how's the rubber finish holding up? (G73JH)

hi. i was just wondering how the rubbery finish of your laptops are holding up? anyone have any scratches of scuffs on theirs yet?

the reason i am asking this is because i JUST received mine. i took it out of the foam bag and inspected it. noticed that there were scuffs at the rear edges near the left exhaust. i wasn't sure if i should make a big deal about it if it'll end up getting scratched anyway. i was just surprised to see it brand new out of the box. it must have happened during packing.

also, on one of my keyboard keys has a nick on it where the backlight will shine through it a little.

both these things are bothering me a bit. not sure if i should send it back to exchange it. the online retailer i purchased it from has none in stock and won't have any for 2-3 weeks. i am wondering if i should wait the month for the exchange or just keep the one i have.

if i hadn't spent over $1500 then maybe it wouldn't bother me as much. what would you guys do? thanks.

 

Wow, get it replaced! It should be perfect new. Had mine for almost a month now. No scuffs, no scratches, no discoloration. Keyboard appears to bald easy, but after I wiped it down with a moist washcloth, it was practically new again. I had a scuff on the top from using a dirty cloth to clean it. Just used a clean moist cloth and wiped right up. Haven't scratched anywhere, don't see how you can scratch this finish to be honest.

 

I haven't noticed the finish scuffing particularly easily. Try running some stability tests in games or FurMark. If you have a solid G73, I would highly recommend you keep it regardless of any cosmetic blemishes. Otherwise, I would return it, but mostly in hopes that I would receive a less faulty machine.

 

well, i'm guessing that getting some sort of friction burn on the surface will leave a mark. as far as the keys are concerned. when you say "bald easy" do you mean when the keys are used so much that they get shiney? you are saying that wiping it off with a moist cloth will make it look matte again like new?

i really want to exchange it. i already got a return shipping label ready. i just don't want to wait one month to get a replacement...

 

i've briefly read about people here running their benchmarks. just curious though. let's say there is a problem with the laptop and you send it in to asus. do they end up fixing the current laptop or do they just send you out a brand new replacement?

 

Depends on the issue. From what I understand, they just replace the part.

 

It's at their discretion.

 

I see.

So, I should run FurMark just for kicks? Man...I looked up a replacement key on ebay and it's 5 bucks. lol
Man, this notebook seems perfect besides those two stupid things. No dead pixels, have 1333mhz ram instead of the 1066, manufactured in June.

I guess I can wait 1 month...

 

They can send you a new keyboard to replace yourself, and while you are at it I would just redo your GPU paste. I wouldn't RMA it unless there were some really bad stability issues, but that's just me.

 

Just MHO but I would exchange it if it really bothers you. I did pay a lot of money for it and it should not come like that. Mine is still in prime condition and I really try to keep it that way as long as possible.

 

my rubber feet are coming off

I don't exactly drag it around so i'll just put it down to poorly glued on.

Pretty easy to just glue them back on though.

 

same problem for me. a good dab of J.B. weld fixed it right up for me

 

This may have been covered before but I've looked and din't find anything.Whats the best way to clean the rubberized finish?

 

anything that doesn't leave a residue, i like alcohol wipes

 

hey any idea on how to prevent the wasd keys from gettin shiny coz of excessive use??

 

mine came scratched around the touchpad thats it and the cd paper thing it came with was quite scrambled together not alot.. i might be paranoid that someone has used it but thats impossible right? is it just from the factory or w/E when they install everything?

i dont know if its scratches but you can see them when u look at the rest of the laptop. is this normal?

 

So far mine seems to be holding up. The build of this laptop seems more durable then my previous A8JM. The casing was replaced a couple times, but it got scuffs back on the lid pretty quickly.

 

Well, I just received my replacement notebook. Everything seems decent for the most part except a tiny tiny spot, not 100% perfect but I have OCD with things like this. I know I'm not gonna get that flawless laptop most likely so I'm probably going to keep this one.

I had a random question though. I went to check my ram to see what they put in there (Hynix), but I noticed that on the back of the plastic memory cover are a lot of finger prints. I can't wipe them off either, they seemed etched in. Anyone else have fingerprints on theirs? Just wondering if this is considered normal. I don't remember seeing any on my first g73 but then again I don't think I looked at it very closely.

 

Try rubbing alcohol or eyeglass cleaner to wipe it off. It's probably oil.

 

i'll try straight rubbing alcohol. i took some and mixed it with a water to dilute it a little bit and it didn't work.

thanks.

 

Microfiber cloth and warm water. If you can't clean your computer using only that, then you might want to consider moving your computer indoors.

 

Well, I finally received my third replacement (online store was out of stock for awhile). The first thing I did was inspect the outside and inside of the laptop. And to my surprise I see a nick in the rubberized outside (again). I dunno, is this just going to be a continous battle for me? Should I just keep the damn thing? I'm getting a bit fed up right now...

 

I'd suggest getting over it, or buying it at a brick and mortar.

 

I would if they sold the A1 at a B&M...

 

^No consumer should ever "just get over it". You're investing a lot of money into something and you should expect it to be as close to perfect as possible brand new.
When consumers start to forfeit their rights, the companies can continue to slack on quality control, testing, and other important things, thus lowering overall quality.

 

what sux is that i originally purchased this at the end of july, and right now i'm finding out that the a1 is being replaced with the b1. i've emailed the retailer again but i'm worried if they'll even do anything this time. they claim that i'm the only person to ever have these types of issues with this specific laptop. they were nice enough to swap out the laptop twice for me, but i am having doubts they'll do it a third time.

 

Take a picture of your problem, I'd like to see what you're talking about.

If you can prove that it's something that's out of the ordinary, and you're within the return window, you should have the ability to return it.

 

It is a tossup, I should have stayed with my slightly blemished refurb like lappy instead of wanting a "new" new one. The first one had Kingston ram and the GPU could overclock higher. Now I have a nice new laptop, but It has Hyundai ram and the GPU overclocks 1/2 as good. So make sure you cannot live with the blemish before sending it back if it is a strong performer. It is a hard decision but If I had the choice I would have lived with the first one seeing how good a performer it was. :/

Oh well live and learn. Still love my new one, but I am an OC/tweaking nut.

 

kaelang, it's really not that big. just picture a scratch through the thin rubber surface about 1mm in length and diameter at the back edge of the laptop lid. i can't take a picture as i don't have a camera that can take a macro picture that well. anyway, that's just to give you an idea.
my girlfriend just saw it and said out of all three laptops i've had, this one is the most noticeable. she said i should have kept the first one with the nick on the key.

IM0001, i just popped open the back lid to check out the ram. i ended up with hynix memory. i don't want to do anything else on the laptop until i know what the retailer is going to do about it. at this point, the less i do the better.

 

Hynix may be better than Hyundai, but I would not know off hand. If you picked up SetFSB for the $4 it cost, the guy will get back to you asap and we can see if it can OC or not really quickly

My first one got to 158FSB, the new one will only do 146FSB.. IF you can go farther than 146.. Keep it.

 

Hynix = Hyundai.

 

The Hynix is Hyundai as thats what my JW has ..

When your check the memory it will look like this Hynix(Hyundai)

 

Ah. Nuts...

 

^^ lol

 

Most ram is made by either Hynix or Samsung, both S. Korean. Hyundai and Samsung are arguably the largest manufacturing behemouths in S. Korea, I really don't think you can go wrong with either one.

GSkill etc, they don't make ram, wouldn't be surprised if most of the ram used by Kingston, OCZ, Crucial are made by Hynix.

Wouldn't sweat it.

Steve Jobs charges MacHeads premium prices for his Hynix memory

 

i got off the phone with customer service and the manager isn't in. i guess they don't want to make any decisions because it's a "repetitive issue". so right now i guess i'll have to wait. i'm pretty sure the manager is going to b1tch at me or something for being so anal...

 

Yes the ram is still high quality and should last forever, But I do believe the Kingston ram overclocks better than the Hyundai. Certain makers get different chips that can go higher on the same voltage than others. The obvious reason high performance ram exist even if the speeds between them are the same. Then again maybe I just have 1 chip that just doesn't like to go faster with the whole gang. Anyone else overclock to 158FSB on Hyundai ram?

 

or maybe everyone has some sort of cosmetic defect on their laptops but just don't notice them??

 

2 of my feet came out... stuck one back on with glue and hasn't come out at all.. than today the other came out.. This should be happening with a $2500 product.

 

they've gone and I didn't even notice when LOL
the same happened to my PDA, when it's summer and it's ht the glue no longer holds.

 

Happens on all laptops and just about any product that uses rubber feet that is transported often, regardless of how expensive it may be. What do you expect? It's just glue, they can't do anything short of using super glue. In that case when the rubber wears thin, it will be impossible to remove and replace. As others have said, with hot weather, humidity that's what happens, doesn't matter how expensive the laptop is.

 

If they had used feet of a slightly harder material like my Toshiba has, then I'm guessing this problem wouldn't be at all prevalent.

I've been using my Toshiba as my portable rig for close to two years now. It has most likely been taken in and out of it's case at twice a day, most of the time more, and the feet are in condition fairly close to how they were when I bought the machine.

 

well, i guess the manager doesn't want to deal with this anymore and is just going to give me a refund. that's ok i guess. i think i might just go and buy the b1 then from some place else. i'll let you guys know how this turns out.

 

my coworker just told me that i should have just kept the previous laptop even though it had physical imperfections. he was actually a bit irritated that i kept swapping it out, and also said that people like me are the reason why companies would have to raise prices on their products.

i dunno, if something gets scratched or whatever i want to be the one that does it, not when it's like that already brand new out of the box...

any comments on this?

 

We never got a picture to actually judge if it was worth the hastle for most of us if we were in the same situation.

Mine has some imperfections in various areas on the rubber coating but nothing to write home about. In a year they rubber coating will probably start showing some signs of wear which will be expected and normal. A little scratch at new may be a bummer, but depending on the location, size, look, I probably would have cared less. I am more concerned about inside components and weird creaks, rattles, etc. (my first one though it had better performance but was a refurb, did have an extremely annoying clunk on the left palm rest. I believe it was from whatever repair ASUS did to it before I even got it. I may have lived with it knowing now what I didn't then, heck I would have opened it up and fixed it myself, but oh well).

It is up to you but I would have probably kept it as long as everything worked great and the rest of it felt new.

Now I am waiting to see if anyone can/will do a rubberized coating repair/replacement. Wonder what we could apply as a light coating or something after a year or two of use... Hmm

 

It's a rubber finish. Rubber is not steel or diamond, it does wear. And a very thin application of rubber on a laptop surface with lots of rubbing will wear. I have no doubt the palm area will deteriorate.

My old thinkpads when made by IBM, with rubber finish, even those tanks had the rubber finish worn off with the black plastic showing.

 

Well, I understand that the rubber will eventually wear over time, but when I take the laptop out of a brand new sealed box, I just expect it to be in perfect physical condition. Maybe this is just unrealistic. I wish I weren't so OCD...

If I haven't mentioned it before, I'll mention it again.
-First laptop had a nick in the Prt Scr key where the backlight would shine through it, and had scuffing at the left rear above the exhaust vent about 2-3 inches wide.
-Second laptop had a 2mm cut through the rubber coating at the front right edge.
-Third laptop had a 1mm circular cut at the rear along the edge.

My coworker still tells me that these things would be considered within "normal conditions" and probably within Asus's standard to sell.

I kinda just see it as carelessness when assembling or packing. He tells me that if workers spent the extra time to be "more careful" then they wouldn't be able to build as many laptops within a certain period of time and therefore the company itself would lose money because of loss of productivity.

 

having 3 with all out cuts is kinda odd. I guess if you get your money back go somewhere else to buy the laptop. No idea why/how that happened 3 times though. Mine was scuffed but both systems I got were in pretty good condition either way.

 

Yeah I don't understand either... I wasn't expecting anything like this after the first one. I have to send this third one back for a refund, but I don't think I'll be refunded my $25 shipping charge.

I'll probably end up purchasing the B1 from some place...unless I should just wait around for anything new upcoming soon.

 

Odd, even with my notebook back from RMA, I still don't have any marks on my rubber finish. And I did a thorough check over.