G51J-A1 Owners Lounge

hardware and software, everything stock.
not sure what caused them, but it was a 4 - 0 0 bugcheck -> PCI-E error (and therefore most likely nvidia's drivers).

no stop issues after reinstalling from a win7 RTM disc. though steam/cod4/punkbuster were a pain because of the reg key locking "feature". took an hour to get steam installed, and even more to finally get pb to work. didn't last after a reboot, so i nlite'd myself xp (sata, wifi, chipset from intel; sound from realtek; lan from atheros; sd/mmc from ricoh). works like a charm.


battery usage is awful enough that win7's improvements don't matter. 2h 00m with win7, 1h 50m with xp on 3 brightness and no keyboard lights.

cod4 plays at 60+ (vsnc'd) on every scene, 1920x1080 16xAF 2xAA all maxed etc.
CSS/TF2 (with mat_picmic -10), hardly a challenge.
ill get 3dmarks up when after i download it.

 

@Thalanix
Hi,

I have the G51J from Gentech (Ken is awesome) I have been having compatibility issues with Windows 7 x64 and have decided to go back to xp pro. Do you have links for the drivers you used that were successful?

Thanks,

Allan

 

Just got mine a few days ago.
Here is a screenshot for an online contrast test.

 

hey can anyone with the g5j run a far cry 2 benchmark?

1920x1080

All setting set to ultra high, very high, high or the highest setting possible. Bloom enabled. No AA/AF. No V Sync. Ranch Long, 3 loops and post your results?

 

edit - to go into the benchmark right click far cry 2 and hit benchmark

 

I finally got my G51J in the mail today. I have noticed one super annoying problem: The fan spools up and down CONSTANTLY. Every 20 seconds the fan spools up, runs 10 seconds, then shuts off. This is from doing mundane tasks like uninstalling a program! I'd much rather the fan ran on low constantly than spooling up and down.

Is anyone else experiencing this? I've only used the machine 45 minutes and it already drove me nuts.

 

have you checked your temps? you might be having a powermizer issue. (clocking high and driving your temps up)

 

Yeah my temps are standard I think and my clocks are all scaling back normally... I think this puppy just runs hot as hell. I am transferring stuff from my external HDD and my fan hasn't shut off once.

 

Tell us your temperatures. They're not "standard" if your fan is going full blast while moving files.

 

Just got mine yesterday, thought i'd do a mini review.

As far as performance goes i did a couple of tests, and my numbers are similar to Ryzeki's review numbers. ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=427948)

3dmark06 scored 9980 (no overclocking).

As far as build quality and fit and finish, i have to say that i was quite impressed, really liked the keyboard.

The fan is quiet most of the time, and even when it goes to max it's more than acceptable.

Heat: You can play with this laptop on your lap, and it stays cool pretty much everywhere except for the exhaust vent, which blows some pretty hot air out.

I had the special thermal paste installed on my cpu/gpu and believe it's still working in. My max CPU/GPU ever was 77/98 degrees, and after 24 hours i reset the maxes and it's dropped to 72/89 max. I wish i had a fan control utility because i would prefer to kick up the fan earlier. When the fan does kick in to max the temps drop pretty quickly and dramatically, i suspect if they ran on max all the time while gaming the gpu wouldn't ever exceed 80.

The most disappointing thing and to me the only really disappointing thing about this system is the screen.

I admit i am kind of a screen guy, and a stickler about it, and this one really does bug me. The black levels and contrast ratio are very poor. The viewing angles are quite bad to the point that the "sweet spot" is so small that it is almost claustraphobic.

If i were to rate say a macbook pro, or a dell xps16 RGBLED screen as a 10 out of 10, i would score this screen somewhere around a 3 in comparison.

That said, i have to say the screen is very good in many ways. For instance, it's very bright, and the colors are very uniform, no blotchiness on the whites for example.

But my god man, the black is like a strongly back-lit shade of grey, and the intensity of the grey moves around the screen with the slightest change in elevation of your line of sight. I think you guys know the kind of screen i'm talking about.

Anyway, sorry about the ranting, but it is enough for me to be strongly contemplating swapping the screen with a compatible better one. I've read in a couple threads that the LG screen in the WLED XPS 16 is compatible, anyone have any information on that?

 

I agree, the screen is not very good. I'm disappointed it ended up being such a large downgrade from my G50v. I've been screwing with the Splendid settings which seem to help a bit, but it's still pretty damn poor. What splendid setting have you been using, teflon? I've been using theatre or soft... seems to chill out the brutal blues.

Forge: These are my temps after about a half hour of surfing the web and checking email. The fan has been running on low for the last 15 minutes constantly.

ACPI - 70c
CPU - 71c
GPU - 70c

I think overall with this laptop due to the massively higher noise levels than my G50v, high temps, the crap speakers, and horrendous screen I'm borderline on returning it entirely. If I didn't have to pay a restocking fee I'd surely return it.

 

I generally settle for the one called "gamma", although i like the "Soft" one as well.

I could live with the other little things, and i agree it does idle fairly hot, and the speakers aren't fantastic, but that screen is just so... bad. When i first turned it on with a big smile on my face expecting to see a nice dark black screen with a bright colorful logo in the middle and instead seeing that uneven grey soup, my smile disappeared beacuse i knew what kind of screen it was, and more importantly, what kind it wasn't

Even playing games i notice the bottom 25% of the screen looks washed out and less contrasty, and it just bothers me. (looks like the LED backlighting is predominantly at the bottom).

I'm borderline returning it too.. i just got it yesterday, i'll give a couple of days and see. I think most people just don't care about screen quality that much, all they care about is "How big is it? How many pixels? How bright is it?"

But put it side by side with a quality screen and 100% of them wouldn't choose it.

 

I tend to play on very WELL lit rooms and the greyish is mostly gone. But I agree that playing on a dark room the image gets too damm bright and too grey.

 

i agree with all that has been said about the screen. Im not to happy with it. 15.6" screen 1920x1080 is abolutley amazing though.

 

I just ordered this notebook and should get it later this week or early next week. I just wanted to ask you guys who already have it, is there anything I should know or do once I get it? I read something about the sound and resolution being lowered? Is this how it is on everyones or is it just on some? How do I fix these things?

 

Damn didn't really want to hear about the screen, just after I've pulled the trigger on this. But either way I'm going to be ecstatic as it's gonna be an absolute HUGE step up from my current laptop (Acer Aspire) which is a joke of a laptop - the fans need to kick in when I'm watching a video on youtube.

 

lol well, the fans on the g51j will kick in for youtube too. in fact, they run pretty much constantly.

but if it makes you feel better, i've seen some really damn ty acer screens, the g51j's are probably better than your acer.

 

Sound is low volume. There is a place in windows to add a little more volume to the sound in 'advanced' sound options.

As with almost all high res screens windows comes with the DPI set to 125%. This setting doesn't affect games. You can change the DPI in display properties to 100% and use all the pixels in windows.

 

After playing around with the nVidia Control panel's color correction settings (brightness/gamma/color levels etc) i managed to configure it to a (barely) acceptable level of contrast.

I could see that if you use the laptop in a very well lit area, you might not notice the black level problem, and be quite happy with the screen. It is exceptionally bright crisp and even. But even under these conditions you will definately notice that the blacks are very grey when watching movies, or playing games with dark backgrounds. If you use it in a relatively dim area like i do, it becomes much more noticable.

Besides the screen, this notebook is, quite frankly, fantastic. After 2 days of burn in, my max CPU/GPU temps have lowered to 71/85 under heavy load, and when it hits 85 the fans kick up and the gpu rarely passes the 80 degree mark (78 is probably the mean temp playing games). Performance is very fast. I recommend wiping the system clean when you get it, ASUS installs a ton of TSR's that are mostly pointless, and i've found it's quite a bit perkier.

My old notebook had a really nice screen and though it was not LED backlit, and it is dimmer than the ASUS screen, when i toggled the screen on and off from a black background, you could barely tell the difference.

With the ASUS, it goes from pure black(off) to a fairly bright grey whitewash.

 

there is really nothing that can be done with the sound, yes you can tweak it to where it is audible but just barely.I have an older laptop with the same issue but it is in fact louder than this one but you had to add external speakers if you were using to play movies on it. anyway on the old laptop I will experiment with different speakers or using an amp circuit from a cheap powered set.

 

Ha ha fair play. How ever, the fans on my Acer are because it actually can't handle anything more than a forum. Can't even play flash games without it lagging lmao.

But yeah, Really excited for this notebook

 

set the volume on BIOS to 8. this will add sound higher a little.

 

Hey guys

As you can guess im also new to this forum, i ordered my G51j from BTOtech and hopefully it'll arrive sometime next week (importing from the US to my home in the UK). Lets just hope customs dont hold onto it for too long :s

Just to start by saying thanks to you all, the discussions on these forums really helped me with choosing this laptop. Also a thank you to Ryzeki for your in depth review of the laptop...i found it very very informative.

So now thats the butt kissing part over i have a simple question to ask. its well documented that the G51j's speakers arent that great and that external ones are probably the best way to go. Iv noticed that theres three headphone ports on the side of the g51j (well headphone, mic and that other spidif thingy). If i was to buy external speakers such as a 5.1 system they need to be connected to three ports (for front, centre and rear speakers). Would these go into the three connectors on the side of the g51j or would i need to buy a seperate external sound card.

Also as you guys are experiences notebook users and gamers, do any of you know of a decent pair of 5.1 gaming headphones. Price isnt an issue but id rather spend less than more

p.s. im renowned for bad grammar, spelling and i lack of the ability to be consice, so bear with me. Thanks guys - Fraz

 

Guys whats all this about the G51J3D? I'm considering switching my order!

 

There's a limited edition G51J-SZ028V coming out at end of November with a 3D capable 120Hz refresh screen, bluray, and a couple other tweaks i think.

 

it would be awesome if they tweaked the sound, that's the only lowpoint I have

 

For you G51J owners....have any of you guys seen the screens on the older G2S models before? If so, how does the screen of the G2S compare to this screen on the G51J?

Reason I ask is because my current laptop is a two year old 17" G2S, and I notice a lot of backlight bleed and really some of the same things mentioned in this thread. But if the G51J screen is about the same or even a little better then I won't have anything to worry about (I personally think it's not a bad screen on my G2S anyway) when it comes to placing my order. Well except for the keyboard flex that I've seen in the BB models and the wireless card that comes with it (speaking of which....would it be possible for me to swap out the wireless card with either a 5100 or 5300 later on if the stock one doesn't do the job?).

 

yes, you can switch out the wireless card. it takes a half-sized card.

 

BTW, can anyone tell me why we need to burn our own recovery media? I have a recovery partition, and it came with a Driver/Software DVD + a Windows 7 Media disc... so what exactly is on the recovery media that isn't on the 2 discs?

 

Thanks for the info, Element. Any suggestions on where I can find either a 5100 or 5300?

And for my other question about the screen....anyone have any input? I'm pretty sure I won't be too annoyed by the poor black level but just want to see if anyone can give me a comparison to what I have now to make sure.

 

Hey guys could someone please answer my questions in my previous post, much appreciated

 

Anyone have any experience with Blu Ray on this machine? I'm worried the refresh rate will be too slow and therefore, playing a Blu Ray movie would ghost the picture.

 

I installed a blu-ray drive in mine and it looks fantastic. I use PowerDVD 9 to play my Blu-rays.

 

Does anyone know if either HD bay could accept a 12.5mm drive?

 

Hello and thanks for the support. In case you want to connect a pair of 5.1 speakers you would need to get an attachment or a external card because as you said, the three slots are for SPIDF, Audio jack and Mic. I use a 5.1 Logictech connected to my single audio port (via a cable that splits Right and left) and even though it is not true 5.1, sound is great.

For gaming headphones I use Plantronics Gamer headset, which sound good enough but they are not as loud as other plantronics I have used. I always keep my headphone budget around 60dlrs to get a decent price/performance set, because there are undoubtedly better headphones but they cost a heck of a lot of money and they are not that worth in my opinion.

 

Getting my G51J shortly, just waiting for FedEx to get to my work. So excited I could pee my pants! Retiring my Inspiron 8200 feels so good. I can't even imagine what the jump in performance is going to feel like.

Maybe I'll post some thoughts/impressions/benchmarks later. Dying to give Crysis a try.

 

Grats, it should run fine, just make sure you monitor your temps, as Crysis probably will push it to 90C+. HWmonitor to record max/min and Evga Precision for in game (rememeber to activate the option to display in game)

 

I recommend 1920x1080 all medium (Textures on high) to have a smoother experience.

 

Pre-ordered from NewEgg yesterday and can't wait until it gets here! So help me if I don't get one of inbound shipments! Had bought an ASUS G60 at Best Buy before I realized how much I would hate the 720p screens! My old Dell XPS M1710 has a 1920x1080 and I loved it. Too bad the nVidia card doesn't like Windows 7 and and has fried twice now. Now it's a great laptop... in VGA only mode. Sheesh.

-Gameshow

 

Just getting settled in, downloading programs, antivirus and what not. Didn't feel like doing a fresh install of the OS, too freakin excited to wait. I'll do one in a few months.Plus I got stuff I need to be doing on this thing.

Build quality feels really nice. Getting used to the screen, its almost too much, in a good way. Very bright, very sharp. Mouse is a nice touch. Lots of windows updates already, sheesh. Backlit keyboard is nice touch. Could use a physical mute button. Air coming out the left is HOT, and I'm just screwing around.

 

Cheeseman's now part of the G51J-A1 club!
I rushed out and bought the last one in stock. It's too early too judge, but I'm pretty damn satisfied with this over my previous G50Vt.

 

Welcome to the club! I am pretty satisfied too, and I also come from a G50vt-x1

I have no problems running all my games on 1920x1080 either. Even Crysis runs well enough at medium settings and such high res heh.

 

I wanna join the club!!!

Ordered my Asus G51J-A1 today from www.xoticpc.com. It will arrive December 15th by request (not in town).

I CANT WAIT!!!!!!

 

Just got mine today also. reformat the OS and install window 7 eternity x64
haven't install any games yet. Will test it out soon.

 

The first game I installed was Battlefield 2 to run Project Reality mod and all I get is the lovely blue screen of death whenever I try to plan the game. The only other game I tried without having any BSOD issues was Crysis and that I quickly got bored of following by an installation.

 

Me too Except mine will arrive ASAP

 

Congrats! I wish I could get mine earlier, but I'm out of the country and won't be back until the Holidays

Cheeseman:

Besides the BSOD...is it a block of beauty? Can you shoot out some pros and cons for us with your first experiences on it?

Thanks!

 

cons;
- the screen looks like grey soup in a (very) dark room
- battery life is apx. 100 minutes on my commute (browsing + bluetooth)
- bsod, but not on xp
- monstrous bezel
- the keyboard flexes around the 4 - h - 9 key triangle

pros;
just about everything not a con

 

Well I just pulled the trigger and ordered a G51J for myself from the egg. Hopefully they get them in stock on Monday like it says on their site and I'll get it by the end of the week.

 

I have completed crysis and have started on warhead. Also playing COD4 online no bsod's yet