ASUS G73SW Owners' Lounge

Try running ThrottleStop, just open it up, don't have to press anything within the program after that. Then launch the games and see if Crysis 2 and Just Cause 2 is still lagging.

This laptop has a throttling prob when games or demanding apps use the CPU and GPU. Basically causes the cpu to drop to 798mhz, your case sounds like throttling and if so, I need to update the game list. You can read more about it in link below.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...3sw-owners-cpu-throttling-798mhz-how-fix.html

 

I believe the best buy model only has the 1gig of GDDR5 ram where as the normal stock model from Asus is 1.5 GDDR5. What you can do however is over clock it to a safe setting.

 

And, what about the display setting of 1600x900, can that be overclocked too?

 

Would just like to share my WEI.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

I just flew in from the Cuckoo's Nest in Honolulu, HI...for the past weekend I've been there on bizness, and I just tried to read all the new posts without much success. Boring! What has been going on here anyway? A bunch of newbies having their teething patterns set? Thought so...or thereabouts anyway.

Did everybody miss old Rex and his constant shenanigans? I just thought of something, you know these are definitely MAN HOMBRE notebooks! I haven't heard or seen a single female owner yet, have any of you guys? That is weird isn't it? I mean you'd think that somewhere in the mix a gal would have sprung for one of these monstrosities, but not yet!

As for WEI indexes, I decided to share my own tonight also! What the Hay! What a dumb thing the WEI is isn't it? I mean what does it mean anyway? That my SSD is better and bigger than yours, or what?

Oh I've got jet lag big time and won't be able to sleep until tomorrow morning I'll betcha. I'll check in here later in case somebody wants to react to this post, or anything else I have written here for that matter.

Have a pleasant 4th of July if I don't hear from you all, until then!

rexrzer727

 

Lol. I actually just got bored and checked out the WEI.

 

Oh, we just had a fun(secret) party since you were gone, . But seriously, must have been nice in Hawaii, I've never been there myself, but seems like a beautiful place to be, even if just for business.

As for the female G73 owners, there is at least one, Chastity is known around here for all the helpful post she has given, even apparently gotten/or has known Asus reps which send her free review units. She is pretty active in posting, but mainly on the JH side since that is the laptop she owns(though she does have a JW/SW and now an incoming G74SX). But yeah, lucky or not, she knows her stuff for the most part, so there is at least 1 female thats super active/uses G73s'. :>

 

Maybe, being in the nest have effected your brain and definitely clouded your judgement!

Did you have a rendezvous with Jack Nicholson!

Anyhow, have a nice independence day!

 

Yes, but it will still only be 128-bit. Whereas the real G73 is 192-bit. It makes a big difference.

No, thats the highest the display panel can handle, it cant be changed lol.

 

King of Rupture? :rolleyes2:

Hah Hah! J/K!! I love that moniker, it's the crusty milk and toast!! Actually Jack is home in Malibu for the weekend, and conjuring up some sinister element drama for his next gig with Sigourney Weaver and the Aliens...methinks. Better yet, he and his cohort Charley Sheen are probably at their favorite watering hole up in Topanga Canyon for the night, discussing lawsuits and network executives and all the local trash they can find...how do I know these things? Telepathy!

Have a great 4th to you too! Watch out for red rain....! :laugh:

Now she doesn't count, I mean that's a dyed-in-the-wool-almost-reviewer chick with loads of connections at Asus...definitely not a "regular gal member" with a G73 of some sort..."free review units?"....Sheesh! And I thought I was special because this G73SW-3DE I'm looking at over in the corner of my studio was a benevolent mistake, yessir I'll tell you all the story of how I got this thing in the real sense, but not this year...I have to clear it with management (my wife) or she'll kill me outright, yessir she will!

Anyway Chastity, if that's her number one, does NOT count as an owner here! I mean a regular person without connections and the like at Asus, not that I don't have a couple myself, but then again I'm not a girl either! Find me a regular lady member that just happens to own one of these and I'll be happy. :wub:

Did you check out my SSD score with the Vertex 3 in the house! Wooo Hooo! I never thought I'd see that fabled 7.9 thing, but there you go...in a notebook no less! Now what does that mean anyway? Does it mean that the WEI likes SSD's mucho! I think so!! :wink:

They even score my RAID volumes at 5.9 in my No.1 desktop--do you believe that? Anything with a platter HD is faulty to WEI, and that is a big mistake considering that two of my RAID volumes are faster than this Vertex 3 SSD! Seriously they are! Thus, to me, the WEI sucketh bigtime!

I think we should have a poll and see who believes in the WEI and who does not believe in it, what about that? :yes:

I absolutely cannot sleep right now, so I quit tryin'...and is anybody else awake at this ungodly hour?

rexrzer727

 

If we put in a poll, I think majority of the answers would be, trying WEI out of boredom lol.

 

I have the same ssd like you - OCZ Vertex 3, 120 GB, FW 2.02.
Could you please execute and post the results of the AS SSD Benchmark?

 

WEI does have a purpose though - it optimizes system settings if you use an SSD for instance.

 

Actually this is my 2nd Vertex 3 120GB SSD, and it has firmware 2.06... as the 1st one that I bought in early May failed after 3 weeks use, and it had firmware 2.02. I would be very cautious with your drive, and if possible set up an exchange with OCZ because that firmware is buggy and the SSD will most likely fail at some point. It starts with small freezes and hesitations, and progresses to full-system freezes and lockouts, eventually freezing up solid and it doesn't come back!

I am sorry to report this for your edification, and don't mean you any harm by noting this characteristic of the early Vertex 3 SSD's with FW 2.02, and it's certainly nothing that you are doing or will do that can save it, or change its tendencies. You may get totally lucky and have no failure with the drive, but you would be one of the very few...most with the early drives have had to RMA them already...as I did a month ago.

Have you had any of those symptoms yet? Noticed any hesitation or stuttering with the GUI or things you would normally attribute to the OS or keyboard problems?

The AS SSD Benchmark is strictly synthetic benchmarking, as you probably already know that, and I don't like to use it with my SSD's because it's so hard on them, no matter what the author says about his prized execution of a utility...I say BS to that! I much prefer Crystal Disk Mark Utility/Benchmark test for getting a handle on the synthetic benches of the SSD's, any of them, and would be able to show you both benches and the ATTO Tools benchmark test also right here...look at the review's images under the product banner, and you'll see my benchmarks published for everybody to see.

Amazon.com: OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G: Electronics

rexrzer727

 

i tried but it runs the same way

 

@justcause33
Welp, I guess if throttlestop doesn't help, and other games are running fine. It very well may just mean you need to turn down some settings. Like others have said, you are on a 128bit 460m, so it's not going to give you the full capabilities the 460m can offer.

However, have you doubled checked to make sure your on "high performance" power profile? Also, if you turn down the settings and it still runs bad, then at least we know something is conflicting.



@ rexrzer727
LoL, I see, yeah, I guess besides her, I haven't see any other females.

 

I had random freezes when using my Vertex 3 at first - upgraded firmware to 2.09 and they stopped. No BSODs though, before or after.

 

You must detail how you upgraded the firmware, I'm all ears!

Did you put the drive in a desktop, as I imagine? I tried the Linux USB Flash Boot Drive technique and it failed over and over again by the way...no go, and the OCZ Forum was no help there either.

So tell me HOW you did it Skywise!

rexrzer727

 

My OCZ Vertex 3 is a boot drive for the OS. At the beginning I experienced sporadic freezes that were due to the buggy Intel’s RST 9.x.x.x. So I applied well known LPM fix to a registry. I never experienced any BSOD or any other problem described on the OCZ forum:
Vertex3, Agility3, Solid3 support and discussion forum

I have to add that I vigorously followed Intel’s RST updates. Here is the update history I went with them:

• 10.1.0.1008
• 10.1.5.1001
• 10.5.0.1026
• 10.5.0.1027
• 10.5.1.1001_Bad,conflicted with Nvidia drivers
• 10.6.0.1002

And, finally, my AS SDD Benchmark results on the latest RST 10.6.0.1002 are in the attachment.

 

I had a bit of a problem doing that, actually. The Linux boot was no-go, since the drive turned out to be locked, and the sleep trick would just make the laptop freeze and not wake up. I tried several other things until in the end I added back my original boot HDD to the laptop, and booted from that. Ran the toolbox using admin mode in XP compatibility mode, and then tried to flash - didn't work at first, but once I ran it again a second time everything was fine.

 

I hate to harp on the obvious, but you are not getting my drift here at all. If you are running firmware 2.02 you had best either figure out how to change that to the latest firmware and/or realize that it's NOT the Intel RST Driver that is the culprit with the failures, it's the firmware ONLY! THAT is the cause and the only cause, buggy firmware. :yes:

It's nice that you kept up with the latest and greatest Intel RST Drivers, but that's not the whole enchilada, sorry to say... and if you are lucky with this SSD then I guess you are the exception to the tendencies the drives have exhibited, to wit all those documented failures in the OCZ Forum of the early SSD's with firmware 2.02, over and over again! Mine being one of them also!!

I am not going to argue with you about it, but you have been advised/warned about your SSD, and it's up to you to take the initiative and either fix it, or suffer the inevitable consequences, most likely ones anyway. Good luck, and not trying to pin your tale on the tag, just speaking my mind after viewing many, many people go through failures with the original 2.02 firmware SSDs.

Skywise, I'd say so! I have never been more frustrated with OCZ than over this firmware business, and the toolkit's failure to be able to update a boot HD. I mean Intel's toolkit can update firmware in the boot HD, so why can't OCZ have one that functions similarly?

I am surprised that it worked for you in the laptop, and I'll have to try that myself, just swap the OEM HD for the normal boot SSD and put the SSD as the 2ndary drive in the laptop's chain of boot devices...is that what you did? Because I'd imagine that the laptop would still try and boot off the SSD if it were on the native bus...that is why I never tried it! :GEEK:

If you say it works I'll give it a go, but internal laptop IT is not my favorite science by any means, to say the least. I would have to say I am paranoid about anything negative happening to the SSD in that position, but again, if you legitimately did the above and it worked after some fiddlin' around, then I have to give it a go also. :confused2:

I would really like my laptop to have the 2.09 firmware, because then I could relax and relish in the thought that it is safe as milk, finally. Right now with FW 2.06 I just don't know...it could be fine, maybe not? Ya know! :wink:

And on this subject of the Intel RST Driver, the Asus installer will place in the laptop IRST Driver 10.0.0.1046 if you let it do its thing, and I have had good luck with it, no issues at all using that diversion, which was never published at the Intel web site, not EVAR! It's solely an Asus number, and device manager will tell you the same if you have an OEM build of the OS like I do...check it out and you'll see what number IRST Driver you've got!
Chances are if you have the OEM build it will be 10.0.0.1046. :yes:

Frankly I don't think it matters that much, save for the one with the conflict with nVidia stuff, if that is the case...I never installed it so I'd not be one to ask about that...just have kept my OEM install to this day and still use it with success, Cloned though it may be to the SSD!

rexrzer727

 

Since someone wanted some scores, I ran 3d mark vantage and 11. I had to drop clocks down to 810/1620/1410 to achieve stability, but it seems to be fine using those now, even at very high temperatures (93+ using Furmark). In Vantage I got P9836 3DMarks, and P2317 3DMarks in 11.

EDIT: Actually I just swapped out HDD #2 for the original boot HDD and kept the SSD in the #1 slot - I had to go into the BIOS to change the boot order, but Windows had no problems booting off a drive in a different SATA slot than it was originally in. I didn't bother swapping out the drive cages and just shoved it in place and put the cover back on, since it was just a temporary swap. 2 screws to remove the cover, and another 2 screws for the second HDD.

If you do have the 2.06 firmware and don't experience any issues however, you shouldn't bother upgrading. The reason for this is that the 2.09 one reduces the performance slightly, in an attempt to fix the stability problems.

 

You'll need the full version if you choose the clean install.

 

i just bought Xrite EyeOne Display 2 monitor calibrator (the one that notebookcheck.net use for testing LCD panel quality in their reviews)

and found out that CMO1726 / Chi mei LCD panel in G73SW has really superior quality. much better than Hannstar LCD Panel (no color bleeding). it has 1000:1 contrast ratio. nice LCD panel! the best i've ever seen.

notes: if someone in here has this LCD panel, you can view my calibrated profile in this screenshoot
to get contrast ratio just divide maximum brightness and minum brightness value
(if i set it my lcd brightness to 120cd/m2, i got 0.1cd/m2 black value)

make sure to pick CMO1726(Chimei Optoelectronics) if you want to buy G73SW

 

Not true. You can clean install from the upgraded version. And then use method 3, which is the easiest and the best:

Method 3: Clean Install and Activate Windows 7 with MediaBootInstall Registry Hack (The Best Method):

1. After booting up, ensure that no Windows Updates pending task which requires a system reboot to finish installing.

Tip: Normally, an orange-colored shield icon will be displayed next to Shutdown button in the Start Menu Power Button or at notification tray area if a restart is required.
If reboot is required, restart the computer to allow any pending updates is installed.

2. Run Registry Editor (RegEdit).

3. Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE

4. In the right pane, change the value data for MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0.

Tip: If it is already 0, no need to change anything nor to worry.

5. Open an elevated command prompt as administrator.

6. Run the command below to reset Windows 7 activation status:
slmgr -rearm

7. Reboot the computer.

8. Run the Activate Windows utility (accessible from bottom section of Control Panel -> System and Security -> System, or type Activate Windows into Start Search), type in the upgrade product key and activate Windows.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Hi guys!
I just got my laptop after almost 3 months of waiting (the enthusiasm of having it went down the drain after waiting such a long time) and I already got a problem with it. I have customized it with an Intel Advanced-N 6205 wireless card. After reinstalling the system from the recovery partition (don't ask me why I had to do that), my Windows 7 refuses to recognize my card. Before reinstalling, I had no problem at all, my Wi-Fi was working just fine. I have tried everything (installing the driver from the CD that came along with the laptop, checking with Intel hardware identifier and driver updater, trying to update the driver from the Control Panel, rebooting and so on and so forth), nothing worked. Windows keeps listing my Network Controller under "Other devices" and says that "The drivers for this device are not installed. (Code 28)", despite the fact that they installed from my Drivers CD. Anyone could help me with this issue? Thank you in advance!

 

I am about to pull the trigger on a G73SW-A1, and I had a couple questions. I've tried to search this forum, but the search function doesn't seem to work:

- Does the A1 configuration come with the Intel 6300 wifi card, ie is it wireless HD display capable if my 1080p TV has a wireless HD receiver?
- can you use and benefit from using sata 3 (6MB/s) drives, either SSD or HD?
- can you break the RAID0 and remove 1 of the Momentus XT drives and replace with an SSD? What is the min size of SSD to benefit from the switch?
- Is the RAM dual channel 2x4GB or 4x2GB? If 2x4GB, can you add another 2x4GB dual channel?
- Is the 3DE version worth an extra $350? With a $150 rebate on the -A1 (& not the 3DE) through July 2011, I think it works out to about $350 difference.

Sorry if these questions have been answered elsewhere. Looks like a great deal on a gaming rig for the money.

 

Depends on the store. Atheros is the standard one I believe, and I had to pay extra for a 6300. Mind you, Intel WiDi is not supported on the G73SW because the Sandy Bridge graphics are disabled. You'll need to use a third party product if you want wireless video.

Yes, though you'll probably need an SSD as I'm not aware of any laptop sized HDD that can hit the SATA2 barrier.

The laptop chipset does not support raid 0. If you want to use raid 0 you'll need to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional at the minimum and use software raid in Windows. You cannot boot from a raid 0 volume though. You can use an SSD without problems regardless, and size is up to your personal preferences and wallet.

4x2GB, judging by a post by someone else in this thread. Access to some of the so-dimm slots is hard to come by, so you may want to simply upgrade the two easily accessible slots so you get 12 GB total.

If you want a matte screen, it's the only option unless you buy from a dealer that is willing to upgrade it for you. Upgrades to a matte screen tend to be around $200 or so. The screen used in the 3DE is a RGB LED screen with a very high brightness and refresh rate, so may be better than an upgraded screen, but that's up to you and your preferences. I know there's a glossy screen upgrade ($200) that has a lot better color gamut, so may be more appropriate for people who want to use the laptop for color critical work, but that doesn't support 3D.

The 3D itself works great for movies, but varies a lot with games. Some games have visual issues for instance, and you may want to drop the resolution to 720p instead of 1080p if gaming in 3D.

 

As to the worthiness of the 3DE, of course it is worth it!! Skywise answered that question well...I would only add that an OEM 120Hz matte display by LG is impossible to get except by buying it from Asus in the 3DE OEM configuration, period. After owning the 3DE for a couple months I am very glad I spent the $$ on this model vs the A-1...it rocks!

You cannot install drivers from the OEM DVD for an after-market WiFi adapter!!! Go to Intel.com/Support and find the drivers for the 6205 WiFi card and end your conundrum 100%....easy!

Sent from my iPad2
rexrzer727.

 

Asus support is great. But I wish they would process and send RMAs a little quicker

 

I wish they'd actually listen to their customers and fix their BIOSes (see link in signature).

 

Re the B2 , B3 versions of the Intel chipset , are there B2 versions of the G73SW-A1 ( i.e. affected by that famous bug ) around ? Can a seller tell me , if that's what he has or not ?

 

There are, but they should all have filtered out of the retail chain by now. The seller should be able to tell you if they have the updated chipset or not.

 

Hey everyone, I just got my G73SW about a week ago and am very happy.

I have a question though, which I know I'm being paranoid about, but just what to clear it up. The first few days I had this laptop, with the gpu windows gadget, I noticed the temp would hover at 30-31 degrees doing basic tasks, no gaming yet. The few days after, it now hovers at 40-41 and the fans, although very quiet seem to be getting slightly louder.

I know I probably shouldnt worry about this, but from owning a g72gx, it got very loud and very hot. I don't want anything to happen with this laptop and want to make it all perfect .

Should I worry about the temp and fan increase? I just find it odd that it happened all of a sudden like that when I was doing the same things. Thanks!

 

The ambient room temp could have been different.

Keep watching it, if it continues to rise then i would do something about it. But 40 is perfectly fine. 30 is unusually low, and shouldnt be expected. Just keep watching it, if it continues to get hotter and closer to 50C doing the same tasks, you might want to contact Asus about it (or return it to the retailer).

 

Thanks for the reply! Today I just hooked it up to a second monitor. I'm guessing the temps should rise as well because its running 2 screens, am I getting that right? Its hovering at 50 now with dual screens. I'll check later tonight if it stays at 40 with just the laptop alone.

Also I just noticed that, the fans weren't actually that loud, but the hdd was really loud. I am running an ssd as well. Do you have a similar issue?

 

Yeah, when you have a 2nd monitor plugged in Nvidia likes to keep the GPU running at full clocks, so the temps will be higher. And yup, HDD noise is annoying, I am running a SSD/HDD set up, and my laptop would be dead silent idle if it weren't for the darn hdd.

It's not good to let the hdd turn on and off a lot, but I still put the hdd to shut off if I don't use it for 5min. Admittingly though, during the summer, I have lots of fans running in the room, so I don't hear the hdd, but when I'm in a silent place/room I can clearly hear it over the laptop fans. Technically most ppl aren't bothered by the noise, or have higher ambient noises, so you prob wont get many ppl saying hdd noise is a problem. However, it is normal, especially since I'm guessing you have the Hitachi 750gb hdd.

 

Just a guess but yeah that sounds right to me. Check when your only running one monitor. Remember to give it time to cool down before checking the temps (though it shouldnt take long with this laptop )

Yeah its usually hard to get the attention of big companies for specific fixes

 

I got the xn2 from newegg its only the 500gb. Ill try that setting you mentioned and see if its any better.

Regarding temps, it went right back to 40 so lets hope it continues to stay good. Thanks for clearing it all up for me guys

 

If you have the 500GB HD it's undoubtedly the Seagate Momentous XT variety, which has 4GB of DRAM in addition to the platter with 500GB storage for conventional data, and these are notoriously NOISY HD's and systems. I absolutely HATE my Momentous XT with a passion because it is so GDMF NOISY, to a fault, in fact I thought it WAS faulty when I first got the laptop...just think for those of us who have/had 2 of those in the house with the twin HD setups that some of us have, ie not the XN2 variety, but the A-1 and 3DE versions both have twin HD's OEM box stock. Some have replaced the Seagate's with 750GB or 1TB after market HD's (Skywise et al), to increase storage, but I don't know what drives he is using for this task...the point being that the laptop is relatively SILENT but for HD noise, or fan noise for that matter when the laptop is under any type of stressful gaming, Folding@Home, or other stressful tasks. :yes:

If I had twin SSD's like I would prefer I'd have no noise at all, but then again I don't want to drop $1500 for a 500GB SSD, ya know? Not in a $2K laptop anyway, that is sort of nutz if you ask me...it's bad enough to spend $250 on the single SSD of 120GB size for my OS and apps. Go figure!

The problem with Asus isn't that they don't *care* about the laptops, but they simply don't have the company resources devoted to R&D and BIOS fixing, especially when they use those resources for product planning and NEW MODELS mostly, putting out a new version of a given laptop series every 6 months on average! They are prolific at "keeping up with new technology" aka Sandy Bridge products these days, and there will be a new Sandy Bridge on the horizon coming up soon enough, you watch!

The point here is that Asus will not fix the BIOS in these laptops anymore than they did on the others, but for the G51 series which I am aware of them fixing, but that was a massive owner base with defective BIOS and they had no choice there. Our BIOS isn't defective so much, but it's spotty and in need of "repair" with respect to throttling of the GPU and that is a non-priority for Asus at this time. It would take thousands of us complaining and petitioning the factory (Asus) to remedy this so-called shortcoming of this laptop, but that will never happen, or if it did we would hear about it quickly, I assure!

Overall the BIOS is pretty good considering these are mass-produced items, and just one generation of it to boot at hand, but for the 3DE models (from what I can tell anyway this is true, the 3DE's are pretty much limited production items and they tend to spend more time and energy making sure these are right as rain from the get-go) which seem to be relatively purrrfectly executed, with the same BIOS issue of GPU throttling however...that isn't fixable as I mentioned as yet.

But these temps you all are worried bout....get real people! A variation of some 10-degrees in ambient temps will account for more than a 10-degree shift in the laptop's internal temps most times, and it is certainly nothing to worry about. When you have a fast 10-degree difference when the laptop is being stressed, well then it's time to worry, and not before!

And even then it's normal for these laptops to degrade over time, perhaps a bit more than 10 percent even, because of wear and tear on the TIM and factory mothproofing (read TIM thermal tape and pads) for heat dissipation, which they spend precious little time dealing with when they make the laptops. It's much easier for the company to construct the laptops with the tape and paper than real TIM, as that would require hands-on work and that type of factory worker pay is at a premium, trust me it is, and Asus nor any other mfr will NOT be spending company resources on TIM for OEM laptops...these are NOT custom made by any means.

For that matter it would behoove us to replace all the pads and tape with IC Diamond, EVGA's new thermal compound "EVGA Freezer", MX2/4/6, or any of the other exotic compounds that are available for us to choose from, and totally take apart our notebook computers, replace all that crapola with real
TIM assemblies, and then and only then would we see drastic drops in temps across the board, from idle to 100% stress factors. However, it's such a pain to even deal with these laptops with their 3-tier construction and interior Catch-22's that nobody save for extremists will bother doing this stuff! :laugh:

Including myself in this statement is out of character for my level of skill with respect to fixing, taking apart, or re-doing TIM in things in my OEM desktops or any of my personal laptops, this is true, but so far my cooling temps are very adequate for OEM tape and pads...so I have seen no need to do the TIM replacement thus far...someday I might do such a thing, but not if temps stay so low as they have so far, even doing FAHome my laptop stays pretty cool...no more than 80-degrees CPU temps at 100% stress, and no more than 75-degrees for the GPU system so far...if that changes drastically though, I'll jump in there and re-do the factory OEM crapola instantly. :GEEK:

Like above, I guessed he's got the Seagate Momentous XT in the house, but it's interesting to think that your Hitachi is loud, when they are usually pretty silent for platter HD's! I know my wife's MacBook Pro has a Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM 2.5" HD, that I installed because it had a crappy Toshiba 4200rpm HD when brand new and I hated that action (!), and that thing is SILENT for a platter HD...go figure. :tongue:

Chances are these are normal today, I mean these should be NO to NONE or ZERO of the old Cougar Point chip sets out there for retail sale...it is long past those days in terms of inventory. This is not a concern for people, or should not be anyway. Asus would have to have its head up its to be distributing any more faulty chip sets, you know? I think this is a non-issue.

Now on to one of my pet peeve subjects, which I couldn't help but dwell on a little today because some members here think that the WEI is important, or a big deal shall I say, and that it performs a useful task or two in the GUI of Windows, and that may be true (SSD optimization perhaps), but to me the Windows Experience Index is a BIG FAT JOKE!

To wit my graphics for today, from my PC No.1 in the studio here, which is quite a deal really, and I built it from boxes of parts and pieces, premium in nature all of them, so I know it well! First, my RAID systems are very, very fast....much faster than any SSD that is being sold today but for RAID SSD use, and that is somewhat faster but NOT MUCH! Take a look at my Crystal Disk Mark Scores for that benchmark, and for the HDTune PRo 3.5 benchmarks also, if you will, then compare THAT to a WEI score of 5.9 for my HD's...which doesn't make any sense at all. :wub:

I mean just my RAID 0 boot volume of 2TB is driven by an Areca 1680IX-8 Hardware RAID Bus Master, and it is populated by about 800GB of data, programs, and media of various sorts, not a bare volume by any means, and yet LOOK at those scores...and WEI says it's a 5.9!! Ludicrous! Travesty! Certainly not real! My RAID 0 4TB is realllllly fast, even faster than the 2TB boot volume it turns out, because it is generally an empty volume for writes and reads in media blitzes that I compose, with film and sound for my business and personal use both, but when I'm done I have the Areca bus master wipe the RAID to zero data on board, re-structure to what I need the next time, then off I go with another RAID 0, RAID 5/6, whatever I need it makes.

Maybe none of you have ever seen 7.9 graphics also, so check that out too...that is from twin GTX-560 Ti SuperClocked EVGA video cards running at 980/1925/2140Hz clocks 24/7, boosted by about .25V from MSI Afterburner across the board for added stability, and the like, as this system scores better than 34K 3DMarks in '06, and 29K in Vantage, in short it's very, very powerful graphics. :smile:

This is to compare what we are here discussing, laptop performance per se, just to compare for your hat so to speak, not for my bragging about what the things can output, or do, just for those of you who have never seen anything like that before to see...that is why I posted the results today, and I just ran them fyi so that is fresh, today's scores, not last week or yesterday's!

Anyway I consider WEI to be a categorical JOKE! I have no idea why or how it rates my RAID volume a 5.9 but there you go...it's 7.9 all the way by any other measure or statistical analyses, go figure! :wink:

That's all for today's post, and I am sorry if this went against anyone's predeliction about the WEI...I just consider it meaningless, that is all...when it comes to disk performance anyway this is certainly TRUE! :yes:

By the way the Areca Console is run out of my browser of choice, Chrome, and its software functions are incredibly complex, can do virtually any type of RAID construction you can think of, from RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60, et al, so I just posted that graphic for anyone curious about how/what drives such a HD assembly, that is all. It also has hardware firmware in BIOS fyi, but that is for another day, and too complex to discuss tonight.

Have a great evening!

rexrzer727

 

Thanks Skywise .

 

My better half tells me that it is WDC WD5000BEKT-80KA9T0. I bought the G73SW-XN2 from Newegg.com about more than a month ago, and it is now in Arkansas with the other half. She will bring it back to Oman on July 21st.

Awaiting desperately!

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Ah, 500gb hdd, I'm sure the noise is still normal, lately I haven't really been getting luck with quiet drives(16hdds I've bought in the past year have all been noisy, work great, no errors, or crazy screeching noises, just very easily heard while on. :\). In the end though, having an SSD has helped with my OCD for hdd noise, so I'm at least happy with that.

Oops, no clue why I said Hitachi, I meant Seagate* 750gb(think I had hitachi on my mind cause I just got done replacing a friend's old hdd with a new 1tb hitachi). But yeah, I did buy the Hitachi 2.5" 500gb, 7200rpm hdd you are talking about. It was quieter than this 750gb. But was still crazy audible, so I just ended up taking it back. I've had a dry spell with computer parts lately, so didn't feel like asking for a replacement.

Sounds about right with the XT being loud, i dunno what is sup with seagate lately, been nothing but failboating their hdds. I mean, having do release how many firmwares just to get the ssh working? I don't remember, but I don't even think it has fully solved all the problems, since I have still read post stating they updated to the latest and still getting freezing/slowdowns.

Either way, it was a good idea, and I'd like to see WD, Hitachi and other brands start doing the same so we have more options. Until then, I'm staying away from hybrids.

/rant

:>, but yeah, that's just life I suppose. Nice WIE though, and crazy, crazy crystaldisk scores. What kind of work do you do on those machines if you don't mind me asking? I feel sorry for you when you have to use a slow pc, even I hate it and I'm not used to speeds like you apparently have. xD

 

Is the power supply for a laptop the same thing as the AC adapter brick? I asked this before, and somebody told me the power supply is still inside the laptop like it is with a desktop, and that the brick is simply to convert AC to DC. OK, well if that's the case, then how come when I look up "power supply" for laptops, in any fashion, it comes up with the AC adapters?

I ask because if I want to increase the power for this laptop, thinking that the power supply isn't powerful enough for a problem I'm having, what would I buy? Is it inside the laptop?

 

Would that be the WD "Black" 500GB 7200RPM notebook HD's? Those are my absolute faves when it comes to notebook HD's, and besides, those suckers have a 5-year Enterprise warranty to boot. That is the drive I installed in my wife's MBPro, got it for something like $75 shipped, just a killah deal on such a fantastic little notebook HD. :yes:

I also have an external 2.5" SATA to eSATA/USB 3.0 enclosure for backup on one of my PC's with an SSD inside it...it doesn't need a lot of capacity for backup unlike PC No.1 with the multiple RAIDs by Areca 1680IX-8! So I opted for the WD Black 7200RPM 2.5" notebook HD in that great enclosure and it backs up the SSD faster than sin on the Bible, really quick backups via eSATA or USB 3.0!

I didn't know that Asus was stocking its OEM assemblies with Hitachi though, to wit, so that's why I queried the statement...WDC maybe, and Seagate for sure, those two are always competing for the OEM "drive of the year" award it seems, Hah Hah! Seagate drives just plain scare the living crapola out of me for security however, and I hardly trust one for anything important, thus my backup for the G73SW-3DE is another WD Black notebook HD, so I worry not much about my incremental backups which I do with religion every night before I knock on the sandman's door.

As for waiting for Godot and your computer back, I don't envy such a task as that! Good luck in getting it back in one piece, in good stead, with all the programs and the works intact. Seeing how I don't trust my wife with ANY of my computers, I envy your confidence in your own situation, Hah! Good show there...I prefer to give my wife something nice, but not toooo nice, like her MBPro 13.3" notebook (vintage late 2009) for example. It's just good enough that it can survive her every effort to screw it up, with a dose of Cocktail Utility, and SuperDuper for backups of specifics when necessary, plus I've got it permanently FireWire 800-hooked up to a Western Digital My Book Pro 1TB external HD system for Time Machine to write to 24/7, thus I never really worry about her notebook in the least!

But would I span for a new Asus G73 or G53 for her? Not on your life! There's just too much that can go wrong with these things if you aren't careful, and I aint' going to be responsible for fixing such a machine if she were to mess with it and mess it up a bunch...better a nice, conservative MBPro with alloy chassis and simple innards that I can send off to Apple anytime things get bad enough, if that were to ever happen that is...so far so good with that notebook and my wife though...I pray for it nightly!

Interesting that you are the only one who picked up on my Crystal Disk Mark and HD Tune Pro 3.50 speeds so far, but yeah, you're 100% right on the $$ about such a machine as I built there! It is the fastest HD system I've ever heard of in a consumer's hands, bar none, and I mean both of the RAID systems administered by Areca Console are capable of live video capture with HD sound to boot, to the tune of 29.97FPS speeds all the way to the end of capacity, which with the 4TB RAID 0 configuration is a substantial amount of footage. :GEEK:

I write commercials for several nationally-known brands of this and that, right here in my studio, live feeds to tape and computer both, double playback covereage as it is, say from 30 seconds up to several minutes at a clip, so I need speed and redundancy both, and I have it with that system... I figured out would do the trick back in 2009 no less! That computer is going on 3 years old, albeit "refreshed" with the Core i7 970 6/12-Core CPU running at 4.35Ghz standard speed, and for heavy duty crunches I cam ramp it up to just about 4.48Ghz speed and truly master some nice video and sound! :rolleyes2:

The Areca 1680IX-8 Hardware Bus Master (RAID) is NOT your typical "consumer's RAID driver" by any means, and it's got a ticket to match too as it runs, with cables and the FirmTek SeriTek 2eEN4 4-Bay Hot Swap eSATA external enclosure on board, right about $3Grand with Hitachi E7K1000 7200RPM Enterprise HD's in the house. :yes:

Most "home brew" Areca controllers are typically 1-4 channel, and can control up to 10-15 HD's, while the 1680IX-8 is 8-channel, 4 x 2 inboard channels and the HDTICH SAS to eSATA external module to give one a real grunt in the punt for the Firmtek box, for a grand total of 12SAS to SATA/eSATA channels on board, plus with repeaters it can actually control up to 127 SAS or SATA devices at a clip! So basically it's an Enterprise unit that I scored from the principals at Areca USA up in Fremont, CA (of all places!) for a song, on a promo that I had going with the company after doing a job for Areca TW, CN that year. :smile:

It's the most powerful RAID bus master of its type for SAS to eSATA/SATA uses, has an Intel 1200Mhz CPU, battery backup, temperature controlled most features, 8GB of DDR2 RAM in its module (maxxed out...OEM they come with a 512MB single module, which I upgraded tot the limit)...the bare bus master without cables retails for a little more than $1100 fyi (!), so it's not your typical consumer RAID bus master by any means...typically you'd see one of these things in a Cisco or IBM or Apple blade server in an industrial environment controlling perhaps 40-75 HD's, which is a cake walk for the device, it turns out! :wink:

So when you see Crystal Disk Mark and HD Tune Pro speeds like it can produce, it bodes for much, much more performance than most people will ever need, much less use, or dream about I guess, but I have found there's no substitute for RAW POWER like it has, and I assure you I never, EVAR have dropped frames or messed up HD sound, shooting live like we do here, and it's all because of that controller being matched to a 24GB RAM OEM EVGA Classified E760-A1 with the 970 CPU, and some very, very fast HD's in the mix. It's quite a treat to work with honestly it is!!

Even the fastest SSD is much, much slower than my desktop PC No.1, but I don't let that frustrate me because I realize that most people will never have such a thing to use in their lifetime anyway, this one for sure, and that I went for 100% overkill when I built the machine to be fast then, and upgradeable for future uses, which it is by leaps and bounds. I don't expect performance like that out of even an SATA 3 SSD with a good controller like we have in the Intel setup for Sandy Bridge Cougar Point laptops, it's just not possible and I don't let it bother me really, not in the least.

I do love that PC No.1's speed quota though, and love working on it even if it's late and I'm tired, because having that sort of a deal in hand energizes your work, you know that? So that's the story of my PC No.1's speedy setup, and I know I'll probably never build another one like it, not in the near future anyway, no plans for such a thing at all....one is ENUF! :yes:

If anyone has any questions about that rig fire away, I'll do my best to answer it, but yes, that is what I do with it...live uncompressed video and HD sound mostly, and it ROCKS!

rexrzer727

 

Could you describe the problem? Whether you need to replace the power conversion circuitry in the laptop or the external power brick kind of depends on that.

 

So I FINALLY got my G73SW after like 3 weeks of waiting. Installed all the drivers and I'm good to go! Great laptop, love the feel of it and the fans are awesome.

I noticed that there's a slight static sound when I have the volume at full for some reason. I tried reinstalling the driver with no luck =(

Anybody else encounter this problem before? Any suggestions on what I should do to fix it?

Also, I can't really tell if the subwoofer is working or not. I've tried putting my hand there to see if there are any vibrations but it's pretty much close to none. Where can I change the settings? I've tried the equalizer but it just sounds horrible when I set it to "Bass"

 

Look in the "THX TruStudio" Settings, it seems to route more bass to the "subwoofer" than the speakers. But otherwise the subwoofer is really just a regular speaker lol.

 

Hello again every one! I just want to say, I am typing this from my G73SW-XR1 I love it!
This machine is amazing. Also, I want to thank those of you who answered my questions. You were a huge help.

 

AC adapter = power supply. Nothing needs or can be changed inside laptops regarding power.

But why would you want to do that? The SW doesn't max out the stock one. You won't see any benefits.