ASUS G73SW Owners' Lounge

Glad you like the laptop.

Upgrade to different GPU will probably work as I did put a MSI video card on Asus G73 and it post and boot no problem, for more powerful card you will need more than 150W AC adapter.

However, the Asus vdieo card is not a standard MXM size, it's much bigger than other video cards we've seen from other companies:



And this is the video card from MSI:



The problem is the heatsink from Asus won't have proper contact with GPU and VRAM and will result overheating.

 

Here's the link , just enter your OS .

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download G73Sw

I ordered the Asus Clean Install DVD for $15.00 and it also came with a Drivers DVD . All I do is insert it when prompted after using the clean install dvd and it installs everything rebooting many , many , many times before finishing ( I think there's a lesson to be learned here i.e. you should always reboot after each and every driver or program install ) .

I hope this helps you sort out your issue !

That's very interesting ! I've been told by several resellers that it just wasn't possible to upgrade the video card at all because it's proprietary . I'd like to upgrade the CPU and especially the GPU at a future date . I guess I'd just have to upgrade the memory too when I change out the CPU .

I purchased my G73SW-3DE from Power Notebooks by the way having had prior experience with Donald Stratton and his family .

Thank you again for posting a ray of hope for future upgrades !!

 

Other resellers were right, it's not really possible to upgrade the video card on Asus laptops.

I am not trying to misleading here, but when I was using MSI video card on Asus G73 I was holding the card on my hand without heasink just for test to see if it'll even post.

Asus will never have new video card with exact same layout matchs the heatsink so unfortunately video card upgrade is not possible on Asus notebooks.

 

I'm sorry , I must have misunderstood you . Thanks for correcting my error .

 

Thanks for the detail, yet I know some vendors are offering faster video cards in the Asus G73 line so I'm wondering how they are accomplishing it... How about CPU's, since they are more standard I assume there is more flexibility for upgrade there? Any good pictures like the one of the GPU?

Tom

 

Hey everyone,

I just bough a G73SW-A1 and quickly did a Windows 7 Clean Install but I've noticed a few things:

-I can't get the scroll on the touchpad to work, I've installed the synaptics software from the ASUS support pages and Chastity's list from the ROG boards and it still doesn't work.


Any ideas?

Thank you all

 

Hello there,

I just purchased an asus g73-swxt1 from tigerdirect which should be delivered sometime this afternoon. Ive been skimming a couple of posts on here and i really hope that i receive one of the revised editions of the sandy bridge processor. Anyway it seems that everyone has a lot of trouble with the laptop whenever they do a clean install of windows 7.

I know this serves the purpose of removing the bloatware that comes with the g73 but is it really that big of a gripe? In other words im thinking of completely leaving everything as it is and the only thing that i will probably update are the nvidia drivers.

Thoughts?

 

There is no such thing as bloatware, when it comes to drivers and utilities for proper and efficient operation of a particular computer. Who understands better than the manufacturer of a particular compter who put together the drives and utilities for that computer.

However, there are extra programs which are put by the manufacturer as advertisement to bring the cost down. Example could be some sort of Antivirus program, Microsoft Office PRO and so forth. These can be easily removed by the user if they don't need these programs without clean install.

 

I don't know that I'd say there are a "lot" of problems. I reloaded 7 from scratch and had no issues whatsoever. You need to remember, in forums like this you will always see more problems than anything else because the vast majority of folks with a G73SW who reload the OS do so without issue, and as such don't have any reason to come to the forum. There are some that come here to help others or to report success, but most of the time when something works you just move on, but when it doesn't you seek out others for help, and since this is the best forum I've found specific to this model this is where everyone with problems ends up.

That said, out of the box this unit will probably do all that you ask of it. Some people don't like the goofy partitioning of the drive, or some of the software that is on the box, or need/want better versions of 7 on the machine for domain access etc. and as such rebuild from scratch. Also some just like to know EVERYTHING that is on their box and the only way to control that is to format and start anew. I pretty much always do this with my laptops, but at the end of the day unless you are having issues with the laptop the way it came, you will probably find that the OS load on it suits you just fine (especially since you are asking this question to begin with ;-) )

Tom

 

I haven't had much time to troubleshoot and dig around what I'm missing, but I managed to fix every other "issue" I had except that I couldn't get the scrolling to work on the touch pad, I might have some time tonight and I'll check it out.

Overall, it doesn't seem like much work to me, perhaps once I'm done I'll post a detailed guide on what to install/where to get it/ in order to get a clean install and proper drivers, etc.

 

Scrolling is very sensitive and only works on the extreme right edge of the pad . I couldn't get it to work either until I read about that . There must be some way to widen the area that will scroll .

 

I've had the same experience, it works once you get the hang of it...

Tom

 

Try the 2 finger scroll, works anywhere on the pad and it feels much better.

 

Hi again!

2 things.
My SSD (Intel 510 series 120GB) reads at ca 410MB/s and writes at ca 200MB/s in AS SSD Benchmark (posted here by a German guy many pages down - thanks to you btw!), and knowing that the max speed of this drive in a SATA 3.0 port is 500MB/s there HAS to be SATA 3.0 on this Motherboard unlike what has been written (also far down the line of pages here). Even my Seagate in the 2nd port does ca 100+ MB/s read AND write, which has to be pretty good for a "Vinyl-player".

The other question is:
Having read up on what the 2 GPU-overclockers here are playing around with, I'd like to know what are regarded as acceptable temperatures for the GPU to be running at in games. I've tuned, using the NVIDIA-tools linked here before, the GPU to 750/1350/1500. I don't know what is the most recommendable relationship between the Memory Clock and the Graphics Clock is, as I'm very new to all this, but knowing that the videocard is the bottleneck on this amazing laptop, I'd like to tweek out as much of it without pushing it over the edge. In WoW the GPU-temp with my present settings were pretty stable at around 73 degrees. I guess that wouldn't harm the GPU a lot, would it? At which temps should my palms start sweating?

Thanks in advance! (And thanks to all of you who have contributed to making my system even sweeter than it was as I packed this beauty out of its box).

A

 

I just updated to the latest Synaptics driver out of their website and it started working flawlessly as opposed to the one found in Asus Support Website or Chastity's list, thanks for the suggestion tho!

 

Hey is there any new drivers for the gtx 460 apart from which it originally comes with. I just got the the g73 today.

 

Did you get the revised model ? You got that from TigerDirect right ?

 

This question might not follow others but wanted to find out from other G73 owners.

I have a G73SW I just purchased. I had a question about the spring release buttons for the battery. One of the two buttons only clicks back and forward. While the other springs back like it should.

Is this normal for one to click back and forth to lock or should they both be springing back to their original position when clicking the battery into place.

Simple but stupid question but would like to return it if it is broken.

Thanks!

 

@dbratt that's normal - one is the eject button, the other is the lock to hold the battery in.

 

Thanks for the quick reply! Thought one of them were broken.

 

I am not sure how other vendors offering faster video cards on G73 but CPU is upgradable that's for sure.

I'll see if I can take some pictures for you.

 

Hi there,

What kind of mousepad this model has?

Synapatics or Elantech?

Many thanks in advance for your answer.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

@KoR

Synaptics it is.

 

Thanks, but what a deal breaker.

I own both N61Jq-A1 and UL50Vt-A1 and both of these have Elantech. It would be hard to break away from this beautiful and excellent touchpad.

Why? Why?

Anyhow, thanks again.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone in the UK/Europe or anywhere else for that matter has been contacted with a date for the replacement of the G73SW model with the defective sandy bridge chip?

Looks like there in the shops now...

Cheers Andy

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dell XPS M1710, 4gb, 500gb, ATI7900GTXGO, Core Duo 2 2.17 <- Sold

ASUS G73SW-A1 w OCZ SSD Vertex 2e 120gb <- Running Sweet (complete with Cougar Point Issue)

 

Thanks , I just updated the drivers and it works great .

Good deal ! Can you post the link to that new driver ?

Never mind , I found it .

http://www.synaptics.com/support/drivers

 

Yes, it had the little revised edition sticker on the palm rest

 

Nice! The one i ordered around early March was the unrevised one so i had it sent back. Looks like they are getting it right this time. Makes me want to order again ...

 

I picked up a G73SW-HST6 from BestBuy last week. Would it be a revised model as well?

And if so. What is the difference about this SandyBridge situation?

 

I believe the difference is in the GPU, the best buy has the 1gb nvidia compared to the 1.5gb G73SW-A1 model.

basically a stripped down version of the A1. chipset-wise it should be revised as well.

you should have a sticker on the box saying so, also on the palm rest of the laptop, regarding the revised model situation.

 

Hey just out of curiosity, have you guys heard of anyone having problems with the g73 SW overheating or anything of that nature. I think i read somewhere the SW model runs significantly cooler than the JH, which a lot of people seemed to have problems with in terms of overheating. Ive been searching around the forums as a preventative measure of things to come in case this laptop is prone to overheating but all i find are complaints about the JH.

 

Mine runs very cool to touch . I have a cooling pad that I used with my Dell 9300 under it but I have the fans turned off . I like the cooler because it holds the G73SW-3DE at just the right angle for using it in my recliner .

I've played Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 2 with everything turned up to max for hours on end and it never even feels warm .

 

I literally never even hear the fans running and it's never even warm thus far. Not sure after a long bout of gaming as I haven't been able to game a lot with it, but for general use it's silent and cool.

Tom

 

no issues with heat here, i keep my SW running overnight and rarely turn it off.

 

same as everyone so far, temps are really good, low 70's after hours of gaming

 

The cooling on this thing is the most impressive part of it! You can quite easily use it on your lap without the classic leg-burn. After a long session of running Crysis 2 on full visual settings with 3D enabled some warmth starts creeping into parts of the keyboard - not very much, but noticeable. Coming from a macbook pro and an m17x, the g73 may as well be a block of ice. It's refreshing to see a manufacturer do more than just cut some holes in the back of it and pray!

 

Well I purchased the original g73SW back in the last week of January and I held onto it through all the chipset issues. Asus notified back in beginning of March they had a new revised version for me. Awsome! I went through all the red tape to get the new one cross shipped to me. When all is said and done I got a brand new laptop with no chipset issues.

However......The new G73SW does not have a blu-ray burner in it and the one that I sent back to Asus does! I ordered it from an Authorized Asus Dealer and added that as an option. I paid extra for this and now I cannot use it?

I contacted Asus support and they are looking into it. They have escalated it and passed it on to a supervisor. The support person I spoke to indicated that the serial number of the unit I sent back and the serial number of the new one both indicate they have the same drive. However her data doesn;t indicate if it is a burner or not. Well I know the first one was, but it was added by the dealer.

Has anyone had issues like this? When you order from a dealer and they add additional RAM or drives, does the SN that Asus Corp have indicate this? I am concerned as I need this rectified....well...now! I have blu-rays to burn. THe sad part is that I opened the burning software when I received the new unit 2.5 weeks ago and it showed that I could burn blu-ray.....but apparently it will give you this as an option even with just a reader. It;s not until you click burn that it tells you that you donot have hardware to support this disk type.When I used Nero to burn, if I did not have a blu-ray writer then Nero did not offer blu-ray projects. Install a blu-ray writer and Nero sees it and adds these options.

Anyone have any insight?

Thanks. Frustrated at yet another issue.

 

Just got my Asus G73SW. I'm so happy with it! XD

 

yup! x1000000000000

 

Hi again!

I have the newest driver 267.76 installed, but my 3D won't work. Anyone has any insight in how to make this work? In my Control Panel it says that both the graphics drivers and 3D drivers are the same version, so I would assume that they would work together, but when I want to launch Nvidia 3D photo viewer it says there is a mismatch between graphics and 3D-drivers.

Edit: I just uninstalled and installed again, and now it works. Sweet!

 

Congratulations Vergil ! I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying mine . It's by far the best computer or notebook that I've ever owned or operated . It's a jewel . Your going to really come to love it if you're anything like me .

 

I'm just doing a clean install of windows and should I install power4gear it doesn't have an overclocking option as my previous asus g51 did and doesn't overclock like the g73jh it just says High performance mode is there any benefit from installing the p4g software or would I get the same performance from just setting the power option to high ?

 

Thanks! Same here. It's the best notebook I've ever had.

 

Hey guys just receive mine today, was wondering is it normal that the dc hole on the laptop is slightly larger than the plug. It does charge but Im just worried, wanted to check if it's a problem.

 

Another small (but annoying) issue has occured. I was watching a stream in firefox4 when it said that adobe flash plugin crashed. Since that moment both firefox4 AND Windows Live Messenger started lagging and responding very slowly. While Chrome, gtalk, skype etc work smoothly. I also had the same happening the first day with my new laptop, but fixed itself as i changed system HDDs. Anyone else have experienced anything like that or heard about it. It annoys me a LOT!

A

 

I had major problems with firefox 4 and performance, to the point that I went back to 3.6. Others here experienced similar results, you can probably see the discussion a few pages back in this thread...

Tom

 

Cheers mate, but did that involve Windows Live Messenger and IE as well? I don't know which similarities are in those programs, but it seems like a certain group of programs have decided to collapse collectively. Windows Live Messenger just closes down after a couple of minutes and lags a lot before it does. I get a windows error message and it start searching for a solution without finding anything. I'm using Chrome as a browser at the moment and will probably continue with that regardless of what the outcome will be, but if there is something general which can be fixed, and someone knows anything about it, I'd love to know.

Cheers again, A

 

I ended up having ATK and power4gear installed otherwise the left corner buttons and keyboard backlight wouldn't work.

Has anyone had problems with pausing from time to time... like your browser won't respond, apps don't load immediately etc...

 

Can't speak about Firefox 4, or indeed about any of the other programs you cite, BUT I have recently been having problems with adobe flash plug-in crashing with Firefox 3 (3.6.16).

Firefox has also started running very slowly from time to time, sometimes an unresponsive script is blamed, sometimes not (though this could have been my saying "Just Do It" to the dialog box). I know I'm pushing it, but not that hard.

Don't know if it's the flash plug-in or some recent "improvement" to Firefox, but I suspect the problem lies there, not with the laptop.

 

I put on the atk program and my backlit keyboard works the left 3 buttons don't work because I haven't load p4g but I don't think those buttons do anything much even with the p4g software I may load it on just wondering is there any performance benefit in doing do ?