Official Asus G72GX Owners Lounge

@win132001

Here is a screenshot with my temps after the repaste, copper mod and NZXT Cryo cooler. I like the Cryo personally because not only does it have the big fans with variable speed and the ability to run off external power or usb, but it also has a 4 port usb hub, which I use, almost like my docking station. The temps have been lower than the screenshot shown, but the one I linked to were my average temps.

HTH

 

Thanks for linking that! I definitely like that GPU temp. Heck right now i get about 11700 on 3D Mark 06 with load at 82C on the GPU o/c to manufacture clocks. Wonder what I'll get with the ramsinks and cooler on load. As for the cooler, I hardly use my USB's. I'm only using one right now, two if I use my N52 speedpad, and that's pretty much it. How well placed are the fans in relation to the hot spots?

 

What could cause games to lag only when you turn the volume up all the way? please throw me a bone here...i have tried reinsalling all my drivers to no avail.

 

Fan placement is alright, but your choice might be better suited. The fan intake sits a little further back on the underside and so fan placement higher or a larger open area what air is pushed, might work better. I just slid my laptop down an inch or two and that helped me.

Off the top of my head, the only thing that comes to mind would be the audio driver and its ability to keep Resource/CPU Usage from being pegged at max levels. You might want to run resource monitor to see what CPU and Memory usage look like at those volume levels.

 

I think there was something on the G73 thread that pointed to the wifi card lagging. Don't know if that applies here.

Cheers,

 

I assume that you aren't running just from the battery. To piggy back panzer's post try disabling the wifi in device manager and try that out. If it is the wifi you will probably have to look for new drivers for it. What do you have hooked up to your USB ports? Also, have you tried the latest 2.56 drivers from Realtek? If not uninstall your current drivers, then run driver sweep in safe mode. I would also uninstall anything Creative wise if you have it installed, just incase.

Have you run DPC Latency checker on it? If not, I would suggest you get it and run it. This will tell you for sure if there is something wrong. Before you run it make sure you don't have any monitoring tools open, like hardware monitor.

 

Renegade, did you completely remove the GPU and paste the underside of it as well, or is this simply repasting the chips under the heatsink on the top of the card?

Please advise as I am still having issues with heat and running mid 80's with the bottom cover off on the Cryo cooler, copper blocks installed with the tape. I'm concerned I am considerably shortening the life of this machine if I continue. Thanks for your input.

 

It was a complete repaste of CPU/GPU.

 

I am trying to run DBAN on my dual core BB model G72 and it keeps sticking at a certain point. Google tells me the multi card reader is causing this and that I need to turn it off in the BIOS. I have dug around everywhere in the BIOS and cannot find any place to turn the card reader off. Does anyone here have any experience with this?
Thanks

 

Disable the SD Card Controller in Device manager

 

I tried that, same result. Then I tried disabling all of the USBs in the device manager with it, same result. The operation just hangs on "PCI (sysfs)". I guess short of unplugging the card reader from the motherboard (if I can) there is no other way to do this?

 

Well the only other thing I can think of, besides unplugging it, would be to disable the PCI bridge in system devices. Don't know what all will stop working, but I hope you don't have anything important on there before you do that. I'm not telling you to do it though, it's all you from this point. If your keyboard and mouse stop working though, I guess your kinda screwed. Unless you have another computer on a network to remote from then you shouldn't have an issue. This seems like it's all going to be trial and error now.

 

Thanks for the input, I've been modeling my machine after the list of goodies in your sig.. so I'm jealous of the temps haha.

One last question about that, as far as removing the card goes and the previous temps, were they in the 90's? Do you recall? Did removal of the GPU involve disassembly of the case, or can it be removed safely in one piece without the bottom coming off?

Thanks so much for any input you have

 

The temps definitely hit the 90's. In fact, a couple of times they were over 100. Removing the GPU does not require the case to be dismantled, only the bottom cover. You do not need to remove the GPU, just the heatsink, lather on a generous helping of thermal compound, ensuring that when you reseat, the heatsink and GPU chip have good contact. You will know if they don't, as temps will be ridiculously high. Same applies for CPU (not sure if you are attempting CPU too).

Did you try contacting ASUS customer support to ask them if they have encountered similar issues, or if there is a workaround? It's worth a shot.


Update: I had a thought. What if you just bought an external dock like this one and ran DBAN on it on another machine to clear the HDD? All you would need to do is take the drive out.

 

He doesn't even need a dock if he's got an extra sata cable lying around and can keep the hard drive stable next to an open desktop. Just for money and time saving purposes.

See that I haven't done that, only because I'm not sure how much of a gap between the chips and the heatsink are. I thought about cutting up some copper shims from my sheet of copper and sandwiching in between the compound, but only if there is a somewhat decent pressure between the chip and heatsink. I only assume there's a gap because of the crap pads they have on there. Did you do the same thing to the other chips on the bottom side with the GPU?

 

Yeah thin copper shims will do the trick, with thermal on either side.

 

I am going to attempt this sometime soon, I'm concerned about the conductivity of the AS5 I have so I'm wondering if I should use the diamond compound instead.

Renegade when you mention the GPU chip, are you referring to the chip on the underside, the main processing chip, or are you talking about the aluminum sink on the back side or "top" where there are several small chips? I would like to attempt the main GPU chip pasting, and you say that doesn't require removal? Want to do mine? haha

really appreciate it thanks again

are you saying there is poor contact with the main gpu chip with the underside heat sink? or on the top? I understand there are tabs that may need to be filed down on the top heatsink

 

Okay, so I took her apart again. Pried the card off and this time I took every chip and transistor that had a thermal pad on it, replaced them with a copper shim, the top and bottom of the card. Of course I thoroughly cleaned the chips, transistors, heatsinks and my shims, greased both sides of the shims and slapped it back together. I originally only did the GPU with the copper shim. This time I left the GPU without one and just greased it. So there is plenty of contact with the heatsink and GPU, just not the rest of the chips and transistors. My idle temp dropped on both the CPU and GPU at stock Asus clock. Originally the CPU was 34C, now it's at 33C and originally the GPU was at 58C, now it's at 55C and ambient temp at 77F. Running 3D Mark 06 my CPU is at 69C and GPU is at 78C with ambient temp at 77F, while the GPU is overclocked to the Nvidia's stock clocks which is higher than Asus' stock clock, and the CPU 15% overclocked. Originally the GPU ran at 81C in ambient of 75F but unfortunately, I forgot what the CPU use to run at. Love these numbers even more, haha!

Two more weeks now and I'll hopefully get my copper heatsinks. It sucks that the only place that sells them on Ebay are from Hong Kong. AGH!

Remember Arctic Silver 5 is thermally conductive and electrically capacitive. Still advised to keep away from traces and contacts. You're better off using the Diamond stuff. I myself used Arctic Silver Ceramique.

Edit: Oh and I did sand down the screw guides for the aluminum heatsink, the side that rests on the board, just to the point that you don't see the lip of the guide anymore. About a millimeter is all. Just thought of this now! Warning: Do not take of the black plastic sticker, or you will run the risk of short circuiting the big resistors in the middle of the board!

 

OK I bought my best buy G72GX-RBB05 from the dealtree best buy clearance site. It was only $400 with no battery. The image disks got everything up and running great with no issues save one. The Bluetooth will not work. I have tried enabling and disabling in the BIOS and that has not worked. I have tried using the driver from a third party website and the driver will hang just like the one from ASUS. If I go into the folder for win7 64bit I can get the DTINST application to show the broadcom device installed but the software hangs with the bluetooth logo during install but does flash briefly as if it was waiting for administrative priveledges to continue. I have right clicked on the executable and "run as administrator" and get the same affect.

I bought this for my wife as I got her hooked on playing LOTRO with me and she can play on ultra high settings but she hates the flip down doors and spent $50 on a bluetooth wireless mouse. My Gateway 6851FX works fine with bluetooth but this machine doesn't seem to want to install it. I don't understand how I can enable or disable in the bios but can't get the driver to go in.

Any ideas???

 

No Bluetooth on BestBuy versions.

Cheers,

 

Glad your modifications were a success! Excellent temps, which should get better with the added surface area of the ramsinks.

+Rep for the detailed guide.

 

As Panzer said, No Bluetooth on BB versions.

You could purchase a micro BT usb dongle...The wings will probably close if it is flat enough.

e.g. one of these

 

I managed to send my laptop back to get repaired and it came back in a week! Really fast this time around. The new fan works great! No noise so far.

 

I have been getting some serious FPS drops on both Borderlands and Lara Croft and the GoL.

I am guessing it's the 260.99 drivers I installed a couple of weeks ago, as these games used to run without a problem.

About to try the 266.58 and see what happens

 

Good Deal!

 

After a quick play, I got no FPS drop. I will have to play for longer tomorrow or Sunday to be sure.

Anyone else got problems like this one?

 

Eh, not really. I'm only noticing stuttering on The Sims 3, expansions and stuff packs up to Fast Lane Stuff on the latest patch, but I think that's just because of bad coding by the developers. Also noticed LOTRO lagging, but I think that has to do with the fact that I installed over my modified Atheros drivers. Not sure yet though because I did a fresh install only because things just didn't feel right for some reason. Either way though, I have an Intel 5100 wifi card coming my way, only because the price is right for me at the moment. Hopefully though this one is not a pull from a Lenovo, like the first one I got and sent back, HP or IBM.

So I finally got my copper heatsinks that surprisingly only took less than two weeks from Hong Kong. Anyways, there was no temp change, BUT I did notice that with my crappy laptop cooler, that didn't cool for crap before I had the copper heatsinks on, dropped my GPU temp to 51C and my CPU to 31C in 77F ambient (haven't done any load tests though, busy with LBP2). Now that is definitely a plus with those heatsinks and really makes me more inclined to get the Notepal U3 laptop cooler! I'm expecting maybe 48C GPU and 28C CPU with that cooler. We'll see.

 

I don't get stuttering on any games. I get a massive FPS drop every now and then in Borderlands and Lara croft GoL. I have not played many more games to know about others.

It runs fine most of the time and it gives sudden drops. Both games worked perfectly only weeks before.

PS: New drivers didn't fix it.

 

Have you checked your temps at the time of the drops in FPS? The system will down-clock everything once it gets to 99-100C. I had to have my G72 re-pasted and the fans dismantled and cleaned to fix my G72.

Cheers,

 

No I haven't. How do I check?

 

I use GPU-Z

techPowerUp! :: Downloads

I leave it up and running on the sensors tab. I then run the game. When it start to drag I alt-tab or alt-esc back to see what the temps have climbed to.

Cheers,

 

It's hitting 100

I guess it needs cleaning, as I got my cooler at max speed. I don't know anyone that I can trust to clean it, though, and I don't know how to do it myself.

Is there a guide? Or should I should find a technician or w/e?

 

I took mine to an Authorized ASUS service center in GA because it was still under warranty. If yours is not a refurb and did not come from BestBuy it should have the 2 year warranty. If it's from BestBuy and within 12 months they will fix it but BestBuy is sort of hit and miss as to having people who know what they're doing.

If it's out of warranty some of the more hands on folks on this forum can probably help you. Once I got mine fixed I gave it to my son so I don't have it to look at but I thought it was easier to work on GPU than my G73.

You can search the forum for a take apart guide, maybe look at ren3g7ade's posts here and/or also hop over to the ASUS gamers thread and look for Chastity. She has done a ton of disassembles and might know where you can start. Or post a msg over there. That board is a lot more active.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/

Best of luck to you. I know how annoying it is to be unable to use your system for anything other than basic Internet.

Cheers,

 

I know I would gladly help out if I could as desktop computers and networking is a hobby of mine and laptops have recently taken a part of that hobby as of two years ago. Getting it apart and cleaned with some fresh compound will definitely put the laptop back to normal temps. Good luck and I hope you get it done fast. This laptop is for sure a keeper!

EDIT: If you are hitting those temps it would be a good idea to just take the thing completely apart and do the north bridge as well since the north bridge's pipe runs to the same heatsink as the graphics. While you're at that point it would just make more sense to do the CPU as well.

 

Unfortunately, right now the only tool I got is a small screw driver that I use for when my glasses get loose. I am only trying to clean the fan until I get what I need to really lower the temps. While doing this, I found this thing:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/ibstrd/23012011327.jpg

The white wire came off and I don't know what it even is

I might have to take a course or something. This is the first time I open it.

The reason why I can't send it to ASUS or BB is that I do not live in the US. I got this one sent by a friend. The computer tech guys around here are so incredibly unreliable and I have had some really bad experiences with them before, so I would rather do this myself (with some help from you ) this time.

ED: I am getting 70C idle temps on the GPU

 

That wire is one of the antennas for your wifi card. If just snaps back on.
Idle temps should be in the 50s.

Cleaning the fan alone will probably not get it done but you can try. I'm sure someone here has done it and can help you through it.

Cheers,

 

I do fear it won't be enough, but I don't have any of that paste stuff. I will look for some tomorrow and since I got nothing else to do today, I figured I could dust it off.

Thanks panzer06, the cable thing it's in place again.

ed: By taking the whole thing apart, you mean the whole card or the whole laptop? win132001

 

I would suggest doing the north bridge and that would require you to disassemble the entire laptop. I can help you out with it if needed. Do you have a PS3 with an eye by any chance or another computer with a web cam?

 

I can borrow my mom's laptop, yeah. I don't have any alcohol right now and I will need a better screwdriver. I should be able to get those things today, but no thermal paste until tomorrow, at least.

 

K, just let me know when you're ready.

 

About the Artic Silver paste, can it be just that or do I also need the cleaner?

 

You can get the cleaner kit if you want, but the alcohol should do just fine. For the paste, since this is your first time pasting I assume, I would get the ceramique, not the silver based.

 

I found ARCTIC ALUMINA 1.7g and ARCTIC SILVER 5 3.5g but none of these say ceramic.

I just remembered a friend is going to L.A. tomorrow, so I can ask him to get me the IC Diamond 7. It is the best, right?

ED: Is it a problem if I leave the bottom cover off? I wanted to see how the fan was working and left it like that for a few minutes and my idle dropped from 70 to 53. I don't expect to keep it this way forever, but just enough until I can clean it all and change the paste.

 

No problem leaving that off until you find a more permanent solution. Just don't get anything inside and you're fine.

Cheers,

 

Ya, the IC diamond should be just fine.

 

Quick question, has anyone had any issues with the screen loosening up? I'm currently trying to retighten it, but I'm having difficulties finding out just how to, even after removing the screen. If anyone could help, I'd be very grateful!

 

IC Diamond is a good choice due to its high thermal conductivity and lack of electrical conductivity. Leaving the cover is not a huge deal and is fine. I did the same thing before I modded mine, to keep temps down.

@win132001 - on a somewhat related note to the above discussion, did you use sekisui thermal tape to attach the copper, or did you use the crap adhesive compound that came with the ramsinks? I forgot to ask you that earlier. I swapped out the crap black thermal gunk for sekisui thermal tape.

 

I'm just using the black gunk just for now. Is there indeed a difference between the two that you noticed yourself, or did you just square away with the sekisui tape as soon as you unpackaged them?

 

The guys I talked to in the forum recommended getting rid of that gunk immediately. Sekisui has much better thermal conductance and its thinner and much less messy. I would highly recommend switching to it instead of the stuff on there.

 

I just ordered some so I'll see how it goes if I'm not lazy to do it. I also ordered the Notepal U3 as well, so I'll let you know how well it does.