G71V Landed at my door in the UK

Its arrived at my door 7:05am on Saturday, this is the current £1249 model inc VAT or £1009 before VAT.

WOW, this thing is big but smaller than I expected for a 17" laptop. Screen is very very good (better than all the laptops I have had go through my hands and I work at a school with loads of them). Unit is lighter than my old 15" 4:3 gaming laptop (AMD m3000+ with ATi 9600m). Keyboard is semi full size with a slightly shorter number pad but all the keys are there (just not in the usual layout).

Specs

Vista Home Premium 32bit (I reloaded with Ultimate 64bit as only 3GB of ram was usable)
17" 1920x1200 gloss black screen (blacks are really black)
Intel T9400 (2.53GHz on 1066MHz FSB, 6MB cache)
4GB DDR3 at 1067MHz in dual channel (spec list stated DDR2 800 online from Asus)
8 Cell battery, fits in a hole on the bottom of the unit so slim chance of a bigger battery as it would have to stick out the bottom, life is just over 2h in battery saving mode, had 2h 30 showing using RMClock but it does not support the processor and limits speed to 2.4GHz.
Power Block. About the size of coke can, without any fans and does not get overly hot. I could still hold it after playing games on the PC.
nVidia 9700m DDR3 512MB
Blue-Ray 2x reader, DVD Writer
B, G, N Intel wireless
Gigabit network port
4x USB2 (2 on each side), HDMI, eSATA, Card Slot (new type, not PCMCIA), Mic Line Headphone ports, Card reader etc.
Infra Red port next to the built in camera that is Vista media centre remote compatible.

Missing is the 2GB Intel readyboost card (whatever its called) that was listed in the specs. Tried putting the drivers on but it refused to install them. With 4GB of ram is this really going to make a difference anyway?

Included is recovery media (2 DVD's, one windows and one driver) for a clean recovery (so I could raid the drives and not loose any of the original data if I wanted to), WinDVD, Nero 8 Essentials and PowerDVD producer light. You also get a mouse and backpack that is actually not a cheap thing and looks like it could take student handling.

Overall the unit is very fast and plays Supreme Commander at full res very well. Blu-Ray (using the internal drive) play back flawlessly when on mains, under battery it takes a bit of tweaking due to the lowering of the processor clock speed (can be overridden). The large screen makes it a joy to place on a worktop and sit back and watch rather than having to have the unit at arms length.

I have a few pictures of the unboxing that I will post later when I get home from work and can get them off my iPhone. If there are any photos you would like to see let me know and I will see what I can do.

 

Nice! yeh, the mice and backpack Asus supply arent cheap budget ones, they are all really good quality (my friend got a Asus g1s)

 

Oh nice! I was wondering when the G71V would be released! Nice to know it has then?
Still i don't see any web-sites where i can order/customise it?

Any1 got a clue when it'll be released in belgium? would love to know that!


Thx in advance!

 

Photos please?

It's 9700M GT or 9700M GS? Because in spain is listed with 9700M GS, also what's the exact model?

 

3 quick pics taken at work with my iPhone.

 

Does it has the 9700GT or 9700GS? and what is the model number? thanks in advance.

 

It has a 9700GT card as standard

Model number is G71V-7T001C but on the box side it has G71V-1B7T (sold as G71V-7T001C)

Just noticed that the packing list does show Turbo Memory installed, I wonder why mine will not work.

 

G71V-7T001C is listed with T9300 processor, I guess you got the T9400 instead of the Turbo Memory.

 

I've been waiting for this machine to come out in the UK for ages. Who did you buy it from?

Also, the some of the original leaked info said that some of the G71 models would come with a TV tuner. I assume, this is not the case for the one that we've got in the UK?

 

Nope, I have both.

If you enable raid in the bios it disables Turbo Memory (real PITA). I did a reload last night after checking the module had been fitted and it is now running non-raid with Turbo Memory. I am going to see which one has the better real world performance for me. This now gives me a 2nd drive for installing HD disc images and the swap file.

The T9400 is listed in the spec I received from Asus as the correct processor as it runs on the 1066MHz FSB whereas the T9300 is only an 800MHz FSB version.

I purchased from Insight as I use them at work for some orders. Nexus13.com should also have them in stock soon though and Asus informed me they are a retail partner for them.

There is no TV card in the laptop however I have it connected to a USB DVB-T card when at home and it works without problems.

 

I know you haven't had your laptop for a while, but I was wondering if the G71V has the keyboard lag that ppl are having with G50v?

Also have you tried to see if the G71v has the multiple key press problem?

Thanks
Anthony

 

I cannot detect any keyboard lag, however I have reloaded the PC with Vista Ultimate 64 so its possible that I have reloaded any problem drivers etc.

At present I have not noticed any problems with the keyboard but I have really only used it for entering serial numbers etc so I have not pressed multiple keys at once.

 

Where did you find the drivers for Vista Ultimate 64? I might get this laptop too for maya and 3d studio max and I plan on installing vista ultimate 64 to use the 4gb of ram.

 

has anyone played any games on this type of system?

 

All Vista 64 drivers are already on the Drivers DVD that comes with the laptop. I did not have to find any drivers at all.

Games are ok. High action advanced 3D games need a drop in resolution but games such as BioShock and Supreme Commander all play at 1920x1200 with acceptable framerate. Running a game at non native res does not look to bad as the LCD is actually stupidly good for the price.

 

Could you give the muliple key a test. G50v ppl say holding s + d and then pressing space doesn't produce a space character.

Thanks

 

Wont work. S + D + Space gives no space usage. Does not mean much to me though as I am not a massive FPS user and most of the FPS I play I use the mouse (and play rather poorly)

 

I'm not a massive FPS gamer either but its usefull to know.

Thanks for trying.

 

And finally I have gotten mine! And what a great laptop. The build quality is just skyhigh, no flex in the frame whatsoever, the keypad is just wow and the T9400 is just a great proscessor.

I am glad i decided to wait, havent been able to run any games yet but its seems fast in all other aspects. And it makes no sound almost, The only thing bad is the screen resolution. I hav 1900x1200 in my last laptop (XPS 1730) and 1440x900 is... well, things appear big on the screen, but ofcourse you can tweak most settings a bit so its not that big of a deal.

5.3 WEI index, GPU 5.9, same with RAM (4 GB DDR3), its actually the harddrives that puts the score down.

All in all, I love it! We should make an owners lounge as I think this will be a most popular machine.

 

They do a version with the 1920x1200 screen as well but I believe it depends on where you live as to what is offered. The 1920x1200 is the screen for the UK model.

 

In Norway you only get the 1900x1200 along with the extreme or quad processor. Its kinda pointless that you get a blueray player with that resolution, however, the machine is so close to maximum bang for bucks that I am more than happy

 

Hi All, I got the G71v UK version off of Insight about a month ago now and what a fantastic machine it is! All the positive stuff said before, I do have a niggle with the keyboard, not quite up to the standard of say a Dell Laptop.

For any Linix users out there, I have installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) as dual boot (grub even picks up the Asus recovery partition). It works OK apart from the sound & card reader (so far), which I havent had time to look at yet and you have to install the nvidia driver from the nvidia website rather than the ubuntu one as that doesn't support the 9700MGT yet. Not a too big headache if you follow the instructions here help.ubuntu.com/community/NvidiaManual. You lose control over the laptops lighting, but you can get a linux module that controls the OLED display, (asusg50oled.sourceforge.net) allowing the usual linux performance stats, plus you can load onto it images and all sorts of custom stuff! (can't do that in Vista).

The 250GB disks came partitioned with 50% NTFS, so you get 4 116GB partitions roughly. Have any other users put the disks into RAID? I hate Vista as it seems really slow to use and wondered if RAID would speed that up. Ubuntu works fine though, lightning quick.

There are HDMI & eSATA ports on the back, 4xUSB and the Blu-ray is Lightscribe enabled. I didnt realise there was infra-red near the webcam?

Ran Crysis Warhead, not on maximum (I think they call that enthusiast), one step down (gamer mode) on the detail and not max resolution, worked fine. COD4, CoH, ETQW all worked really well. The targus laptop rucksack and razer mouse are an excellent addition to the laptop.

Attached screenshots of the lights under ubuntu, they are red on the front 'headlights', cant change that in ubuntu (yet), they are normally a green colour under vista once it loads. The OLED has the RoG (republic of gamers - a joint venture between Intel and Asus) Logo on. On the back of the screen the RoG logo lights in blue with the horizontal strip underneath. In Vista there is control over the two vertical blue bars on each side, but in ubuntu that support isnt there (again yet, until some bright spark develops it)

 

I am also almost absolutely pleased. There are some minor issues, for instance, I have a Logitehc cordless mouse but when i try to use it, it seems like whatever window I am in flickers, for instance if I am in favourites in IE, it just drops out and I have to open the menu again, and it falls out again within seconds.

Also, Swat 4 (favourite game) didnt work (worked on XPS 1730) but a new .exe file solved that problem, thanks to Securecom.

And the last thing is that the LEDs cant be controlled from BIOS as far as I can see. Thats to bad because I dont like to have any bloatware installed.

But, 10/10 otherwise. And what a sound from a laptop!!

 

Those red lights look pretty **** nice.

 

Raid 0 does work on it and it does make a difference to the speed. Saying that however I would give vista a week to settle down and learn about start up programs etc as mine was very slow to begin with after a reload but then became very usable and quick to boot etc.

The drawback with using RAID is that you loose the TurboMemory feature (BIOS bug) that does help speed up booting when windows works out what to pre-load into it.

In the end I decided to replace the 2 drives and now have a 7200rpm 320GB and a 5400rpm 500GB drive fitted in a non raid setup (the Intel matrix raid on the laptop would allow a 320GB raid 0 and the rest of the 500GB drive as a simple partition). The 7200 drive has made it feel a lot more like my desktop now.

For those of you looking to use the newest graphics drivers there is a trick to it.

Boot up while pressing F8 on the keyboard (to get boot menu)
Choose to allow unsigned drivers (very important in Vista 64)
download the newest nVidia drivers
download the modified inf file from the usual source
run the nVidia drivers and when they fail look in the nVidia folder on drive C
rename the nvidia.inf file to .inf.old and copy the modified one into the folder
run setup in this folder and install the drivers, if prompted about unsigned stuff install it and continue anyway
when done DO NOT RESTART
erase the modified inf file and rename the old one back again
Goto device manager and manually update the drivers for the graphics card (it wont find any if it searches the folder, you have to force it).
Point device manager at the folder and manually load in a 9800GT card, say yes when prompted that the driver is not for your hardware. This will not magically change the card into a 9800GT, all it does is allow the driver to load.
Reboot the PC as normal and all will work as needed.

This allows blu-ray to work and gives you up-to-date drivers. If you don't boot up ignoring unsigned drivers the special signed code file to allow blu-ray to work in powerDVD etc is not copied over to the PC and blu-ray does not work but the drivers will for games etc.

Hope that helps

 

Quick update

New bios out for the G71V

No idea what is it as the upgrade notes are very cryptic

http://dlsvr04.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/G71V/G71V208_AS.zip

 

Hello there, g71v owners!

I'm planning on buying this beauty here, on Spain, and I found a submodel that fits great to me.
I was wondering if your model (Qwarkz, essexboyracer and the others) is the same than I am willing to buy: the g71v-7t032g.

If I am right and they are the same:
1) Does it come with Vista Ultimate?
2) Did it come with the backpack and the mouse (I am supposing the headset and TV-things won't be there)?

Thanks for your reviews and in advance for your reply!

 

There are lots of different spec G71V's it seems and what you get depends on the area you are in when you buy it.

Best bet is, unless someone on here has exactly the same model, ring the supplier and ask them to fax, email or tell you the specs printed on the side of the box.

I would not even trust Asus's website for the info as my UK spec G71V came with different hardware from those listed with the same full model number on the UK site. The printing on the box should be spot on though.

 

Thanks, Qwarkz, for that fast reply!

Yeah, I was considering that. I had a real bad experience with those faxes, questions and some suppliers, but I will try this time... AGAIN.

I hope I can make a review as soon as I put my hands on it, so we can share our experience with this great notebook

 

Ok, been delving some more with overclocking

I have fiddled with SetFSB, the PLL is the same as the other Asus boards - ICS9LPR363DGLF. Asus have under clocked the RAM (as shown in CPUz) so that when you use the overclocking settings it is still running within spec, however the Asus overclocking does not seem to re-sync the PCIe bus so that overclocks. SetFSB allows setting an FSB of 296.5MHz which gives 2.8GHz and everything running within spec appart from the overclocked CPU. Tested with Intel Burn-In test and got 5 passes (1 hour) with no errors and a max of 80C on the CPU (25C from max temp) but the fans are loud at max load.

Now, if only I can find a way of changing the RAM timings (Memset does not support this chipset) then I could get 333MHz FSB and almost 3.2GHz procesor speed (if the CPU can take that at stock voltage).

For those wanting to try a basic overclock, download SetFSB, choose ICS9LPR363DGLF clock gen. Slide the top slider to 296.5/593.0 under select FSB/DDR/PCI-E/PCI Frequency and then reset the bottom slider to set the other values to 100.2/33.4MHz and apply it. This should read 723/760 on the top slider and 44/95 on the bottom.

If I can find a memory timing adjuster I will try going higher on the FSB and post how to do it.

 

Hi all

somebody can tell me if the fanS of G71 make much noise ? I haven't find review about this notebook.


Thx

 

For a high performance laptop they are pritty quiet.

If you switch to very low power mode they are almost silent.

 

Thx Qwakrz for your quickly answer

 

A little update for anyone interested. Managed to get sound working on Ubuntu. Had to upgrade the kernel version to the latest (I was running heron, I upgraded to intrepid). The upgrade also sorted the need to manually install the Nvidia Driver, as the new kernal has support for the 9700 it is in restricted drivers

I also got the OLED display running in Ubuntu meaning I can configure anything I like on there!