ASUS G73SW Owners' Lounge

I got my g73sw on friday, and returned it first thing in monday, because I am almost certain that this error has up my HDD...
It is a brand new computer for 1500€ and it should be 100% good not being opened and serviced first thing...

that is my opinion...

I am sorry but I do not understand what is hassle-free ? Please help someone

Thank you

 

Another New Zealand customer here, I took delivery of my G73SW last Wednesday. I just rang the number listed by Asus in that announcement & they had no idea what I was talking about, which is pretty typical of NZ!

Hassle-free eh?

Anybody else from NZ investigated this issue yet & if so, what has been the result?

 

Do you mean return it to the my reseller or Asus?

 

do now anyone knows if the Sata 0 and 1 are 6GB´s Ports? If this is so i will not return my G73SW to the reseller because i am not using the BD-ROM.

 

Thank you! i 100% agree. even if 5-15% of the shipment is affected it is likely that out of under 1000x units of g73sw shipped all are affected. Asus techs probably know exactly which part and markings to look for. if they found one i think they will find many more. i am usually one to advise holding out for an amicable solution but not this time. If asus comes out publicly and tells us the same thing Toyota said during their hearings I will be the first to say the recall is unwarranted

by the way even shipping is reimbursed by the vendors. asus reimburses us on the back end. if you wish to return it you should make a decision soon. some people did choose to keep theirs hoping for the best. I would likely keep it too but i am not at risk of investing into a "factory refurbished product"

 

okay, so I got mine from NewEgg and apparently their extending their return policy to 90 days or to when a fixed board has been made...if they come out with a fix...I'm assuming NewEgg would do an exchange? Thus it wouldn't be a "refurb"?

 

has anyone else noticed the humming noise from it aswell. unless you fold a tissue and put under it ,right below the mouse pad.

seems like the "corner" feets are to far apart.

 

not yet, this is the most silent laptop I've ever owned thus far...

 

yes it is. if you hear humming either you have bat ears or your notebook is unique

 

Well mine is going back as of tonight, I can't thank Donald enough for all his help.

Hello Asus G73JW-3DE!

 

haha, I wish I could return this thing, but I need it for a design project for engineering (which is why I opted for SB) because it screams with CAD software. Looks like I'll be sinking with the ship, or at least seeing what this whole replacement thing does for me later...bah!

 

An update for NZ users, I have been given the option of using the laptop until a replacement is available (they said replacement so assuming not a repair) or getting a refund now.

Rather than risk the replacement turning into a repair later, I have taken the advice on this forum & asked for a refund too.

 

I'm with you, I don't have any option but to wait for a "quick and easy" fix in a couple months. Shoot me now.

 

Who knows, whatever it is...if it's anything less then what I payed for AFTER the fix...I'm fully prepared for war, haha

 

No updates here yet. Chinese new year underway, so shops, support, tech are all closed.

So reading the articles, I know the Bluray drive will fail. Not sure how that will impact me, now that it will take time to RMA...

This whole issue has been in my mind the whole time. Shucks.

 

Just be glad a lot of things are online now...I just will stay clear of the Blue Ray drive for now...even though today less and less things come on discs

 

hassle: A problem, a difficulty; a quarrel, an argument; fuss, bother (that's the Oxford English Dictionary definition)

In this context "hassle" is what happens when you find that the dealer won't take back a machine without arguing that it's not needed; then sending you the wrong address, then telling you that it didn't need attention, then agreeing that if it did, you had to pay before finally sending you a rebate which doesn't cover the cost of postage - so you have to ring them back and start again. And THEN they send you another defective machine.

That's "hassle". Doing just one of those would be an error - keeping on with major (or even) minor arguments and mistakes is "hassle". It's a speciality of bureaucracies - requiring you to fill in more and more detailed forms, refusing to answer queries on the phone and telling that all your answers will be found on their website. (I'm dealing with banks at the moment and they are world class hasslers - and need paying accordingly!)

"Hassle-free" in the context it's being used here means that dealers will conduct all business promptly, sensibly and will keep accurate records and take your word for it that the machine doesn't work!

I have known computer companies who provided a "hassle-free" returns process - just not many and not recently!

 

deppy blue thank you very much.
Let us see how hassle-free are they here in Slovenia

 

golem.de released a tutorial how to check on which sata ports your devices are connected: Google Übersetzer (page 1 & 2)

you have to download Intel RST 10.5 from clevo's ftp: ftp://ftp.clevo.com.tw/P170HM/Optional/IRST.zip because it's not officially released by intel yet (should work with all cougar point mainboards)

 

it doesnt look so hassle free. it seems that most dealers are continuing to keep existing customers in the dark and still pushing these for resale. unbeleivable.

 

Well, I will be returning mine. I am contacting Amazon to find out what the process is for them to take it back and refund me.

I am bummed though. I really like this laptop and will miss it. I have my old laptop, but I imagine that it will feel like going from DSL/Cable back to dial-up.

Wonder if they will keep this line or redesign it?

 

It seems the resellers are in shock as much as the rest of us and scrambling to figure out what to do even though the path is clear.

I read the article on anandtech.com and it seems SB may not be out in force until April after they get a fix going towards the end of Feb.

 

Same here I also really like this laptop & if they could guarantee that we would get replacements would hold onto it until then.

I'm just not prepared to risk that the the offer of replacment may turn into an offer of repair only later... or even worse, a workaround.

 

Wow.. what a week! I was hours within purchasing this machine until the news came out. I had convinced myself that the 460M was good enough and not having optimus enabled was good enough. This SB mess has forced me to wait which is a blessing in disguise. With desktop and laptop SB's being out for the count makes it all the better cause at this moment there is nothing else out there to buy.

I hope all that bought get their refunds and wait for the upgrade GPU version which should have been this G73SW at the current price. I have never owned a G73 but from the sounds of it the current cooling design sounds sufficient for higher TDP devices.

 

Are there sub models of G73SW that comes with i7 2720/2820? The 2630 does not support vt-d which is the only reason preventing me from going with this.

 

Not that I've seen, but a few e-tailers (xoticpc comes to mind) will switch the processor for you, or you could do it yourself. Xoticpc makes you start from the $1800 -A1 version rather than the $1200 or $1300 -XR1 version. But I don't know of any reputable dealer that hasn't pulled all their sandy bridge laptops until the chipset gets fixed.

 

Hi everyone. I was keen to buy this G73SW (top tech bad ) And on Wednesday I heard about SB bug. That's so sad... :cry: Hope Asus will go over this and introduce in spring same but a bit different model (for instance G73SWX).

Hope there will be 560M on it.

 

I'd like Asus to come out with a G73 laptop that gets it right, not just the chipset fixed:

+ 6Gbps SATA support for internal drives (good SSDs saturate a 3Gbps connection)
+ Appropriately improved video chipset for gamers (560M or whatever is reasonable)
+ Option for those of us who (gasp) don't need discrete graphics and would be just fine with integrated graphics only
+ Nvidia Optimus support
+ Put the 8GB ram in the hidden slots and use 2x4GB not 4x2GB

Since they have to wait for the fixed chipset anyway, they could roll out a broader product line in that timeframe.

Probably too much to ask.

 

Ditto... I do a lot of EDA in Altium Designer and CAD in Solidworks, and this thing screams.

I ordered it Monday overnight from Amazon, just before the Intel announcement to replace my Sager NP8660 that died earlier that morning. By the time I found out it had already shipped and I couldn't cancel.

I cannot be without a laptop, not even for a day... and right now this is my only computer.

From the verbiage ASUS released, my expectation is I can return the laptop when Intel ships fixed parts to OEMs, and they'll replace it with an equivalent (and I mean actual equivalent, not some BS substitute) or repair my current device at no cost at that time.



But like I said.... I cannot operate without a laptop, so simply returning this right now is not in the deck of cards.

 

You have to ensure with Asus in your country that you can get an equivalent replacement. Asus on my side will reply the following monday on my replacement or refund, so I, too, am using this laptop as it is meant to be. Sad that this is not my permanent laptop but well, I paid the price and should receive a 100% working product.

 

so guys. now we can be sure that we have on Port 0 and 1 Sata 6gb´s

 

Thats great thanks for the confirmation.

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

ASUS G73SW-A1 w OCZ SSD Vertex 2e 120gb <- On Order complete with Cougar Point Issue

 

I do believe that it shows the sata connection of the ssd, not of the port connected to.

 

@myxcon

yes but at the Benchmark you can be sure that it is Sata 600

 

Yep but his Interface datarate is reported at 600Mb/s and his sequential write rate is 343Mb/s. Both indications that the ssd is on one of the sata 6 ports witch aren't affected.

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

ASUS G73SW-A1 w OCZ SSD Vertex 2e 120gb <- On Order complete with Cougar Point Issue

 

It is showing you that the Segate drive is only capable of a SATA-II link... not the max of the controller on that interface.

 

on the contrary most "reputable" asus vendors particularly ones who push pre orders are keeping existing and potential customers in the dark. not sure why that is or how it is allowed to continue. we have recalled all shipped g73sw and halted all future sales of it the day the recall was announced. this is what any "reputable"dealer should do and should have done. Clearly dealers who push pre orders are keeping their own interests before their customers

the only resellers in shock are the ones who are keeping this up for sale, they are the same ones who push preorders months before release date. We and any other reputable self respecting vendors recalled all shipped products and halted sales of it on january 31st. I am pretty disguisted that our major competitors a week later have not said anything on their website and likely never informed existing / potential customers

 

Has anyone tried downloading this app to check their SATA ports?
GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check Application

 

Here you go... G73SW-A1 from Amazon:



DVD drive is the only one on a SATA-2 port.

And for the record "not using it" shouldn't make any difference. As the transistor in question is part of the SATA clocking system it is always in "use"... the SATA controller clock is not active only during data transfers.

So, use your BD drive to your heart's content, and figure out what your resolution with ASUS is going to be.

 

Does this mean only our Bluray drive is affected and not other items in the laptop? The Bluray drive is replaceable right?

The hdds and my files are the most crucial to me. Just thinking ahead in case the Asus in my country is not able to get e a replacement...

 

Items connected to the respective port are not affected so you don't need to take into account if the BR drive is replaceable. Gonna run the GB utility later when I turn on the laptop.

 

Drives can always be replaced if you feel like taking the laptop apart, both harddrives shouldn't be affected though, so worse case scenario...keep replacing BD IF they fail...which is a supposed coarse of over 3 years...when my laptop will be obsolete anyways and ready for replacement, haha, although I try to get 5 years out of laptops and save consoles for gaming...

 

That won't really do much considering it's the SATA II connection itself to the BD that would be failing. A replacement BD would be useless if anything plugged in to that same connector would have data issues, assuming the drive is even still detected in the first place.

 

ahh, true, so basically, once the BD doesn't work...get a drive that reads via USB?

 

Yes, only the BluRay drive performance could be affected.

Yup.

Yup yup. The issue here is a transistor that is a part of the chipset controlling buses... the pathways between your components in your laptop. The transistor is designed with too thin of a gate oxide... it's like having a really huge high pressure water line with a small cheap valve to turn it on and off (actually to be more precise... it's like having a thin low pressure pneumatic switch, and toggling it with 2000psi of air). The transistor is a part of the SATA-II port clocking tree... clocks are signals that repeatedly turn on and off (1/0) at precise intervals, synchronizing component communication on the bus. The particular transistor may be a part of a peripheral clock on the controller... something like error detection subcircuit.

Either way, the best way to think of it in layman's terms is this: you have a long highway (system bus) with a stadium parking lot (bluray drive) on one end and a major city at the other (CPU). Along the way there are traffic lights that control the flow of cars (bits of data) on the highway... what effectively happens is the lights stop switching from red to green correctly... slowing down the flow of cars on the highway. Eventually they stop changing from red to green altogether and the cars are just stuck.

This is the same thing; there's no risk to any components in your computer... it's just that data can't get through the control system across the bus to the correct places.

 

Any examples or specifics on who's still selling them?

BTW, when I say "reputable" perhaps I should say big-name. i.e. Newegg, Amazon, buy.com, micro center, fry's, best buy, and on and on... If xoticpc is still selling them, then shame on them, but I don't put them in the reputable/big-name category.

 

Guys has anyone seen this? --> Solution for the Intel Series 6 Chipset Design Error

It lists the processors affected by the Sandy Bridge issue. It looks like the Core i7-2630QM is not on the list so does that mean the Asus G73SW is not affected ? Any thoughts ?

 

I'm sure it's just another error by Intel. The processors listed at that page are available individually in the retail channel. The 2630QM should be for OEMs only. Regardless, the problem is with the chipset and it doesn't matter which Sandy Bridge CPU you have.

 

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

 

anyone that got this notebook needs to know that they can return it for free. shipping prepaid both ways by your reseller. a few people did take me up on this and i have no problems with it nor am i recomending any action but the obvious. if anyone has solid info that this chipset is not affected i would love to know as we have a little more then 50 units still unsold and collecting dust. i would love to see some concrete evidence that these are not part of the recall. these are still being sold by many companies and I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW THAT I DONT?