Howard's Asus G60VX-RBBX05 REVIEW

Heyguys, just bought one of these. LOVE it.

Had one question... i am reading here that i can install a second hard drive..... but cannot igure out where...

Please help? This is my desktop replacement so as much storage would be nice!

 

Haven't been able to be online since pg 17 b/c wireless switch went out completely ( 6days post purchase)...network diagnostics said 'wireless is turned off' but it was turned on but light was off.
I was getting it ready to return it to BBuy and opened it via the Express Gate (which no one has really talked about) and something about the Express Gateway turned the wireless back on. Go figure that....geez I hope I don't get a lemon next time around...it did play WoW at 60FPS but kept getting booted out.

Catzpa

 

Check the pic, in the bottom you have 2 slots where you can place HDD.

You probably gona need a bracket to firmly secure it, but some have used it without for some time, i would still recommend to get the bracket.

 

Well folks- If your new G60VX-RBBX05 has play in the on/off wireless switch (located on front left side) don't waste time fiddling with setting it up just take back for exchange. Mine failed completely by day 6.

BTW- Yes the ASUS manuals are the worst I have ever seen...but I still want this laptop so gonna box it back up for exchange...whine,whine.

 

with all the problems you are having, sounds like a lemon for me. Go get a new one.

 

I already tried calibrating the display and the colors appeared to change after I updated my drivers. I guess I just have to play around with the different color setting till I find something acceptable.

 

how upgradeable is th processor on this laptop? That seems to be the only fallback with this G60.

Other tha tha, it runs better than any other laptop I have used. Going to add a 2nd hard drive and possibly upgrade the Proc.

 

I think buying one too...but... I`m not from US =X (Brazil rs). I`ll travel to US in december or january, and Best buy is one of the easier store to find and buy things, but here in brazil there are lots os taxs to bring eletronics things and I need to know exactly how much it costs in the best buys store(cause I know that are tax over the laptop price, but I dont know how much) and if it`s easy to get a discount if I get 2 or 3 of them(10% off ? 15% ? ^^?) (not only for me.. my friends wants I get some for them too rs).
Ahh... and If there are other good stores like best buy ??(I already know, newegg,compusa,tigerdirect and J&R).
thanks and wainting ^^

 

Not very. Highest it will take is probably the T9900.

 

i was nice to the lady at my bestbuy and she knocked off 20 bucks from the price 979.99 before fees

 

X9100.

And looky, there's one for sale in the marketplace!

 

hey guys first post ere, finally got my G60VX from BB, this forum really helped alot with my decision.

it wasnt without a few nuances at the beginning...

1)the screen i had to get used to... i had a vaio Fz (15") and the screen on that was a bit better than this asus, the viewing angles were better, and the screen seemed more crisper mebe it had higher contrast ratio(dunno).. its max res was 1280x800 i think.

2)had to uninstall the problematic antivirus it came preinstalled with.

3)the express card slot cover is difficult to remove, it has some fight in it. it pops out ok, but you have to pull it pretty tightly if you want to take it all the way out. i thought at first it was stuck/screwed down inside.

4)some preinstalled "cinema player" was causing the "show contents while dragging windows" option to get reset each time i boot/relog my lappy.. took awhile to figure it was the one causing the reset.

5)powermizer doesn't work out of the box, my gpu idles at 60-65C - even when i downloaded the latest certified driver from nvidia(186.81 win7/64bit) it still does not downclock. I took a gamble and download nvidia's 195.39(beta) drivers from http://laptopvideo2go.com/ (modded inf) and now it works! my idle gpu temp is a stable 51C.

well aside from the early problems, i love this thing.. it can play any game i can throw at it(so far)... and the keyboard is comfy even if it has a bit of flex in the middle.

am thinking of getting a new laptop cooler for this thing, as the one i used on the vaio is too small.. that other thing, this laptop is freaking huge for a sub 17" laptop.. i thought since the chassis is the same as the G51(15.6") that it would be near the same size as my 15.4" vaio(i guess the G51 was that much bigger in the first place).

i tested and found that the gpu went as high as 85C when gaming), are these safe temps for the gpu? i know the vaio runs really hot when im gaming on it(8400mGT) and the G60 doesnt seem to run as hot when i run my fingers over the vents for a feel.. but i never really tested the temps of the vaio when i was still playing on it.

 

Thanks for the input! I still can not get powermizer to work either. It either sits at desktop with some browser windows open at 55C running full blast 550/1375/950 or I manually downclock it it 250/350/200 and it is about 6 degrees cooler.

I may wait until the Beta drivers become official and try those.

 

thanks to everyone for all the helpful information. i'll be ordering the RBBX09 on friday so i should have it shortly after. all this info will help me get up and running rather quickly.

so far i'm seeing that i need to get rid of the bloatware, do updates (esp for the wifi), install a new gpu driver so it downclocks, and i should be good to go, right? i was very surprised to see you guys mention CCleaner. can't remember how i stumbled upon that little prog myself, but it is excellent.

 

Ok, so I downloaded the current drivers from the nVidia website, but my GPU sits at 70C at idle.. i know that is too hot compared to everyone elses.

Can someone give me instructions on what to do to get it lower? And exactly what driver to get?

 

From my experience, the 186.82's from laptopvideo2go.com behave really well. The current drivers from nVidia (195 something) were giving me DEP errors when using certain programs.

To solve the temperature issue, check out this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=273276&highlight=powermizer

This utility has worked well for me when combined with the 186.82's.

Hope this helps.

 

Hi, i'm a new here. A question Howard, what wireless card has your laptop (Asus G60vx-rbbx05) , a Intel 5100 or an Intel 5300?

 

Intel 5100 AGN

 

Thanks Beerwolf

 

Too hot. My idle:



I would manually downclock on desktop (I have not found any Powermizer or any driver that works), or crack open the case and use some ICD7 Thermal compound on all of the components.

I found on my GPU that there was at least 25% of the surface area that was not covered at all by thermal paste.

 

guys....this is sorta not but kinda related.. I can't wait...gonna be at gamestop at midnight 11/9....

http://www.modernwarfare2.com/games.php#/videos?id=8

Can't imagine what it's gonna be like on my 1920 x 1080 + ATI 5870!

GTX 260M will handle this easy, especially on 1366 x 768, but this game would be slightly lacking at 720p....damn...I'm still eyeballing the alienware

 

No problem man.

 

hey guys, sorry bout this, but i saw this config whic is good.... its the HP Pavilion dv6-1361sb avail on hp store n j&r....

Processor Intel Core2 Duo Processor P8700(2c)

Display 15.6" Diagonal High Definition HP LED BrightView Display(1366x768)

Memory 4096MB DDR3, expandabel to 8GB

Graphics card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 (M96) with up to 2815MB total available graphics memory with 1024MB dedicated

i really am in favor for the DDR3 ram n processor than wats found on the the G60VX RBBX05, when compared to the G60VX 09, its the DDR3 ram of hp n the hp costs only bout 959$... http://www.jr.com/hp/pe/HP_DV61361SB/

help me out here......

 

DDR3 has almost zero real world benefit. the graphics card in the G60VX will SMASH a 4650.

 

Weak Graphics card.

 

i'll be playing that off of a PS3, 52" Samsung LN52A650, i think i'm set lol

 

i'm with both EIement and CitizenPanda. plus i'm against all things HP personally.

my G60VX-RBBX09 arrives on the 10th, btw. pretty stoked
i'll be doing my first full video review since i can't seem to find any nor good pictures of it.

 

Trust me bro, besides alienware, i have just owned about every single laptop/gaming laptop known to man. HP with DDR 3 ram and ATI 4650 will be DESTROYED by Asus G60 with DDR 2 ram but GTX 260M.

Not to mention ATI mobility 4650 is only 128 bits, and who knows whether HP will give you DDR 2 or DDR 3 video ram. GTX 260M is 256 bits and DDR 3 ram, 4650 is not even close to being compared to 260. THat said, this is purely hardware comparison, nothing to do with brand.


PS: HOwever if you do lots of coding, video editing, and tasks that require a fast procesor and only do light gaming, go to HP, but if you buy this to be your mobile gaming platform, HP lags way behind.

 

thanks folks.... it looks lik i'l b endin up mostly wit a G60VX 05/09 or the G72GX

 

what is everyone using as far as a cooler or this laptop?

Any custom mods i should look into doing to this too?

 

Zalman NC2000 is one of the most common among G51 users, it has gotten good results from the G50vt era, since the G60 is very similar i would suggest to go with the same. NXZT Cryo LX is another option.

Lots of mods can be done, copperblocks, fakevent replacment, undervolting, etc.

 

copperblocks??? Fakevent?? I am a newb... lol

 

this is the one I'm getting
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=notebook_cooler-_-34-991-039-_-Product

 

..
10chars

 

2 days 3 hours till MW2 on my G60

 

Hey do you guys temperature go up and down? mine goes from 58 to 70 something near 80 then come back down (after fan kick in) and i'm not doing anything special. However laptop is cool to touch and still very quiet, fan is very quiet.

 

It does that on default drivers for me. 186.82 is fine, Powermizer Switch works (only with 1 monitor active at a time).

 

And have you guys installed this? see any differnce?

Notebook Release 186



Version:

186.81 WHQL
Release Date:

2009.08.27
Operating System:

Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows 7 64-bit
Language:

English (U.S.)
File Size:

138 MB

 

What 186.82?.....latest I see on Nvidia.com is the aforementioned 186.81

 

NVIDIA GeForce v186.82 WHQL Drivers

 

Hey Thanks for the link. Who made this driver..was it sort of an official unofficial release by MS or Nvidia or was it private user made? Anyone here tried with G60 or G51 with GTX 260m? what's the difference if any? Thanks in advance.

 

IIRC this driver was found with Windows Update, shortly after 186.81 was released, for me they are the best till today, some like more DOX185.85, and some 186.81, just try and see what you like the best.

 

Thanks, just installed 186.81...let's see how this goes first,

 

I used 195.39 and powermizer works like it should, don't need to do anything, it automatically downclocks when not gaming. heck my g60vx gtx260m, downclocked as soon as i installed it and brought down my idle 65C to 55C didnt even need to reboot(win7 didnt ask to)

havent experienced any problems whatsoever. my 260m idles at 50C(core=200mhz shaders=400mhz mem=120mhz), when just browsing.. it automatically goes full clock when i launch a game(core=500mhz shaders=1250mhz mem=799mhz). I think itll be quite a few weeks before nvidia officially launches a cert 195, .. till then im gonna use this beta. unless of course someone tell me that the nvidia powermizer feature works on the latest cert drivers without a hitch. i mean no manual switching or anything, i dont wanna do something as tedious as that. i just want it to work the way it was meant to.

 

It does. You turn it on (once) with Powermizer Switch and it's done. Try running 2 monitors at once with your current drivers - and see if Powermizer still works.

 

Installed 186.81, does not work for me, actually it's hotter running than stock asus shipped driver..

 

186.81 didnt work well for me either under vista, that why i recommended NVIDIA GeForce v186.82 WHQL Drivers, else try the beta drivers you can also dl direct from nvidia, NOTEBOOK RELEASE 195.

 

Thx let me try.

 

haven't installed 195 yet, still has the official 186.81, decided to play a round of COD4 and let it stabilize and installed bunch of security update and what not. The temp seem to stabilize in the high 50 and low 60 for now with .81 driver. I have also downloaded the 195 but kinda hesitant to install it due to all the disclaimer this work that doesnt work ...etc. It's downloaded and ready to go, just want to see how it goes.

Still counting down to Nov 9th midnight~! MW2!

 

Hm...installed 195.....no difference in temperature and checked use CPU-Z core still 500 and memory still 799....