandy and running games at good frames and settings. The palmrest and keyboard also don't get hot, and the bottom is only warm, so all in all, it feels like it's doing some pretty good cooling. But using software to read my temps, it seems pretty high.

Lastly, fans for me seem a bit loud, but that's hard to compare. I easily forget about it sometimes, but it's clearly audible even when I'm just surfing the web, so I'm not sure how it compares to others.

 

/start immature rant

I'm one of the unfortunate ones who has had 2 of these and now going for a third one. Various issues from GSODs, keyboard lag, keyboard squealing like a pig, etc. When the damn thing works, it's great. Otherwise, with all these downtimes, I might as well have shot myself in the foot and got an Alienware or something.

I can workaround these problems for the most part, but I really shouldn't HAVE to do that.

Rushed, bad components, bad design, low statistical sample, whatever. It doesn't matter. To the person experiencing these problems, no excuses or rationalizations will do. While I've been an ASUS "fan" of sorts for more than a decade, and have gone through problems of varying degrees with a few parts, this is undoubtedly my last ASUS purchase.

Great job ASUS. Losing me as a customer will never ever hurt you of course. So life's a B*TCH, I'm SOL and you guys suck!

/end immature rant

 

Look at my review.

 

Wierd.... I must be pretty damn rare and special cuz my Asus G73 hasn't had any issues. Just so you know, I don't create a new thread every day saying how perfect my G73 is; those with bad units are usually 9000 times more vocal about their machines. This is pretty typical of forum communities.

 

My G73 has been pretty problem free, and runs great. Nothing to complain about, to be honest.

Initially I experienced "freezing" when logging into Steam, which was soon determined to be caused by the Creative Labs software. As soon as I uninstalled everything Creative, the problem went away.

Other than that, I also experienced freezing when pressing FN+Esc, and throttling, when on extended battery use. Now I have no reason to press FN+Esc, and I really never use this thing on battery anyway (don't see myself having it on my lap, and trying to use a mouse ). So those were really not problems for me, and it was only after they were pointed out here in these forums, that I found I had those issues.

A couple of days ago I summoned the courage to do a Bios update, for no other reason than I needed to get over my fear of updating a Bios. Using the onboard EasyFlash Utility, it couldn't have been simpler, and I updated to the 209 Beta version.

The two issues I mention above have been resolved, and I understand this Bios version also fixes a couple of other bugs.

Bottom line? My experience thus far has been nothing short of great! It runs fast, cool, and quiet. I have a pretty high spec desktop, but since I got the G73, I find I've been using it more than the desktop. Its just so cool, not having to hear those RivaTuner controlled fans screaming all the time

Just my opinion, from my experience.

 

Don't confuse the thousands of posts by enthusiasts, over-clockers, and gamers looking to squeeze a little extra performance and/or benchmark numbers out of the machine with things that NEED to be done to make the machine work.

The stock machine is a high-end PC. It runs games great. Runs high-end software great. The full HD display is nice - bright and crisp. It's not an RGB LED but for an LED backlit it's pleasing.

There's no show-stopper issues with the G73. There's a few things that can be fixed and so far I have no reason to think Asus won't address these issues with future updates.

Personally I'm using the stock software except for the non-standard drivers for the SSD and wireless adapter that aren't stock in the G73. I use it all day every day with no issues. I don't believe a clean OS install is necessary either. I in-place upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate from the stock OS and the stock install works just fine.

Applications you don't use can be uninstalled. I've installed way more bloatware than any machine comes with, including development, database and web servers. It's a Core i7 machine with 8GB RAM - none of that stuff noticeably effects performance in any way...these are NOT Pentium processors

 

No issues here that were not of my own making. Did get rid of the creative crap so never had those issues. Mine came with bios 206 and has not been an issue (keyboard lights still work). Only GSOD I had is when I played with the 10.3/10.4 drivers so I got rid of them. Not play BF2 (waiting for a Steam sale) so that is a non issue. Cleared the bloatware (but you do that with ANY preconfigure laptop) and put the SSD in from my Gateway. That is it. Been going strong ever since

 

wanna swap lappys? Very jealous!

 

Flashing bios and doing reformats is what I do with every computer and every laptop I've ever owned.

I'm a huge fan of Asus, and my next laptop will likely be an Asus again. This is my 4th year with an Asus notebook and very pleased with their notebooks and in my opinion the best warranty and customer service in the industry. I don't know anyone that provides free accidental and free overnight shipping.
- Everytime I call the, I don't wait long for someone to talk to me.
- I love they speak english natively and not speaking to someone from India
- And they have been very prompt and helped my way through the Nvidia debacle few years ago with the 8xxx series.
- And in my experience they have been very polite.
- From what I've read on these forums, I think some people are extremely unreasonable in their relations with Asus CS. They expect these CS personnel to do exactly what they want and expect them to be Asus techs. That's unreasonable, they are employees and expect to follow certain regulations and most of all are not techs. They forget these CS personnel have to help ALL Asus notebook owners and if they don't know all the issues of G73, there really isn't any reason to expect they would. Asus has innumerable different notebook models.

I also don't think you can compare Asus G73 to Clevo or Alienware. G73 sales are probably blowing away, decimating Alienware/Clevo sales and the number of notebooks sold vs notebooks with problems seems about par for the course IMO.

And I am more than happy to recommend a G73 or any Asus notebook to my friends, co-workers and family. I recently recommended a UL50 to a co-worker and she can't be any happier with it.

 

Well, I'm one of those who *knock on wood* did not have any kind of problems with the G73Jh so far. I got mine at Best Buy, and granted, I did not update it in any way since I got it mainly because of all the warnings and threads about problems when you guys upgraded bios, catalyst and etc.

The only thing I did was to remove the bloatware that came with it right away, like those Best Buy programs, Trend micro antivirus and etc...

 

Ultimately, this is your basic "ignorance is bliss".

Same basic situation I was in, until I tried to update to 10.4 and GSOD during a game and also started monitoring my GPU temps, which is way too high.

 

I go to my local private school and all I find a lot of snobby children. Thus, I'm going to avoid having children, because they may end up being snobby like the children I've seen at this school.

 

Flash to the clevo bios seems to fix the gsod problem on the g73jh. Other than that it is a great laptop.

 

Mine is just like the video ad! Stealthy and cool. But you do have to be aware of there problems that are a fact:

1. Press FN + ESC and it locks up.
2. Some had GSOD problems, but i don't think that's the most, at all.
3. If you use it on battery and it goes under 35% Battery life, after you plug it in, it will be damn slow and you have to reboot it.
4. Creative Sound Software will make your system crash in some apps. So just uninstall creative junk.

Asus is trying to solve these issues with a new bios and they have already done it. Most people are installing the beta bios some dude posted around. I will wait for the official one tho.

Problems* happen with all brands. You see DELL, Alienware, HP... Getting all sorts of problems and people have to do the same thing they do with ASUS... RMA.

I think you don't have to be afraid of buying it, cuz its a damn cool powerful laptop for the price. Just be aware of the FACTS i mentioned.

 

Mine is flawless so far. However I have only had it for a few days. I have not updated anything yet but anticipate updating the bios when the new beta goes official.

For what it's worth, I remember many people having problems with Gateways P-7811 when that came out but it is still regarded as one of the best gaming laptops of the last few years. I own its prdecessor, the P-6860 and the only thing that ever went wrong was my Windows installation failed after a couple of weeks. I reinstalled and it has been flawless since then.

 

What problems did it have? I don't recall it being the best, but I do recall it being similar to the G73 in terms of the specs it offered and it's good price.

 

Same goes for me here.

Owned the X3 just under a month now, and stock drivers and bloatware removed, everything works brilliant straight out of the box.

Couple of issues I did note over the course is the Fn+Esc freezing, and a 3-5 second PSOD while alt-tabbing out of Just Cause 2 that hasn't appeared again so far.

Wood. Knocking.

Happy first-time Asus customer here.

 

I should say "best" as in bang for the buck. Anyhow if I recall correctly there were problems with bad displays and overheating during games.

 

I'm running the unofficial 209 BIOS, unofficial newest CATS, added an SSD and flashed it, added a hard drive bracket, added a blu-ray burner, and have had *knock on wood* no real issues with it.

 

I think a lot of people don't really take the time to think about the engineering involved in stuffing the caliber of hardware that's in these gaming laptops into such a small enclosed space, to be honest. Gaming laptops have always had some serious compromises to deal with. I had a buddy a few years ago that had a super-high end gaming laptop (it had cherry red paint and cost him $5,000+) that, if you gamed on it, the keyboard would actually become very uncomfortably hot to the touch. I don't think I'd go as far as to say that it would burn you...but...it would not be pleasant.

The G73JH, compared to gaming laptops of the last 5 years, is actually fairly compromise-free. The cooling system isn't loud (for most people), it stays cool to the touch, it doesn't seem to overheat for most people...all in all, I'd say it's an amazing laptop...hell...it's an amazing piece of engineering, period. I don't think anyone can honestly say that most G73JH owners have had serious issues. It's the nature of the beast: you're going to hear more from the owners with problems than you will from the ones that don't.

 

Ive had mine for a couple months now. Installed an SSD, better wirless card and reformatted right out of the box using the drivers that came on the disk and it's been flawless. I have done 0 bios/driver updates.

I use it for games, email, apps, etc. everyday and it's given me 0 problems.

I love this laptop.

 

Happy here as well, this is my second unit, but very happy with the machine.

As a side note, why hit FN-ESC anyway? what is it suppose to do? I keep seeing that posted as a bug, but honestly, have no idea what it's suppose to do... i hit the power button and it sleeps or turns off, that a bug too ha

 

The g73jh needs its own subcategory in these forums

 

It's not suppose to do anything, that's the point. It's not that you would intentionally hit Fn+ESC, it's that you might attempt to put your laptop asleep and instead accidentally hit it.

 

Makes sense! I never use FN-F1, but if I did I could see the problem with being one keystroke away from a lockup

 

I SECOND THAT!!

 

Absolutely zero problem for me, nada, zietch, nothing... I just have put an ssd into it, playing tons of games with no [Choose your letter]SOD. I am not even on bios 209 yet. Of course i dont use the FN+ESC fucntion because before this forum, I was not even aware it exists. I am so happy with this laptop, that I have sold my desktop (shuttle) and any remaining other laptops (dell xps 16, lenovo r61) and later bought a second asus laptop for the road.

 

Ooh, was a bit too early for me to start screamin' Happy Camper.

OC'ed to 800/1100 via AMDGPUTool and I got a crash then GSOD in BFBC2. lol

Temps were below 70 though. 750/1100 works great for me still.

 

This thread is starting to sound like an AA meeting...

But anyhoo... this is my first Asus laptop. My addiction to my RPGs have led me here, and all and all, has worked as expected. Except for the annoying GSODs with 10.3+. I mean, this is a GAMING RIG, and your VIDEO DRIVERS should be updated with your GAMES as needed.

I figure there's some lame incompatible setting with drivers from ATI directly that is causing the annoyance, and probably will be addressed. (If Asus grows hair on their privates and puts out a vBIOS or ATI includes a workaround)

My previous laptops were a P-6860 and P-7805u (1200p AUO), just to give an idea where I am coming from. I think I'd like to get a nice netbook for when I just want to browse / email and have some battery life.

 

Nothing wrong with that, OC ability is luck of the draw for GPU, not all GPU can overclock as well as others. Some can overclock theirs to 960 Core, I can't but doesn't mean mine is broken.