Official Asus G73JH Owners Lounge

I may be wrong, but I though DX versions were backwards compatible. Is it not working with the stock version?

 

They coexist. Directx9 is also required for 3dmark06 for whoever wants to run it.

 

The game runs fine but the Morrowind Graphic Editor program requires Directx 9.0c

Edit: Thx Mandrake

 

For any of you G73 Owners who purchased your G73 through XoticPC, it looks like if you upgraded to the BD Rewriter, you'll be gettin the Hitachi/LG GBW-B10N. I just received mine.

Of interest, I did a little research online, and it looks like this drive is only $220 new, shipped out of Texas. That seems to be on par with the Sony that Aramis purchased. I paid $359, so I may need to ship this back to Xotic. That's too big of an upcharge me thinks.

 

Akira was mind-blowing on my setup. As was Baraka (a documentary if you've never heard of it). It wasn't placebo. I will agree with the rest of what you're saying- I've seen people over at br.com talking up lossless audio on their RCA HTiB.

My battery is very slow to charge also. Thought I read somewhere that quick charges can be bad though and give it "battery memory" where it thinks the full charge actually isn't full capacity.

 

Thanks for that! Did they just screw the A2's DVD/CD faceplate on it...and it fits perfectly?

 

I saw this asked but never saw a response......
Does this unit have a working SPDIF out? If so, how many channels does it support and does it work at the same time if audio is being passed over the HDMI out?

Also, is this model safe to run with the lid closed as far heat is concerned? My reason for this is I am considering purchasing a 2nd unit to replace my HTPC. In that application, I never have a need to open it as I would be using a wireless keyboard+mouse with video to my plasma. The unit would most likely be running 24x7 but in a very well ventilated area.

 

Would it be possible to just leave it 25% open with your setup? This would be the safest bet, as it is advised to not use ANY laptop with its lid closed.

 

An order placed on the A1! Here's for hoping everything works out with shipping etc to Sweden.

 

Oh crap, sorry for the confusion but......I just bought the BR burner from XoticPC. I bought my A2 from ExcaliberPC. So I'll have to switch the faceplate myself. I had a problem with my G73, so another has been shipped to me. I will let you know how the switch goes. However, Aramis bought a Sony BR Rewritable drive on Amazon, and the swap was easy, painless, and she sits perfectly flush. You can't even tell there was a swap unless you pop open the tray and look at the actual innards.

 

This is why I said we need a G73 TIPS AND TRICKS thread.

 

I created a list of necessities this past weekend. It got buried in one of the threads.

 

I could leave the lid open slightly but would prefer not to unless absolutely necessary. Did we ever get a definate answer to where the intake air is on this thing? Anyone comment on the SPDIF out? I was under the impression the headphone jack doubled as this........

 

I tested with some tissue paper, and was not able to get a strong enough vacuum from top or bottom to know where the air comes in exactly.

I guess the only way to know is take apart the system. Those that have stated that they cant see how it pulls air from the top, but I did seem to feel slight vacuum from the keyboard area... maybe just my imagination?

 

I am beginning to think that the air is coming in from under the LCD (where the blue light is) somewhere. Def not the keyboard for sure. There are no cutouts what-so-ever there.

It does feel cooler over the "blue light" area and I did feel a faint vacuum. Also, it is the only place the fans have access to air - underneath them there is no cutouts in the chassis.

 

That would be the only way I can see it would work, but I haven't seen any 1/8" to S/PDIF adapter with my X1.

I'm wondering where all the S/PDIF talk came from for the G73. I remember a quick conversation about it a while back, but it was speculation/hopes I thought. Where does Asus say the G73 was ever going to have S/PDIF out?

Q

 

Look closer. There's a hidden pack of dry ice in there.

 

can someone post the cpuid info on this laptop? i need all motherboard information etc! as well as boot up info stating AMIbios version/revision etc. I have some very skilled friends that may help out for a cost. ill take a hit on the fees and pay outta my pocket... if it ends up being an overclocker like my MSI lappies, ima bite the bullet on this big guy

 

nevermind guys, sorry to get hopes up! lol... for now the overclocking is null.

 

It appears that any standard slim SATA optical drive will fit in the G73. I also have the one aramis bought (Sony). The G73 faceplate is a monster compared to the stock faceplates on these drives, it will clip in to the drive in 3 places. Be smart about removing the faceplates when it comes to the clips.

1) Take the memory cover on the bottom off (2 screws)
2) Remove the single screw that holds the drive in the G73.
3) Slide it out the side.
4) Use a small flathead screwdriver to push the tabs out on the stock and G73 faceplates through the slots of the drives.
5) Carefully snap the G73 faceplate into the new drive.
6) Slide new drive into G73 and fasten the single screw.
7) Fasten memory cover.
8) Spend the money you saved on your wife since she let you buy the G73 in the first place and bask in the glory that if your BR drive were to fail, you can pop your DVD back in so you won't be without optical while it's fixed.

The Sony has the latest firmware and with some blu-ray player software, you'll be watching a movie within a minute of installing the drive.

Q

EDIT: I didn't add this part because it will be obvious, but just in case, you will need to move the rear mounting bracket from the old drive to the new drive before you can secure it back into the G73.

 

Really, you're not just yanking me?

Is there enough to keep my beer cold?

Q

 

Here's my stupid 4G bug update. Long and frustrating day for me, and long story too. Instead of waiting on Asus, I took my G73 to a local shop that is on Asus's approved repair stores. Lucky for me, hehe there's one of them where I live in Milwaukee, WI.

I spoke to him and explain that the G73 is only seeing 4G and not 8G and after a while he concludes it's either the bios, the motherboard or the rams. He said other then that, there's nothing else he can do since he's not looking at it.

I tried reflashing the bios, it won't work as it's the latest. I tried to burn the bios onto a CD, won't work, and won't work on a USB stick ither. So I took it in to have him look at it.

He opens it up and does the same things I did. checking bios and the rams, he rules out the rams are defected. He thinks it could be a bios, but since I couldn't update or downgrade it, it's hard to say at that point. Only thing left he could think of since it seems anytime the ram goes on the top slot, it reverts to 4G. If the top slot is left open with no rams on it, the G73 sees 6G.

He said if he had to fix it, he would have to replace the motherboard. I asked him why Asus was so insisted on having only them deal with the alptop and not let him fix it. He called a friend and was told that within the first 30 days, it's easier to let Asus handle it. That is why they keep insisting on me lettign them handle it instead of anyone else. If they can't fix it they will just ship me a new G73, and it's cheaper then rma-ing it back to newegg. He suggest that if i wanted to wait to try to reformat with just the 6G and see if that helps, since sometimes if the bios is screwy, Windows won't know how many gigs of ram it has. So he left 6G in the laptop, and put the other one in a static bag and I go home.

I get home and start the laptop and go into bios to change the boot up, and wham, it only see 4G!!!! I then decided it's not worth the effort to reformat since the G73 is screwed up. I put in the other stick and proceed to boot up. I forgot that I changed the boot up option so i go into bios. What a shocker.... I see 8G of ram in bios!!!!! I save and reboot and go back into bios to see if it's still there. Nope, it went back to 4G.

I called Asus back and spoke to a tech and after a few tries, he gave me 2 options, they could send me some rams and I can install it, or rma it. I told him, all the rams work, and are not defected, the new rams won't make a difference. As he puts me on hold to get my rma started, my stupid cell phone loses it's signal, arghhhhhhhh. I just wasted 20 minutes....

I called back and spoke to a lady who's english isn't fluid and it was a bit frustrating. After this and that and being on hold she suggested that maybe I didn't have the right G73 with the 8G. She suggested I call newegg and check with them to make sure I had the right model with the 8G.

I told her, that's impossible since I am looking at 3 2G rams and the other one is under the motherboard. That is a total of 8G not 4G. I also told her that newegg sold me the X1 with the 8G and the other model she's thinking of is only in Europe the X3 or whatever.

Finally after 20 minutes and losing my signal and calling back and another 30 minutes I finally get my rma. I will rma my G73 X1 tomorrow and Asus better have some stocks.

I'm assuming I have to put everything back and send the whole package. Since newegg didn't bother to double box the G73 do I have to double box it when I rma it? They will only pay for shipping and nothing else. Asus says if it arrives damaged they won't take it.

 

does this motherboard support triple channel mode?

 

Why didn't you just RMA in the first place? I had the EXACT same problem as you. I checked BIOS, checked RAM, did a couple OS reformats. Nothing helped. Talked to ASUS for about 20 minutes and got nowhere. The only smart thing they said was to RMA the laptop. While I commend your tenacity in trying to fix a problem, I think you would have saved yourself some headache by just RMAing in the first place. Water under the bridge now.

By the way, Newegg has tons of X1's now. Shouldn't worry about that. But what we should worry about is this problem happening again.

 

The mobile i7 won't, so I don't think we need to go farther.

FTA: Another major difference between the Core i7 Mobile and the Core i7 900-series, is that unlike the Core i7 900-series support for triple-channel DDR3 memory, the Core i7 Mobile instead supports just dual-channel DDR3.

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Intel-Core-i7-Mobile-Processor-Launch-Review/?page=2

 

i just got the X1 and am trying to wipe the computer clean and reinstall windows7. is there a way to burn a copy of windows because the system doesnt come with the full win7 disk, only that recovery disk.

 

YOU ARE GENIUS! How did we not think of that? Ok all, take a piece of paper. Slide it under the lid on either the right or left. You'll notice it goes all the way back into the case. If you try to do the same in the middle, doesn't go as far. I thinks sleepy0 got it right. It's small slit to probably prevent dust getting in there. It goes ALL they back into the back case. Genius from Asus by keep that large hump there, must be why the noise is minimal. If you had air sucking in as we thought, would be more noisy. Genius for sleepy0 for figuring it out.

sleepy0 Asus maybe should recruit you for their design team?

That said, DO NOT CLOSE THE LID OF THE LAPTOP. IT WILL MOST DEFINITELY BLOCK THE AIR INTAKE!!!!

 

Anyone have a cheap fog machine?

Cheers,
Kermee

 

No need. There are two giant holes behind the lid of the screen.

 

Just had to crow...G73JH JUST arrived (14 Jan pre-order)-- thanks PNB, Donald and Tim. Haven't even opened it yet, but hoping for sweetness and not a lemon

 

GenTech lists it in their specs...

 

Yeah the problems seem to be from NewEgg and X1 I've noticed, wonder if anyone else has noticed this? The people who have the ram, keyboard and even the screen problems are X1 owners from NewEgg.

One dude with the screen had A2 but also O/C his GPU a lot. Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

If it's from Ken I think you can be confident, he probably doesn't want to send you a dud.

 

The first A1 here? Could you tell us if the RAM is 1333mHz ?
Thanks

 

UPDATE: RMA G73JH A2

Well another frustrating day with ASUS Customer Service. They can not confirm any arrival date of inventory to send me a new unit. So, I am still on the decision process to see if I should just have my unit fixed.

However, they are not even sure themselves if they have the parts to fix it and may have to wait for the parts from Taiwan.

Looks like, either way, I am going to be waiting till the March 4th date. If this is the case... I should have just kept my pre-order for the A1

Right now, I am waiting for an e-mail or phone call form a ASUS Tech / Supervisor to see what the best / quickest solution is going to be for me.

Plan on calling ExCaliberPC tomorrow to see if they have any input or ideas for me.



Wish Me Luck.... This is REALLY starting to SUCK !!!


```` 0100 1010 0101 0011 `````

I noticed in your #1510 post you said that ASUS was shipping you a new one. Does this mean you have a shipping date or are you still waiting for your RMA?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5900626#post5900626

You may not be using an SSD, but some of this applies.

 

Ahh yes, hell, I think I was the one who started it

 

The recovery disc is a full version of Win7. Nothing else is on it as far as I can tell.

 

I'm sorry you're frustrated, and thank you for writting this. Because of this, I decided not to rma my G73 back to Asus and called newegg instead. Asus said it could be 3 weeks or more before I can get my laptop back.

So I called newegg and to my HUGE, I mean HUGE surprise, newegg offers to cross ship me a new X1, most likely tomorrow, with free overnight shipping!!! I'll just use this X1 til new one returns and then I'll rma it back to newegg this weekend. I'm gonna be sure I get my new X1 before I rma it. Oh yeah even the rma back to them which I normally pay for, was prepaid!!

I can't believe this, and this is after I just blasted newegg on the X1 review for their poor packaging, giving the X1 a 1 star rating. Well I guess I'll see later tonight or tomorrow if this is true of I'm just dreaming about this.

 

OMG, that is not fair. I'm going to contact NE tomorrow and ask them to cross ship as well. I can't stand not having my laptop.

 

Received my G73JH-A2 this evening. Ordered from Ken at GenTechPC and couldn't be happier with the service. Took 5 days from CA to CO ground transport using free shipping. All I can say is what an incredible machine. Mine also came with 1333mhz ram and so far is working flawlessly. I am in the process of removing bloatware. There's been enough said about this computer so I'll just say that all the good things that have been said are true. I like the keyboard... you do have to press down harder than I'm used to on the touchpad left/right click. If I run into any probs, I'll add them.

 

The thing is, I didn't ask for anything. All I did was tell him what was wrong and he thought I was talking about my HD and I corrected him that it's the ram not the HD. After that, I asked him what will happen after I rma it back and they run out of the X1. I asked if I will be forced to wait because Asus is forcing me to wait and that's why I didn't rma it back to them. I told him Asus couldn't tell me anything except that it'll take two or more weeks to fix/replace it.

I think he knows Asus is delaying all shipments of the G73 and that's why he offered it. That and the fact that I never asked for cross shipping or anything else. I just ask to get a rma started. The key thing is, I never asked for anything except for a rma number.

Who knows maybe tomorrow, his supervisor will find out or someone will complain from here about it and my cross shipping will be gone...... I will cry if that happens..... With my luck it might..

 

No, pre-ordered A1 with BD, so when my number "in line" came up, PNB converted an A2 by adding a BD-reader/multi combo. Just now unpacking (with the dog and wife helping), so don't know yet re: 1333 v. 1066. More later, if they let me get back online...

 

Dig the avatar DaddyD. They are one of my favorite bands of all time, no exaggeration.

 

Uhm, yeah well, see, the thing is.......ASUS HQ has absolutely NO stock in any of the G73JH flavors onhand to send to any customers. Ifrared and I already have our units approved for replacement. You'll be waiting with us if you try to ship it back to ASUS. You may want to try and get one from NewEgg man.

Nope, I have been given the same run around as you. I have really made life hell for them this last 2 days. Those crazies over there kept trying to tell me that there are no direct lines from CS to the repair center. I was like, "so, all the repair techs get to run around unsupervised and work on whatever they want? Oh, I see, so there are supervisors there. Yes ma'am, I understand that you don't personally have a phone number to the shift supervisor there. Does your boss? Does his boss? How about the VP? Patch me through to whoever has some contact numbers over there."

A whole big runaround really. The worst part is that no one is updating the RMA status online. You know, at livesupport.asus.com? Put your RMA, phone number, or serial# in there and it should spit out the current status. Absolutely NO status for me, and they received it Tuesday at 9:36am. Plus, the email they sent me guaranteed same-day turnaround if lappy was received by 3pm local time. I definitely made that cut Tuesday. Now it's going on Thursday with no information other than my replacement has been authorized. Somebody there definitly knows when they are expecting some G73's in. They may not tell the resellers how many are being allocated to them for each shipment, but THEY know what's inbound. Hell, they are the ones completing the damn export/import docs. Everything MUST be itemized on the customs docs. I'll get to the bottom of it, rest assured!

 

I found an e-mail address to the person that ExCaliber used to get the D.O.A. Status. SO I e-mailed thet person this evening. We'll see if I get a responce. It was a nice find... to actually have a e-mail to an ASUS representative. It is fustrating to get the run around wth no information to status.

Oh well.... We're in it together..... keep me informed.

 

Woot! I have ordered ( !pre-) the G73JH-TZ008X from a shop in Sydney. Got tired of waiting for this mystical A1 model...did that ever come out btw? I've missed the last 30 pages of this thread. So now I have to wait until Wed next week for it to arrive. People over here seem to think that we're getting hundreds of them into the country. I guess at $2550AUD (USD$2300) a pop, ASUS are making a LOT more on each unit in Australia so are prioritizing us until they get enough BR to support the big countries... Now there's a totally unfounded assumption...

 

AHHHHHH Crysis on ALL high right now

I love my laptop

 

To those having trouble, I feel your pain. And I did NOT have relations with that woman, Ms. Lew....

But seriously, drag.

On the other hand I just got my A2 today, and DARN if it's not the nicest laptop I've ever owned (probably well over 30)!! Everybody crowing about how beautiful the screen is still didn't prepare me for the reality. I have a G51J, and this thing makes it look like baby food and this is Ruth's Cris. I mean seriously; especially the sound. I even love the mouse, the first Razer I actually find comfortable to use, and all the physical switches on the bottom are my idea of the way it should be done. I'm pretty used to the keyboard from the G51J, it's no MacBook Pro but it gets the job done. As long as it keeps working I have no complaints whatever... a finer value in a gaming book I've never seen.

(For those who may wonder I snagged this one - and I mean one - off Amazon this past weekend. It was actually sold and shipped by Buy.com; $1546.88 including expedited shipping - ordered Sat., shipped Mon., delivered today, Wed. 1333 memory, BTW.)

Quick question: for those who have upgraded to BD (I don't need a burner) what's the best choice, source, and price?

 

Glad to see your liking the G73, moo

 

I haven't seen just a BD player laying around anywhere. $220 seems great for the Sony Rewriter though. I searched, but didn't find a good deal on just a player for myself either. I hear that Sony has the most updated software to be able to play the most BR discs.

And HEH! Congrats on your G73!