Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
its strange for me to hear you got a problem with it, the keyboard is awesome! honestly this kind of laptop should be for gaming more than for business work =). and gaming requires high apm, A LOT higher than just 100 words per min. i could swear that all of my friends used my laptop complained about keyboard being too small lol.
although personal preferences, if you have used desktop most of your life, you wouldnt have complained about this keyboard, should be almost perfect if not too small.
have you been using only laptops thats like 10-14 inch?
edit: about the integrated graphic card.. so disapointed to hear that. i guess newegg could be wrong too =/ just a quick question though, if a newer model gaming laptop were to come up, will it have a better graphic card option such as 570, 580 or 6990? and when would that be?
-
I find it to be one of the quietest laptops I've ever owned. And for such a powerful machine, I'm continually amazed at how cool it runs.
The design itself is excellent....but Asus quality control is poor, so "build quality" isn't that easy to describe. In theory...great build quality. In reality...these things seem to have lots of little niggling issues related to sloppy assembly....touchpad grounding failure, speaker rattle...things like that. If someone wants a computer they can just buy, turn on, and everything will work perfectly out of the box without any knowledge or intervention on their part, this might not be a good choice.
From what I've seen, these things are oddly priced like commodities.....one price today, up or down tomorrow, different next week. So it's impossible to identify a "good price" when it could well be $100 more or less by Friday!
-
-
Glad to hear you're happy with your laptop. I wouldn't be concerned that we have a "gimped" version of the G74SX. Even the maxed out version of the G74 has "gimped" performance compared to the bleeding edge, uber high end rigs which this laptop was never designed to compete with. I think ASUS has done a great job building a moderately priced machine that performs admirably at just about anything you throw at it. I play Crysis and Fallout 3 and it's perfect for that. Another big plus to operating at this level of performance is how cool and quiet this laptop runs. No more hoover.
-
The main Asus product support pages are always slow to post updates, even though the Asus servers do have the more recent stuff. Here's a direct link to ATK Package 1.0.0014 as posted on their ftp site.
I'm pretty sure there's an Atheros driver posted there somewhere, but again, it's an old one. (And some old Atheros drivers are known to cause serious latency issues. The newer ones fix that.) Here's a link to the latest
Atheros 9.2.1.459 driver.
-
-
The numpad does have separate insert and delete keys, but some users have had complaints about the numlock function. It was originally just a calculator! I think they've fixed that in recent BIOS/ATK updates though.
You could always use a program like KeyTweak if you need an Insert key on the main keyboard. -
-
-
OPTICAL DRIVE: If you think you'll ever want to watch blu-rays on it, get the blu-ray drive now. (There are some configurations that have a blu-ray burner, but that's a pretty specialized use....I'll bet most owners would never want or need that.)
RAM: Most configurations I've seen come with 12Gb, and I think that's more than enough for the vast majority of users. As I mentioned though, it's very easy & inexpensive to add more memory later, so I'd put this one as the lowest priority, i.e., just take whatever RAM comes with the configuration that best meets your other criteria.
HARD DRIVE: Some configs only come with one hard drive, some come with two. If you don't think you're the kind of owner that is apt to upgrade to an SSD, add/replace a hard drive, things like that...in other words, if you really just want to be right from the beginning and never have to tinker with it later....I'd get a configuration that has two hard drives now. IMO, it's a good idea to have data and the operating system on separate drives. That makes it easier to back things up and fix things if they ever go haywire.
The A1 and DH71 models both fit all the above criteria well.....12Gb RAM, blu-ray drive, two 750Gb hard drives. If you decide you want blu-ray and two hard drives, those are excellent options....there really wouldn't be anything you need to upgrade. You can go down the price ladder with configurations that exclude bl-ray, have smaller hard drives, less RAM, etc. -
Power4Gear is like most other Asus utilities- it replicates a Windows utility and purports to makes routine functions easier by putting them behind a snazzy interface. If you already use Windows, especially on a laptop, you're probably familiar with power management....it's where you can adjust power usage and create different profiles to optimize power usage in different situations. Power4Gear is essentially a third-party power manager that "overlays" the Windows' power controls. It's not necessary, but some people like to use it. It will already be installed on your G74, so you don't need to download it.
There's a handy thread here on NBR that describes many of the Asus bloatware programs. You might find this useful when deciding which programs you want to keep, and which to uninstall.
There are a variety of ways to try and improve the sound in this laptop. But bottom line...it has two very small, very cheap, very-poorly-placed stereo speakers, and there's only so much you can get out of them. I think that this computer was probably designed with the expectation that many people would use an external audio set-up, because it appears little effort went into optimizing the internal audio.
That said, here are three different options I know of for improving the sound. You can easily try each and decide which you like best.
- Choose the "Equalizer" option (in the "Sound Effects" tab) of Realtek Audio Manager that sounds best to you, then tweak it 'til you get audio performance that best suits your taste.
- Use Creative THX TruStudioPro and set it to "External Speakers." This is a pre-set equalizer that does a pretty good job of adding depth and punching up the lower end. The perceived result is greater "loudness."
- Download SRS Audio Essentials (paid or limited free version). I have not used this one myself yet, but some G74 owners have reported that they prefer it to THX. I intend to give it a try, but I'm not expecting these speakers to ever sound "good." I'm hoping for "tolerable."
ASUS G74SX Owners' Lounge
Discussion in 'ASUS Reviews and Owners' Lounges' started by neggie, Jul 1, 2011.
