So I called Asus about GSOD's...

And after explaining absolutely everything in sheer detail, their answer was:

"The only solution to this problem is to wait for Asus to update the drivers."

But there's no ETA at all. So let's speculate. I don't have a clue, because it's my first Asus laptop, but there are quite a few Asus enthusiasts who can speculate ETA based on experience.
As a bonus they told me that I can't RMA because laptop is working fine on stock drivers.

Is it possible for Asus to release updated catalysts in the (near) future?

 

If other users werent reporting how their comps works fine on updated drivers, yet I cant even last 5min without a crash after updated I would consider drivers to be the fix.

For me though, I simply cant see a driver fixing this problem, at best it new drivers may limit the crashes, but will never truly fix them.

I'd keep calling for an RMA if I were you, if this wasnt meant for gaming I'd be ok with stock drivers. But, even then, I feel that while it seems solid so far, in time it will develop the GSOD or other problems on stock drivers too. So while I have the chance to just send it back to Tiger Direct, I will be doing that.

Again, I've said it in another post, sad to see this go. But I'm not going to play the roulette game of hoping to get a working laptop. So just get my money back, and pray for another good laptop to come soon.

 

That's nonsense from them.

Other G73JH's that were RMA'd after experiencing GSOD's on 10.4 drivers were fixed, so why can't they fix yours?

AFAIK there's a problem with the ATI 5xxx gpu's and BSODs, and your 2-year warranty covers labor+parts ?

 

Well, I live in Poland and doing RMA here is hard and unrewarding. Mainly because of ever present ignorance and endless wait time. I hope that Asus will release update to their vga drivers and if things will still be bad, I'll get an iron argument to RMA.

EDIT: The thing is, that I can't prove that other G73JH's were fixed. Perhaps I just need to be stubborn enough?

EDIT2: So I was chatting with one of ASUS tech support guys and he said, that if I am indeed experiencing problems with newest drivers, I need to wait for the ASUS update. And it does not matter
to him that the G73JH's of others are working fine on 10.4, as he said. Mine does not, so I need to wait; that's exactly his conclusion.

 

One of the downsides of gaming laptops (any laptop really) is that you are expected to use proprietary drivers. This is obviously going to affect gaming.

Its a shame, but its true. Maybe the next ATI driver will fix your issue.

Maybe its a driver conflict? Have you tried stripping the computer of all the other drivers?

 

It is HARDWARE. Ive used the stock, 10.4's, and 10.5's NO PROBLEM. I got some freezing related to the creative software but NEVER a GSOD. Never even got 1.

 

Problem here is Asus can not guarenty or warrenty non stock and non approved drivers. The reasons here should be obvious, Asus can not control the configuration and/or software. Until you have an issue with the default install and approved upgrades there is little as a corperation that they can do.

While yes there may be systems out there that can run the enhanced software, overlclock better, run cooler and/or other variables so long as at stock it works properly and within tolerances there is little to nothing they will do for you. In these scenarios it is the luck of the draw.

Essentially you have to look at it as "Works as advertised", you may be upset you don't have a "Better than advertised" system but it was not sold to you based on that criteria............

 

Based on your posts, I wouldn't waste any more time on the waiting game. There is no reason why you are suffering so much problems. Just get it replaced, no shame. Out of computer hardware, GPU have by far the highest fail rate and return rate. It's like 10-30% return rate for top end GPUs like HD5870s etc and even higher for Nvidia. It's really really high.

 

My previous G73 unit always ran fine with 9.12 (stock), but always GSOD'd with 10.3/10.4/10.6. I presented this to my retailer and then ASUS agreed that it was a defect. They then sent me a brand new replacement 3 days later. The brand new replacement still had the GSOD's (but that's a separate story). What I'm saying is, although the tech "robot's" will tell you that they cannot help you with "non-standard" drivers, I was lucky enough to find a real tech that determined that this should not happen with the official 10.4 drivers from ATI. So they replaced my old unit. The ASUS tech also admitted that the had an "unusually" high RMA rate for the G73 due to GPU related problems. Course, I still have to decide on what to do with my replacement unit which still has the same problem -__-'

 

What procedure did you use to upgrade the VGA drivers from the stock ones?

1. Just installed the new driver over the old one.
2. Uninstalled old driver and then installed new one.

 

My first unit had GSOD. I'm currently on my 3rd unit and game extensively while at work. I've gone through default, 10.3 & 10.4 and never seen GSOD. It's most likely hardware. I guess all G73JH's are not created equal

 

It could very well still be hardware. But for now, I found the fix, flashing the vbios seems to fix it. So its possible the problem was just a bad bios to begin with.

 

Asus GPU are wierd, to some point i sometimes think they are not even the same card as the reference. On my G51 the 260m dont downclock with most drivers, which on clevo and alienware 260m do, this behavior its not an isolated incident, its the same for all asus 260m, including G60VX and variants, its like Asus also changes internal things. Probably the 5870 is also like that, in terms of not being the same as the reference.

 

hmm did anyone try this out: GSOD Hotfix

 

That's not for the mobile cards, and considering all the newer drivers after that were supposed to come with the hotfix, but yet obviously didnt fix it. Even for some desktops users said the hotfix never worked for them when I was researching.

Anyways, yeah, pretty much I only feel a vbios update will fix the problem. It very well may just be ppl have a messed up bios. When I was reading about the desktop 5850s and 5870s GSODs problems. The manufacture like sapphire and EVGA released a new Vbios for ppl to flash to.

Once ppl updated, they stopped getting GSODs, this is what led me to my thinking of how to fix our G73's. But Never thought I'd find a 5870m bios.
Once I found one, I remembered reading how Asus seemed to use a standard 3.0b card for once, and figured I'd take the chance.

I was looking in the Clevo Bios and the Asus Bios today, both say BROADWAY XT so this is probably why the flash works good too.

 

10.1 can not be installed to notebooks, as notebook drivers were only released directly from ATI starting with 10.3. The "HOT" fix changes would have been rolled up with 10.2 also.