G51J-A1 Owners Lounge

So, who has this new laptop on-order?

Useful links about the ASUS G51J.
Compiled by E.B.E.; Last update: February 28th 2009

• thalanix's Asus G51J CPU throttling investigation.
• thalanix's [SOLVED] Asus G51J BSoD thread - part 2. Part 1 is here: Dragokld's G51j Blue screen of death problems.

 

I have a G51J on order with Xotic PC. It's currently in the build stage because I ordered it with ICD7 thermal compound. Otherwise, it's the base config as they offer it.

I should have it by next week, I imagine!

 

I ordered form the awesome GentechPC! Mine is ready to ship and got the fastest shipping so I should be receiving tomorrow friday!

I will be writting first impressions and a review ASAP!

 

Can't wait and congrats man!

 

Alright, got it and my review is up, though it still has a lot to go! haha.

 

mine's sitting in dallas right now. I will have it Monday. I cant wait

 

Mine hasn't moved from California in 3 days

 

I just found out something interesting... It seems games run better when turning the CPU overclock Off.... I noticed the RE5 benchmark higher, Demigod, Batman. Left 4 Dead, and Half Life 2.

The difference was 1-3 or so fps gained when turning it off. Only Darkest of Days and 3dmark actually saw a decrease in performance of a similar magnitude...

Weird... when you guys get your G51J, we have to check this issue.

 

Hi everyone ! I was going to buy an ASUS G71GX-A2. I tried to finding some reviews and lurked into this site. Ryzeki's G51J-A1 review really grabbed my attention. Basically their specs are the same not to mention the screen size, the only differences are processors and RAM. I'd to ask some questions:

1/ Which specs are better for sole gaming purpose: i7 720QM + 4GB DDRAM3 = (G51J) or Quad Q9000 + 6GB DDRAM2 = (G71GX) ?

2/ I heard some rumors that i7 is not optimized for Nvidia Cards. Is this true?

3/ I also found a very affordable gaming laptop: Toshiba Qosmio X505 model PQX33U-00K00H, it equips with an i7 720QM, GTS 250M GDDR5, 3GB of DDR3 RAM(upgradable to 8GB Max),320GB HDD and über screen size. Will this outperform two above ASUS if it equips with 6GB DDR3 RAM ?

4/ What I truly need is a future proof laptop capable of playing high-demanding games in medium-to-high resolution for at least 4 years. Which is the best out of those three (G51J/G71GX/X505) ?

 

no, it will not outperform the asus. you won't need more than 4GB of ram in any game, and the GTS 250m is a fairly less powerful card than the 260m.

 

1) For sole gaming the Core i7 should be better. As a quadcore, the Core i7 performs two threads per core, for a total of 8, and clock for clock the Core i 7 is better. Additionally the Core i7 can dynamically shut down cores and overclocks the other cores to enable higher performance in less threaded applications, so if a game uses two cores, with Q9000 you are stuck at 2.0ghz, but the Core i7 720 overclocks to 2.6ghz for dual core. 4GB vs 6GB on gaming there isn't much difference

2)There were issues before with the Nvidia GeFoce GTX 260 and Core i7, but both of these were desktop versions which are different arquitecture. Core i7 720MQ with Nvidia GeForce 260M GTX is a great combination so far as gaming goes.

3) The 250M GTS is less powerful than the 260M GTX, but both are high end on the mobile market. It won't outperform but will have nice performance. The laptop is too big for my liking at 18.4 inches, because at that size i would expect SLI or crossfire at the least.

 

Thanks. I guess 6GB DDRAM would be an overkill . Now I'm a bit confused about GPUs. We already got this thread discussing "GTS 250 VS GTX 260M":

I'm only interested in performance not battery life so it's time to kick out Qosmio of the list right ?

EDIT: Finally I decided to buy G51J-A1. Thank you very much for clarifying things for me.

 

Yeah, 6GB of RAM is kinda overkill. In pure performance yes, the Asus Core i7 720MQ + GTX 260M will be higher performing than Core i7+ 250M GTS

 

I have other questions popping up:
1/ Does the manufacturer already apply thermal grease ? I know how to do it, I just want to know if I have to rip off my lappy.
2/ Is thermal compound actually considerable ?
3/ I was originally going to get it delivered from Amazon but they have only the basic build of G51J-A1 without Intel PRO/Wireless 5300 802.11 a/g/n. Is it much better for G51J-A1 to equip with this card ?
4/ Turbo Boost works automatically right?
Please take it easy with me because I'm really newb at this .
EDIT: How to enable Turbo Mode to overclock to 2.8GHz ?

 

1. yes but its not a great paste
2. I experienced a 2C max temp drop and a much longer time between idle and achieving the max temp
3. the G51 has a third antenna, so yes, the 5300 will be a large benefit.
4. yes, turbo boost works automatically.

 

EIement, been wondering about this. Im probably gona upgrade specially with your comment, yesterday i was checking them out, and i saw two size even if its the same card, by any chance do you know if i have to buy the normal or half size?

And something extra, you think its worth the 5350 over 5300? its only like $10 more just wondering about the Wimax.

 

Get the normal sized card.

And, heck, go with the 5350. Only $10, you say?

 

dam, i ordered this badboy, but now i'm wondering if i should just stick with my g51vx, i7 does make my mouth water.



theres been so much talk about this baby that deciding to buy or not has been very hard, in the end the need for new toys wins

 

Ok, It came in today. I have lots of installing to do. I will give more information once i am done. Installing avg, office 2007, crysis,warhead cod4. I am not a gaming/graphics card snob heck I play crysis on a ati hd3200. I will let you know what I think of the gameplay. I thought I wouldnt like the lid, but its not bad in person, the graphic is embedded into the lid smooth surface so you could throw a skin on this. palmrest seem to be rubberized, feels like an ibm thinkpad, I would've perfered the whole laptop covered in this. I took the harddrive out of my dead hp tx1210 I bought a sata enclosure, using an esata cable, transfer rates are fast!
*****beginning rant******
who decided to put volume controls in the BIOS, who asked for this? they save money with no RAID but add this stupid bit of uselessness. since I had read they done this I knew to change it, however if you havent read any reviews it would give you fits.
****rant off***************

 

AVG is the worst of 4 free anti virus solutions FWIW, I'd recommend switching.

Anyway I'm just jealous...UPS has had my package since Friday and it still hasn't even left their first warehouse! It hasn't moved since Friday evening, ugh.

 

well, it doesn't appear to have bluetooth, I would rather have bluetooth than that damn bag.

 

I was actually informed by Ken from GentechPC that the G51j uses the half sized card.

 

Built-in Bluetooth™ V2.0+EDR

according to gentech's site it does. Did you use FN+F2 to turn it on? if you did, you might need to uninstall the wireless console and reinstall, then install the BT drivers from your driver disc. I had this issue when I first got my G51.

 

ill guess ill open it to see if i have the normal or midsize.

Btw not going with 5350 so many ES out there, im not sure if im gona get a retail version, so just gona go 5300.

 

iirc, the G51VX has full size, and the G51j has half size.

 

I will check that out, re installing wireless. when I do the fn+f2 i see a wireless icon and bt icon, but the bt icon is greyout. oh yeah, the sound really isnt very load even with headphones. geez this is the 2nd laptop I bought that had ty sound. why are they bragging about eax anyway

 

I sure hope the sound is equal or better to my G50v. I loathed my first Asus laptop (A8Js) solely due to the complete speakers. Bad speakers = total dealbreaker.

 

The G51J-A1 does have blutooth. When you press FN+F2 try clicking on the gray icon of BT and it should turn it on.

Sound indeed is very low.

 

ok, I got the bt working, I have to do fn+f2 then mouse over it. while playing crysis I noticed, 96c

 

perhaps it's already been answered in a previous g51vx/j thread, but do the old problems of the g5_ series still exist? the i7 is very tempting, would be a shame if they're still there.

eg.
1/ s+d+space <- will not register the space
2/ high pitched static in line-out headphones when theres a usb device connected in the port above

 

1)I tried on MS word and notepad and it did register the space with the S and D pressed, or all simultaneously.

As for 2) sadly I don't have headphones with me to test it out. I can answer when I get back from from work+school, but until then hopefully another G51J owner can help you.

 

exactly what I wanted to hear after pulling the trigger, thanks. will post unboxing/maybe benchies once I get it

 

My G51J-A1 just arrived today from Newegg.ca!!! What can I say... I am in love! I will post some pics and a quick review when I get a chance. BTW thanks for the review ryzeki, it held me over while waiting to receive this beast.

 

using the headphones, real crisp and clear, tho low. dont get it, 2nd laptop I have owned with crappy sound output, at least the other one sounded decent with headphones, this one you can still hear everything going on around you with it cranked up

 

Are you serious? Jesus, I ordered mine from Newegg.ca on Wednesday last week and mine hasn't left California yet

 

I had originally ordered it from xoticPC but canceled my order when it became available on newegg.ca. I believe it was the 21st when I placed the order and it was shipped on the 23rd. Mine actually came from New Jersey and I am in Halifax.

 

You are welcome friend! I hope you enjoy your laptop like me! It feels so good having a powerful machine around huh?

Everyone test out games, and check out what I found out: most games run faster when CPU is not overclcoked. It is weird!

 

Weird... the G51J has been deactivated on the Newegg.ca site. I see it's just out of stock for .com but deactivated altogether seems weird. I hope Asus is not screwing me again by sending out a refreshed model a month later like they did with my G50v.

 

Yea I was all set to buy this computer too after the good reviews but newegg is out and amazon now says Usually ships in 1 to 2 months. Just a few days ago it said in stock at both places. Wonder what's going on here. I hope they are maybe coming out with more stock sooner than that or maybe an upgraded newer model.

 

I doubt there will be a newer model, it has only been out for a week.

 

I ordered mine from gentechpc.com yesterday, UPS tracking says i will get it today.

 

I had mine in reserve at newegg.com and it came in two days ago. It's fast as hell but it was very disappointing to find out there isn't a raid controller on board. The two hard drives are NOT raided together...yet it has two hard drives.

edit: just installed world of warcraft and played on max graphics and max multi sampling(got 37ish FPS riding around in dalaran (if you play WoW you might be impressed...))... had my keys next to the air vent and when I was done my keys were burning hot...like...it hurt my hand when i picked them up. It definately pumps out a lot of heat, but it still performs well.

Also, I could see the second monitor hooked up to the VGA output flickering while in the game(windowed mode).

 

trying to figure out what model number the audio chipset is. there is realtek pastered everywhere, then I run pcwizard it says its an intel 5series/3400 series. I downloaded newer drivers from realtek, no difference.

 

was gonna post some unboxing etc, but have run into a strange problem. if any g51j owners want to confirm, go ahead, but i have a feeling this will have to go in for an rma.

in nvidia's control panel, forcing AA/AF will cause CoD/CS/Guild Wars/Combat Arms will cause the system to BSoD -> unrecoverable hardware error. tried with 191.56, 186.77 and 186.61 drivers. doesnt seem like there are any issues without those settings.

this is on a clean install of windows 7, only drivers and games.

edit: temps normal, now it just crashes on loading any game. default settings.
idle gpu is ~58, idle cpu 48 or so. i dont see the gpu get over 87 before crashing.
furmark takes the gpu to 94 before highest fan speed kicks in, after which it drops and stays at 93.
prime95 takes the cpu to 83, never reaches highest fan speed.
memtest reports no errors after 25 mins.


edit: ANYONE ELSE GETTING THIS ISSUE: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5472006#post5472006

 

Must be a driver issue. There are plenty of them right now with Windows 7, so I don't imagine it is a good reason to RMA. Install Vista and see what happens...

 

ill try cleaning the registry as much as possible, reinstall the latest from nvidia. if not, a journey to xp (no vista).

edit: reinstalled windows, all good <- edit: xp

 

GPUs are not equipped to perform well on 2 monitors at once doing full throttle 3D (like games). Your frames would be severely hampered unless you disable one of them while gaming.

 

Still waiting for mine..

Any owners care to comment on screen quality? I'm particularily interested in contrast ratio, ie how black is the black? When you switch to a black screen saver is it black or dark grey? Any light bleeding? I'd love to see some screen shots of black-background screens if any would care to share.

 

IMO screen is kinda meh. Black levels arnt great and it seems a bit washed out. This is compared to a dell 2408wfp ultrasharp though.
1920x1080 on a 15" screen is AMAZING though.

Also, anyone getting annoyed at asus with all these terrible utility they give you? Im uninstalling most as we I type this. Like the security vault, fancy start and more useless apps.

 

Interesting. On my first night I played Crysis and I got BSODs, but I haven't messed with the Nvidia control panel at all. Playing Crysis, my temps hit 99C (70F ambient temp in the room) and I even have the ICD7 installed. I'll have to try Furmark tonight. Are you using the stock thermal compound or did you opt for an upgrade?

I'm hoping that once the ICD7 cures my temps will drop. From reading these boards it doesn't sound like it takes long for ICD7 to reach maximum effectiveness.