G51J and the pro's

You can try on device manager under the LCD or Monitor tab, click hardware ID and search the ID on google.

 

I also am a g51J owner, but not for much longer i fear.

The screen gives me the bad frowny-face whenever i turn it on and see the abyssmal black levels. (bright grey soup (tm))

GPU went from 90 degrees max to 99 in fumark in the 2 weeks i've had it, and i had Arctic Silver 5 applied to it.

BSOD every 10-20 minutes (known issue, no fix yet) when playing modern warfare 2.

Can't really recommend this machine.

 

What really bugs me about the screen is that in order for me to see even contrast levels, I have to be about 3-4 feet away from it. Otherwise the bottom tends to be brighter and the top darker. That means in a FPS for example, the gun at the bottom is whited out a bit and the dark sky above will start looking like a negative. If I'm 3-4 feet away it all looks right but while playing your about 2 feet away.

@teflonsheep
Maybe consider a g51vx-a1? I overclocked my quad to 2.4Ghz stable which isn't bad and never seen a bsod ... ever! Although they are more expensive which makes no sense unless i7's are far cheaper to produce.

 

i was offered today by the Dell Alienware representative a upgrade to the 260m without a huge charge. I will be going with the M15x since I now have everything that would come with the G51J.

 

M15x is a good machine. but if you are going for m15x, I would suggest sager 8690 instead. Those two are around the same price I think. Sager 8690 is much better than asus g51j and m15x.

 

Just say no to crappy AUO Sager plastic boxes.

 

Well I know you (the OP) has already said he's going to go for the M15x, but I figured I would post my initial impressions since I said I would earlier this morning.

My main concerns were the screen and keyboard flex.

Screen....I can see what people are complaining about. The black levels are quite poor in a dimly lit room. To me it's not as big of a deal though. All I did was change the splendid utility setting to "soft" and turn the brightness down to about halfway....but yeah this sure is a bright screen. lol Sharpness and image quality are quite nice in my opinion. For some reason widows 7 had the dpi set to 125% I believe. I changed it to the standard 100% and everything looks pretty much the same as it did on my G2S.

As far as keyboard flex goes.....it's there. Just like the keyboard on the G51vx at best buy. But surprisingly enough.....it doesn't bother me in the least. The keys and keyboard are also way different than what I'm used to, but I will quickly get used to it. I'm actually liking this chicklet style keyboard to be honest....it's very quiet with great feedback. The backlighting on the keyboard is awesome! I will never own another laptop without it. lol

Other tidbits about this laptop.... It's quiet. Not talking about the audio coming from the speakers as they are actually fine for me. I don't see what the complaint is about the loudness of the speakers. But really it's quiet as far as fan noise goes....even when I was in WoW and the fan ramped up it was a ton quieter than my G2S. This is definitely something I will appreciate. The only other thing I'll comment about right now is the heat. It sure does get warm....but once again it's not nearly as bad as my G2S. Sitting here at idle with just IE open it idles at 39-42C on the cpu and 60-65 on the gpu.

 

So I went to BB today and CitizenPanda is right, the HannStar display is actually of passable quality. It's not nearly as bad as the AUO display found in the G51 series. The viewing angles were better (it didn't fade out until about 30 degrees horizontally) and the blacks were better as well which lead to better contrast ratio.

For those of you deciding between a G51J and G60VX, stick to the G60VX. The lower resolution actually looks ok on the HannStar and as a result you will get higher performance.

Those are terrible idle numbers for the GPU. My X2A used to idle at 55C before I did any mods (arctic mx-3/hole mod). After the mods my idle dropped to 50C. I think you should definitely consider adding some better thermal paste.

 

@ Farva : Congratulations on your new laptop! I hope you enjoy it very much. I will let you know about the M15x when I get it in mid december (I wont be home until then). If it weren't for the deal I had gotten then I would have gone with the G51J, but Alienware lured me in with their cleverness

Hows the feel of WoW on it? Do you feel that you will be able to raid smoothly or do arena (gladiator-ish pvp) without a problem on response with the keyboard?

 

I don't think so. I returned my 8690 and decided not to get another one.

 

I agree, i just don't really trust the machine, and plus sheesh they don't even have names for it. There is just something about it idk. Why did you return it?

 

Post edited because it can cause confusion. The 8690 just wasn't for me, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Buy it if it's in your budget, it's a great machine.

 

...

BEGONE, FOUL HEATHEN.

 

Hey Joker, troll much these days?

I mean if your ASUS sucked so much why are you still on the ASUS section of the forums anyhow? I mean sure if you were guiding people in the right direction then your opinion would be more than welcomed, but most of your comments seem to be way too over exaggerated and scares people away more than anything. I for one find the screen to be pretty darn good compared to all the stuff you've said so far. Over the years I’ve gone through 8 notebooks (ASUS, Toshiba, Acer and even a Dell) and and I find the viewing angles on this LCD screen to be pretty decent while blacks aren't "gray" at all. There is no LCD leak like it was said a couple of times before and overall the colours are quite good.

 

No notebook computer is perfect. I'm pretty sure you will find some fault in m15x after you used it for a while.

 

i find M15x pretty much my dream laptop.

only cons for that machine...

• no numpad
• heavy (9lbs)
• quite large compared to other laptops
• NO HDMI?!?! o well u can still use a display port --> HDMI adapter for + 10bucks

the rest is pretty dam good, but then again i havent been over to the alienware forum to lookup any problems ppl have been having.

and joker y wont u share openly on the forum your dislike for the sager? you seem to put some hardcore hate on the asus, share with us your deal with sager PLZ

 

I've posted a video that clearly shows the viewing angle problems with the G51 AUO screen. If this screen looks "pretty darn good" to you, then I'd suggest you visit an optometrist right away. Not only that, I'm not the only one that has bemoaned the quality of the screen, there are several others on this forum that have similar qualms with the poor quality of the AUO screen. Again, anyone is free to see the video I posted in this thread to decide for themselves. If that pushes people away from buying a G51, so be it. I don't have an agenda for or against Asus, AW, Sager or any other company nor will I hold off on sharing my experiences and/or views.

As for why I'm on the Asus forum, are you the forum police now Cheeseman? Should I PM you before I post anything for your stamp of approval?

I'll reiterate - the G51VX and J AUO screen is terrible, avoid it at all costs unless screen quality really doesn't matter. The G60vx screen on the other hand uses a HannStarr display which does not have the severely limited viewing angles of the AUO found in the G51 series. If you guys want an Asus, go for the G60VX.

BTW if you guys haven't figured it out yet, I'm pretty picky when it comes to displays and other things about a laptop. Others may find them perfectly acceptable while some may share the same concerns as me. The information I post is for the latter and not the former.

 

No doubt about it. The closest to perfect I ever had was my Dell M1710, there were hardly any faults with that machine aside from the 7950 GTX dying prematurely twice.

There's nothing really to share. The Sager is an awesome machine with very little faults. It just wasn't for me and my biggest issue wasn't with the system, it was other things that aren't really very important--especially not enough to warrant anyone to reconsider purchasing one. To reiterate, the Sager 8690 has my endorsement as an awesome machine. Do I think it's better or worse than the AW M15x? I'll know once the M15x gets here but the 8690 is all plastic and for >$2100 that wasn't something I was happy about. Looks wise I still prefer the 8690 over the M15x.

As for hating on Asus, it's not Asus I hate, it's the G51 screen. Everything else is okay, even it's notoriously hot GPU. I'm getting the gf a G60VX tomorrow from BB (if I can find it) so obviously I don't hate Asus.

 

I think Asus creates great machines, just like joker when you are spending some good money on many different machines you become pickey very quckly. I saw the G60 it has a great looking screen.

 

We are not even trying to have people not buy the machine it is just our opinion, don't we have the right to our opinion?

 

Since I don't give a rat's behind about screen quality--barring ridiculous extremes, of course--I ignore what Joker says because he is a silly, silly man who has more notebook-buying waffles than IHOP. He also lies, he hates Asus (when he IMs me he leaves the "u" out of "Asus"), and calls Sager "Sah-Gher", even though it's supposed to be pronounced Say-Jer, just like the Chinese office workers say it. He also hates Alienware, but his GF has his little friend in a box, and thus he is obligated to pretend he likes it. He loves the Mac, actually. The Joker is a spy.


To reiterate:

--Joker loves the Mac.

--Joker is too picky baout his screens. I suspect he is one of those "cool guys" who wear their sunglasses indoors or while they shoot zombies.

--Joker changes notebooks more often than I change my underwear. Wait a second.

--Joker loves the Mac.

--Joker hates Say-Jer and Ah-Soos.

--Joker is box'd by the girlfriend.

--Joker hates Alienware.

--Joker loves teh Mac.

--I am joking.

 

Forge, et tu Brute? You were supposed to keep the Mac part a secret. Are you going to tell them about my foot fetish too? Oh wait.

 

Oh, that's just dirty. You only ever told me about the leather dog collars and sawdust.


Now, to be actually on-topic, has anyone tried a stressful CPU/GPU stress, like running Intel Burn Test and Furmark at the same time? I'm wondering how the G51J handles that.

 

running both at the same time would be crazy. I'm tempted to try just for the heck of it.

 

Give it a try. What's the worst that could happen?

 

I do basically that ALL THE TIME on my notebook. I run Folding @ Home on the CPU and GPU almost whenever it's on (except when I'm gaming or playing a Blu Ray). I need my system 100% stable. After all, I'm not buying this hardware to have it idling and browsing the web :-D

Anyway, I don't care about the screen quality all that much, just that it's LED backlit. I will NOT buy another florescent screen. I connect it to a monitor most of the time anyway. At home I do use my n80nv's internal screen, and it is pretty low quality compared to some, but it gets the job done. (If it was actually my primary display I'd want better though!)

The BSOD reports on the G51J have me scared.

Because I finally found where Dell sells spare AC adapters for the m15x (here: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&mfgpid=203778&chassisid=8867)
I'm leaning either towards the m15x, or possibly the considerably cheaper G72Gx-RBBX09 from Best Buy (I'm assuming it's stable?)

The G72Gx uses a 2GHz Penryn x4 instead of a Core i7, but given the faster clock speed I'm guessing it's not THAT much slower than a 1.6GHz i7 with all four cores engaged. (I figure the 25% clock speed advantage will probably make up for most, although I'm not actually 100% sure.) Of course if I go with the m15x, I'm going to get a 1.73GHz i7, so I'm sure that's faster.