Need a serious opinion on replacing the G50

Some of you who own G50s (A1 or A2), obviously from my prior prior threads, I had issues. I am going to RMA mine, but now I'm worried about the series a little.

Two people have now stated that after a bios change, their system starts going through the BIOS twice before boot (which is weird as heck in my opinion and frankly, scary). I've run into the CPU 100% load problem, which *seems* to be isolated to my machine, and is the reason for the RMA. Well, that and the now double POSTing BIOS. I've also heard at least three for four people complain about the CD drive.

Overall, seems that complaints are relatively low, compared to other laptops, but since it's a new machine, I want some opinions from people who are using it without issue.

Is your G50 running clean, no weird CPU load, no problems with hard drives or optical drives? Did you change any BIOS settings or reinstall vista? (The only thing I dislike about the stock setting is the 4 partition set up... wth, really?)

I'm a bit torn now, because there are other machines out there, but they have some issues as well (Sager NP 2096 is downright ugly and has a 9600 card, Sager 5796 has problems with its speaker jacks, Sager 8660 apparently runs somewhat hot).

Frankly, I think for all the deals on the market, the G50 A1 and A2 are the best bang for the buck (if you exclude fall apart systems with no warranty, like Gateways) and have a nice mix of good features, but I now want to hear if the problems are isolated.

So, for those of you with G50s.... is it worth replacing with another machine? A1 or A2? I don't care for Blu-Ray all that much, but I did like dual 7200 drives... but frankly, I'm not so torn that I wouldn't go for 5400. Have you put the machine through it's paces and all the things I mentioned above as problems haven't happened?

Please give me your thoughts. I'm extremely frustrated at the moment after spending the day researching this.

 

I have been using my G50 for about a week. No weird problems here. Only disappointment is the keyboard controller issue for multiple buttons. Other then that I am very happy with my G50.

 

My biggest problem with the G50 is the **** keyboard. I'm very unhappy with it, and I will probably be sending it back. It's not just the weird combination of buttons, it's the fact that I have to type super slow and hard for it to recognize the keys. It's very annoying. Besides that though, everything else is fine. I've updated the BIOS, removed the weird partitions of the HDD, and played a few games on here for a while. Everything's been great.

 

Mine has been a workhorse so far. The processor is friggin awesome. It runs completely stable overclocked to 2.92ghz (it also runs stable above that, but I find it best to stay out of the Ultra settings of SetFSB) and undervolted to 1.0375v. The highest temps I get under full load on both cores is 53° (on the chassis and slightly lower on the cpu cores).

The GPU can get hot (80°) but it doesn't make the machine hot to touch.
I haven't had any real issues with the machine (after getting past driver issues with XP). My OLED doesn't ever display the same thing twice which is kind of wonky, but other than that everything is good.

 

I find only a few Minor annoyances (Keyboard being only SLIGHTLY unresponsive, but not unusable, Optical drive being insanely loud) Other then that, no complaints. I've been using for Age of Conan, TF2 as my main games, and doing heavy graphic editing(1gb files) and some video editing without any issues. In my opinion it's still the best bang for your buck, I wouldn't trade mine for anything else at the moment.

 

Only thing I can say is I have a small hitch, or hiccup if you will in TF2. I just changed drivers, didn't fix it. I've yet to try the newest ones though. Other than that I love it. Everyone compliments me on how cool it looks as well as how nice the screen is.

 

I just saw the thread about the keyboard fix notification... so if they update the bios and fix that problem then I am more then happy.

 

Just as a comment on TF2... if you are having problems, did you try deleting it and reinstalling directly from Steam (only if you installed from the disc). I had some funky problems with a disc install of Portal. Took someone's advice and did a direct Steam install, which fixed it.

 

The keyboard is a piece of crap as stated. Otherwise, uhm, the audio has no "crossfeed" which I am very much used to coming from an X-Fi Platinum (gives me a headache without it). The stereo is very much left and right only, no "center" sound.

 

I have the High CPU at start-up (drop after 5 to 10 minutes). My microphone on it doesn't work well (even super close and speaking very loud... but that may be the drivers and settings). BUT! I didn't do any update yet (got it last thursday afternoon and work 12 hours a day all week-end). The only update I did is the windows one. I'm planning on setting the Hard drive in raid-0 then do all the update. I'll see after that what I'm going to do. I paid 2200$ (canadian) for it (G50V-A2) and the High CPU bother me a bit . It's my first laptop and the problems scare me.

NOTE: LIKE I said, I have some problems with it but I didn't do the update yet(bios and the drivers). Also, if I still have those Issues and decide to exchange it. Wich one should I get? (for around the same price). Please PM me with the suggestion... don't want to change the subject of this tread. By the way, I don't know alot of stuff in computer... That's why I'm here(to learn)

Thank you!

 

If problems scare you and you do not know alot, than refrain from setting RAID 0 for a while and pull your hair out before this idea cross your mind again.
Once you get new thing , do not rush to rape her (...and she is mine..)
You have plenty of time to do it later, after 2 weeks... it is yours... and it is never late to do it ...

Your new notebook will run high first 5-6 boot ups and after it will run very calm

 

Thank for the suggestion. I'll think again about the RAID-0. It seing easy with Vicious guide. I not working today so I have the chance to play alot with my new machine

 

I've only had mine for a weekend but have been loving it. Been getting used to Vista and learning about how it works, etc.

I've seen multiple people bash this keyboard but I simply LOVE this keyboard. The keys are shaped nicely and feel great. The response is excellent with no lag. Seldom do I have to re-hit a key and usually it's because I'm not even sitting in the proper position to have correct typing posture (in other words Operator Error).

I'm not sure about your CPU problem. I know I read it somewhere and I'll go back and check it out to see how mine is doing and let you know. I would say that the biggest downside to this machine so far is that the keys don't light up or even glow (especially for a gaming laptop).

For this machines size and price that Gateway 17" is very tempting but as you mantioned build qality and lack of warranty. Now that I think about it I probably should have gotten the BluRay vesion for the extra $200 but I was concerned about read/write times when playing games.

EDIT:
Thought I would mention that I haven't been tweaking like you guys (at least not yet). Still getting used to everything and what not. I'm prety much running with everything stock plus some Vista tweaks. I definitely updated my Nvidia driver, haven't touched the BIOS at all yet (not even to peak). Also I installed ALL Windows updates before DOING ANYTHING. So far so good. I'm just getting a few seconds to see how high I can run my games maxxed out but still be playable.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=292076

 

I just read through that (again actually). I haven't done the RAID 0 so I can't officially confrim anything but the only time m CPU show 100% is when I put it on turbo mode while gaming.

 

RAID0 is stupid in a laptop. If you lose one drive then you lose -everything-. There is no chance of recovery at all.

 

I'm getting an F8VA-C1 as I only play strategy games, and that 14 inch size fits the bill for me. I want a FP scanner too.

 

I don't see how that is different in a desktop, either.
The truth is, RAID0 offers you increased performance at the cost of reduced reliability, and anyone using it has to understand that (I'm not sure everybody does, unfortunately). So as I said in another thread, if you use RAID0, make frequent backups if you love your data.

In fact, make frequent backups if you love your data, even if you don't use RAID.

But I wouldn't call RAID0 "stupid".

 

I havent had a single problem with mine (A2) my only gripes is the keyboard keys are a bit small for my liking (but I dont get any keyboard lag or missing keys that other people are reporting). As for A2 over A1 basically I wanted the 7200 rpm hd's and I figured since gentech was asking like $250 more for dual 7200's on the A1 I figured id get the A2 basically with a free blu-ray to boot.