ASUS G74SX Owners' Lounge

Sorry your post got overlooked. It appears that Windows thinks you're using a dual core processor....which is weird.

I don't know what your particular problem is, so these may not address it. But here are some steps I'd try (one at a time) before assuming hardware malfunction:

• MSCONFIG PROCESSOR SETTING:

- Open msconfig (START > msconfig)
- Go to the Boot tab, and select "Advanced Options"
- Make sure the "Number of processors:" box is unchecked.
- Reboot
​

• REINSTALL CPUs:

- Open Device Manager
- Uninstall the CPUs
- Reboot (Windows detects the CPU and re-installs the driver)
​

• RESTORE BIOS DEFAULTS:

- Reboot and press F2 immediately & repeatedly to access the BIOS
- Use right-arrow-key to move to "Save & Exit" tab
- Use down-arrow-key to select "Restore defaults" and confirm​

 

Hi there I'm a new owner of ASUS and I was wondering how can I increas my WEI score for my primary hard disk? Right now it is at a score of 5.9, whereas everything else is in the 7.0-76 range. Any idea? Thanks

 

SSD or Hybrid Drive

 

My WEI with the original 750 was 5.9. When I replaced that with a Momentus XT 500 I had, it stayed at 5.9. I don't think the flash memory in the hybrid comes into play on that kind of test. I eventually put in an SSD and the score went to 7.9. SSD is the way to go!

 

I did them all and I did them one at a time, but still nothing. I looked at the info of the CPU in hwinfo64 and all the specifications there match what other reviewers and users have with their G74 notebooks.

EDIT: Sorry for bothering you guys but its fixed! Thanks for helping me out!!!

 

Yes, the best value now is the 2820qm on ebay, if you don't mind a QS sample CPU. You can get a one for under 280 delivered if you place a best offer in on some sellers. Much batter than that 2760 which is selling for twice the price 2820QM | eBay

I've had about 4 QS cpu's and never had any issues with ES/QS chips.

Edit: Using 2 different turbo boost versions and cpu-z I have never seen my 2630qm hit 2.90 turbo single thread. As anyone got it to 2.9?
Mine just maxes out at 2.7 according to CPU-z

 

What turned out to be the cause, and how did you resolve it? I can't say I've ever seen that, where CPU-z sees a quad-core that's running as a dual-core.

 

I don't really have an Idea sir but I guess it must be with the MS Config since I read in some articles in the net that increasing the number of processors that boot time would be faster.

 

Oh, so you had manually changed that setting? That would explain it.

Glad you got it resolved now.

 

anyone know which brand of memory at 1600 or 1833 would work for the asus laptop? and what kind of settings to choose in bios, im not so good at the stuff, thanks for the help.

 

Usually depends on what processor you have but the PnP stuff from Kingston auto-overclocks:

1866
KHX1866C11S3P1K2/8G

1600
KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G

 

Hi was wondering if anyone on this forum has a recomendation for an ssd for the g74? The reviews I've read all seem to say that the 240/256gb ssd's are faster than their 120/128gb counterparts. Of course, they're like twice the price too. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

Only problem with a lot of drive review sites is they test pre-release drives that aren't fully baked. So I take them with a grain of salt. My Vertex 3 120GB SSD is insanely fast. I just install steam/games/media to the 750GB secondary drive. Leaving OS/core software on the 120GB SSD.

Just make sure whatever you choose that it is SATA 3/III and not a SATA 2/II

 

Looks like the new revisions of the G74SX are out with the i7-2670QM. The "3DE" has been replaced by the "DH73-3D" according to XoticPC's site.

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

I'm sorry but I'm a total beginner at this. What do I have to do and how do I go about doing it? Thanks, sorry for the trouble.

 

A platter drive will only go to 5.9, same thing with a hybrid drive. The only way to get a higher WEI score is to take out the drive you have in there now an put in a SSD drive. Then you can get higher scores and also much much faster performance.

 

Honestly, I think there's WAY too much focus on those WEI scores. People spend ridiculous amounts of time and money trying to make some subscore go from, say, 6.8 to 7.4. And they fret that their number isn't as high as somebody else's. But they completely lose sight of real-world performance and whether those 0.6 "points" makes any noticeable difference whatsoever with the programs they actually use. (More often than not, the answer is no.)

I've used SSDs in 3-4 computers now, and I believe the really noticeable difference is in Windows' start, resume, and shutdown times. Not that those aren't important, but impact during normal use is not nearly as noticeable....and in most of the ways we use our computers (surfing the net, for example), there's no difference at all. I think these considerations are a far more realistic way to look potentially upgrading to an SSD, rather than what WEI number one might get.

To be clear, I do think SSDs make great OS drives in laptops. But this is because of their fast resume times, as well as the fact that they run much cooler and quieter than HDDs. And their low energy use may be significant for road warriors who need every second of battery life they can get. But the WEI score? .....unless you're one of those people who feels the need to report a big "score" to the world, it's just not important. You might look at it once, but then you'll go back to actually using your computer.

@WithOutWac: Upgrading is pretty easy. Take a look at this recent post for an overview of how to do this. (These directions are for using your original OS on the new drive. It's a little different...but not much...if you're going with a whole new copy of Windows.)

 

is that the brand name? or just model number?
just plug and play? no need to change bio settings? IM IN!!

hey brodboy, sorry trouble you again but i had a friend of mine install SSD for me cause it was too much to learn and i didnt want to risky screwing the laptop up for a hardrive. problem now is im getting load of bluescreen perhaps every 30 minutes, sometimes 10 mins, times about 1-2 hours.

really frustrating donno what i should do. also browsing net lags and its the same problem with some other people online.

do you think i got a defective drive? i got the OCZ solid 3, the cheaper one next to ocz Vertex 3. it is a sata III 6.0gbps 120 gb 2.5 inch internal SSD drive.

 

In my original response "Kingston" It's actually called Kingston HyperX PnP memory. Those are the part numbers you want.

 

Can they run at any further than 1333Mhz? I thought the G74 was locked at 1333? why bother buying anything higher??? :\

 

Just discussed. Jump back about 4 or 5 pages and look for Hendrickson's posts.

 

Oh okay

Hendrick can you try and launch CPU-Z and click on memory tab and take a screenshot of the info there, im a bit curious since both gentech and powernotebooks doesnt offer anything else rather than 1333.

 

I doubt it's a defective drive. (Hardware failures do happen, of course, but software issues are much more common.) No offense intended, but are you confident that your friend is competent with these things? It seems likely that he may have forgotten something important, like updating the drive firmware or installing all the necessary drivers.

Can you elaborate at all on the procedure he used? In particular, did he use a simple system image restore method, or a fresh Windows installation activated by your existing Product Key? The second method is better, IMO, but it takes more time and knowledge about what additional software to install.

 

Dude. Seriously? Did you even read? He already did that.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...-asus-g74sx-owners-lounge-40.html#post7974516

 

he works at a laptop repair shop, a small company but it seems he knows what hes doing. he told me he install it the same way he did with his laptop, and he got a intel SSD 120 GB sata III so i don't see how and why there would be a problem with mine.

it seems intel ssd and the ocz solid ssd just cost difference, and brand name different too of course. all he told me was, he replace the hardrive, install fresh window and thats it. i havent got time to use backup/restore on it but with my issue freezing and go bluescreen on me every 10-30 mins i just cant possibly do that.

and i had to write this post twice cause it went bluescreen on me again :'( please help!

 

although i dont get what those number meant, but as long as it'll help video encoding im in on that one. as for now i will try to solve my SSD issue.

where you purchase it from? i saw one on neweggs USA for 120 bux, and ncix for 143, and neweggs Canada 145.

 

Oh sorry i stopped at page 38

 

I can confirm that the Kingston HyperX 1866 PnP ram does work at the right speeds in the G74sx, but only in a 2x4GB configuration.

The computer will downclock it to 1333 if you have 4x4GB of that ram in there.....

 

Okay, if he did a fresh Windows installation, there a variety of updates and drivers that he should have installed. Here are some of the basic ones, along with the most recent versions as posted on Asus' site:

Intel Chipset Driver V9.2.0.1015
Intel Rapid Storage Driver (IRST) V10.1.0.1008
Intel Management Engine (MEI) V7.0.0.1118
ATK Package V1.0.0008 or V1.0.00010
Realtek Audio Driver V6.0.1.6348
Nvidia Graphics Driver V8.17.12.6837

There are others, of course (LAN, WLAN, touchpad, etc.), but check to make sure those above have been installed. Also, check that Windows has been brought up to date, i.e., install the updates released since the build version your friend installed.

 

yea, he said he got all the drivers right, he went online and download installed them all. when i mentioned the bluescreens, he said it only happened once =/

 

Hmm...as you well know now, even once is too much if you're in the middle of anything important. BSODs are not normal or acceptable, so if you're getting them, something is wrong in the configuration.

It may be worthwhile finding a forum or thread for OCZ drives, just to make sure there isn't anything specific to that brand or model that you need to do (a special driver, setting, etc.).

One thing I've read is that some SSDs have issues in drive bay 2. I have no idea why that would be....I've been able to use SSDs in either bay in my laptops, without issues. But maybe it's worth checking to see if the OCZ is known to have any problem in that regard, and check to see which bay it's in. Beyond all that, are you comfortable doing a clean Windows installation yourself? That might be the next step here.

In the meantime, I would pull that SSD and use your original HDD for now. (I assume it still has your original installation on it?) BSODs every half hour make a computer pretty much impossible to use.

 

hey I gots a minor question here, but I wanna know what program I should use to play the Nvidia 3d demo video included with the G74sx 3d version, If you guys know any software that I can use to play 3d movies kindly let me know. Thanks!

 

a fix.. maybe? i read up on ocz forums and installed the latest firmware, and blue screen stopped, i only used for about 3-4 hours but no bluescreen so maybe it is driver problem

 

Fantastic!! Sounds like it was the drive's firmware.

Now...I don't want to say "I told you so," but.....you may have been better off just following the original instructions I wrote for you and doing it yourself! (See the last paragraph. ) This was kind of a big oversight on your friend's part....working in computer repair, he should have known to check/update the drive firmware before he even installed Windows.

 

the thing is me and him both didnt know about the firmware =/ i thought i would go ocz forum to see other people and how they solve problem. and most of them say its the updates. donno why intel SSD dont need the firmware though.

now i just purchased 3k alienware m18x and another asus g74sx, this time not the BB version. now i can game and encode at the same time!

 

So what are the best nvidia drivers to use on our g74sx's? The latest one or is there one that stands out as the best?

 

If it isn't broken, don't fix it. Although I'd recommend running the newest 280.26 nvidia drivers. The 202 BIOS if you don't have a 3D Vision enabled setup.

 

How come and European version can be quieter than American version? Maybe it is because of newer BIOS?

 

+1 Sometimes people just run into trouble always looking for the latest or greatest when it comes to drivers. If what you're already using works, I say don't install a different one unless you know you actually need it.

 

Ok. So I got my G74SX finally. Ordered mine from XoticPC... Boy was that a mistake.

Ordered mine with 16GB RAM (4x4GB), a blu ray reader drive and a secondary 640GB hard drive. total $1522 with free shipping, not a bad price. Problem is that it took them 2 whole weeks to process the order and build the laptop then another 5 days to ship it to me. So 3 weeks later I have my laptop except the packing slip lists 2x 4GB memory sticks. Laptop has 2x 4GB memory sticks. A total of 8GB and 2 empty slots.

I contacted XoticPC and told them about it and sent them a copy of the packing slip. They said probably the technician building it got confused, machine originally had 2x 4GB memory sticks and they were supposed to add 2 more but the technician saw packing slip listing 2x 4GB sticks. saw the machine already had those and left it as it was. They took another week to ship me the other 2 missing memory sticks and now i got full 16GB RAM.

One issue is that the memory they sent me to add is slightly different than the memory the system already had. The manufacturer is the same but the model of the RAM is different according to the labels. According to the CPUz app the CAS and speeds and clocks are all identical across all 4 DIMMs.

Any advice on that would be appreciated whether I would need to have matched memory in all 4 slots to same specific model from same manufacturer or not. During the DDR2 days that was an issue but now with DDR3 I am not sure.

Other than that machine is running great. I am a previous G73SW owner and this machine is far nicer than the G73. I like the one screw access to upgrade memory or swap hard drives and whatnot. I got my Vertex2 240GB hard drive out of the 73 and installed it on this one, did not even need to reinstall windows, only a reboot to load the new drivers and it was done. I will be selling the G73SW shortly. As a comparisson I feel that the G74 is quieter when gaming. the G73 is quieter when idle. The sound is slightly better on the G73 but not by much. Nothing compares to the sound on the XPS1640 laptop I had prior to the G73.

Temps are great. I have not overclocked the GPU but it has not gone up more than 65 celsius while running furmark at maximum for 2 hours continuously. The G73 on the other hand at that task would be screaming and temp would be 85-ish. This one is much, much better at cooling than the G73. Once again I like how the fans are much more quiet when under load compared to the G73

I saw a previous post a while back about taking the G74 apart. I may do that to repaste it but I am not sure I would need to do that since the temps are not going above 65 celsius on GPU or CPU.

Overall I am highly impressed with the machine. Not impressed with the XoticPC process but oh well. It's done now.

My WEI socre is 7.4 on CPU, 7.6 on RAM, 7.2 on display and gaming both and 7.8 on the hard drive due to my SSD.

Just my 2 cents

 

It's fine....it does match. Model numbers can differ simply based on how the memory was packaged. Two-module packages of the very same memory will have different part numbers than the four-module, or single-module packages.

 

Cool. Thank you. I thought it would be OK but I just wanted to be sure. Since CPU z is reporting the same speeds and CAS on all of them then I can rest assured that they are not entirely different.

Thanks again.

 

i just read up on this about the memory and memory tests

they got all kinds of speed test, includes encoding, video/picture editing and gaming at 1333, 1600, 1866, 2133 and at CL 7 8 and 9, which they also included dual triple and quad channel.

apparently for video editing fastest would be at 1333 and 1600 DUAL channel at CL 8. which is pretty weird. other than that 1866 is pretty slow, donno why, and 2133 would have overall best performance, but isnt as good at video editing.

The Best Memory for Sandy Bridge | bit-tech.net

edit: sorry might i add that its mostly for sandybridge cpus testings.

any thoughts on this? im now wondering if i should get that hyper x 1866 kingston at CL11.

 

Well, you linked the test - after reading it do you honestly feel that it's worth spending money on faster memory just to gain a couple more % speed? I certainly don't - I'd spend it on things like an SSD, USB3 hub, optical HDD caddy, external optical drive case etc. Heck, I'd spend it on BDs and other things too. Unless you're performing very specialized memory intensive tasks that take hours to begin with, such as simulations, the only reason for buying faster RAM is the bragging factor IMO. The difference simply isn't noticeable in real world situations.

 

Well said! 99.99% of us never do anything on our computers that could render these miniscule differences significant.

 

well in my case i use window movie maker or live movie maker to make videos every day. and about 30 minutes in length, which total work would take up to 5-6 hours per day.

thing is window movie maker or live maker woudl lag when too many imported files on timeline or left on for too long after editing, my only solution to that was to close the program, reopen them to not lag. it doesnt use up memory so i thought its weird.

and after all the movies done, timing for audio/video, i publish the movie through movie maker, which only uses up about 60% of my cpu speed. if it uses about 80-90%, it'll save me at least a minute of time, and less load and cause therefore less heat duration.

im wondering if uping the ram would give me a faster publishing speed. some of my friends telling me to use adobe premiere, but i would up the ram speed before trying to learn a new program.

 

In that case I'd check the commit value in the task manager. It's quite possible that you're going over the amount of RAM in your system with the result that you get swapping to disk. It's also possible that as you use the program, there's some kind of memory leak or resource issue that gets worse over time. I have that same type of problem with Firefox for instance once it goes over 1 GB memory used or so, which is why I ended up switching to Chrome.

I don't think faster RAM will help in your case, as it's either a memory usage issue and/or a case of bad programming.

 

for you, the memory seems to add up but for me, memory doesnt add up even if i leave movie maker on for a long time. it still says about 60K memory usuage about 60 MB, however it lags as the program stays open longer.

i also thought about overclocking my cpu while publishing the movie maybe i could get it up to at least 90% cpu usage, but i have no idea where to start on that.

 

What does the commit value say when it starts lagging?