Official Asus G72GX Owners Lounge

Does anyone recommend an affordable laptop cooler? The ones everyone recommends are out of my price range. Maybe something around the $20-40. I'm not planning on overclocking or anything. I just want to knock the temperatures down.

 

CPU uses Socket P and GPU located in MXM 2.1 slot.
Hope that's what you lokking for.

 

Look this thread maybe it will help.

 

Darn it, looked at this again last night at Best Buy (though I'd be getting the A1, probably).

I like how it looks, though it's HUGE compared to what I remember. Dang...it fits my needs though, and is the only system I'm aware of right now that fits my needs, AND doesn't seem to have any weird problems (ie G51jx, Dell M15x, no driver support for G73jh, etc., etc.)

 

You won't find an A1 at Best Buy. I could be wrong, but I think that only online vendors carry them. Also, it has the best value. It comes with the backpack and the mouse.

The G72 is big. It's a monster. I think it might be slightly bigger than the G71. When I had my G71, it slid right into my backback. The G72 requires more effort to get in. I think that it's bigger in the back specifically.

 

Yeah, I think I'd pretty much have to get it from Gentechpc.com, because besides the system, I need a spare power supply, and Newegg doesn't sell any. The largest they sell is 120 watts (at least I hope Gentech is selling first party Asus adapters for their spares...)

The G73 has maybe become a possibility for me too now! AMD is apperently starting notebook driver support next month like Nvidia has had the last two years. Nvidia's still got better drivers, but at least that makes ATi notebooks a realistic choice.

Not sure how big of a deal the differences are.

Seems like the G73 has better cooling
G73 comes with a 1.6GHz i7 versus a 2Ghz Core 2 quad. i7 is faster at the same clock speed, but the Core 2 has a 25% speed advantage...I'm guessing that kind of cancels things out?
And that leaves a 112 core Nvidia part versus an 800 core ATi part. Traditionally, it takes 800 of ATi's cores to come close to 240 of Nvidia's, which would imply the ATi GPU should be twice as powerful as this Nvidia one...except that doesn't seem to jive with the results people are getting, which makes me wonder if the ATi one is paired down more than the number of cores would suggest. I read one thing it may only have 16 ROPs, and maybe the Nvidia one has more? That right there could make a big difference. Not sure. Of course Direct X 11 is theoretically nice, but then so is PhysX (in fact some of the PC Gamer guys said right now they'd rather have PhysX support for games than DX 11).

So...not sure which makes more sense, given they're the same price (well...aside from getting a G72 now, versus probably at least 2 weeks if not more for a G73).

 

now the dox drivers won't cause any complications rigght?

 

They might disable Blu Ray, I'd assume.

 

Well I don't have a blue ray player in mine lol. How much of a performance bump are we talking about with the dox drivers? Also, it asked if I wanted the power optimizer on or off.. what does that mean and should I turn it on or off?

 

Why would they disable Bluray?

 

You need official drivers for the protected path stuff.

 

Well, since I do have a Bluray drive, I should stay away from them then.

 

Has anyone else gotten any BSOD? I got one at start up just a few minutes ago.

 

I was just poking around on Gentechs site and see the G72 now has a $200.00 mail in rebate .. Pretty good deal for all that ...

http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=G72Gx-A1

 

hey all,

I became an owner of a G72GX-RVVBX05 (or something), the one that Best Buy sells, back on 01/26 (that tax refund was in my account less than 12-hours). At the time I purchased it, it originally was one I had looked at but considered too expensive. However, in a stroke of luck perhaps, Best Buy had a sale on it the day I walked in to the store. I had looked at the smaller G60 which was at the extreme end of my price range...but the G72 was on sale for $799 and...while it was larger than I wanted...I just couldn't pass it up. It looked really well built and since I knew Asus' reputation of making excellent motherboards, I figured it was well worth it. I love the fact that I bought a laptop that I didn't immediately have to open up and upgrade (although slapping a core i5 in here would be nice..maybe after the 2yr protection)

So, I may not of gotten as tricked out of a laptop as the other G72 models (would of like to have had a Core i5 and blu-ray), but for what I paid I don't think I could of done much better.

Anyway, I've had no problems with the thing that I haven't caused on my own (32-bit VMware networking killed 64-bit windows). My keyboard hasn't had any of the strange issues other people have been reporting...and I haven't had any BSOD's...the only issues I have is with Adobe Audition and sound and the thing locking up when going to sleep...nothing I can't really deal with. My only real complaint is the covers of the USB ports can be difficult to open and being magnetic...if i slip trying to plug usb in they'll close...I can forgive that, i'd actually rather have them more difficult to open than difficult to keep shut.

Anyway...I've been playing all kinds of games on the thing just being absolutely stunned at the graphics. I've had a number of laptops in the past...all of them were handed down and resurrected from the dead and lasted me about a year each...I tend to be pretty hard on them. Hopefully this will last me a while...well..the service plan i bought will ensure that...but I'm sure you guys know what I'm saying.

It is nice having enough oomph to play Postal 2 and have a room loaded of people blow up and not suffer lag.

 

Quick question: This is is reference to the best buy model. Is it possible to upgrade from the dual core to a quad core, I have hear issues of the bios not recognizing it. Also, how difficult would it be to upgrade the graphics card? I'm getting mine tomorrow! Thanks in advance.

 

Hey, I had my primary hard drive fail after like 1 week, I changed out the hard drive. Anyone know if I can just send in the hard drive and not the whole laptop. In Afghanistan so i can't call cust. service and find out.

 

any idea on the bump in performance that the drivers make when you do the dox drivers instead of the nvidia drivers?

 

As I said performance boos in games will be 5-10%
For example 3Dmark06 on Nvidia 195.62 at all stock 10149
At Dox 195.62 10359
In games it will be 1-5FPS more depending on game.

 

Thank you tim I know I can always rely on you to always answer my question to the fullest.

 

You are always welcome!

 

I have yet another question, the website wwwyougamers.com uses the 3dmark to test your system and find out if it is good enough to run games. Any reason why every time I run it it sais that I only have a 64mb on board video card, and not registering my nvidia GTX?

 

Maybe that this web plugin didn't have your hardware in it's database. That plugin give approximate marks based on hardware you use. It's marks very near to 3Dmark06. Just run 3Dmark06 it will give you results to compare with others.

 

Wow, thanks! I hadn't seen that. I guess that's a rebate for Gentech? That's a little weird...rather just have a discount

Hmm...that would make it $200 cheaper than the G73. I don't know...can't decide...

At least these G72/73 models don't seem to have all the problems those G51 ones do!

 

yeah...ridiculously busy with work these days and my wife's expecting so between the two, I hardly get time for a couple of posts a week.

Is your G72 is running smoothly?

 

I cannot say anything for sure as I've not even cracked anything on my G72gx open (bought 2yr protection with ADH from GeekSquad and have no intention of voiding it in any way). However...from my knowledge the only differences between the various models are the hardware that's included...the motherboards and BIOS are the same. Theoritcally, there SHOULDN'T be any issues with the bios recgonizing a core i5 since Asus makes models with that CPU. The only reason I can think of the BIOS not picking up a chip is maybe it's old BIOS code. When I got my laptop the laptop had a VERY old revision on it...I beleive it's listed on the site but it's listed before ones labeled "first release", it's possible the old BIOS code doesn't pick up the i5's, but Asus has had several revisions now, so the new BIOS code should have core i5 support in it. Just make sure if you do upgrade your CPU that you upgrade to the most recent BIOS revision (602), and for safety sake....don't try any of the WinPhlash utilties...you can boot the bios and access it's internal EZ-Flash utility...which is there because it is or it's there to ensure the Crash-Free BIOS thing Asus started years ago (my A7V8x-x had it...and trust me, I used it a few times)

I'm new, and it wasn't directed at me, but congrats.

 

First of all, the i5 is not a quad-core. That effectively makes your suggestion moot. Second, the i5 would be a downgrade from a P8700. The i5 is not that great of a CPU. I would recommend a Core2 Quad over an i5.

 

Thanks, got any links to the core 2 quad? Also, any links for updating the bios on the G72?

 

Depends on how much you're willing to spend. The Q9000 is on Newegg. It should be compatible because it's the CPU that my G72 has. It's expensive, though.

 

You are wrong. Actually i5 540M is nice upgrade from P8700. They have same frequency.Look this. LINK
@ dewdude core i5 wount even fit to G72Gx motherboards socket. P8700 have P-type socket. Core i5 uses 988 mobile socket.
The only upgrade you can do is to find processor of P-type socket.

 

Wow! My congrats for your family! Very glad for you! And yes my G72GX runs smooth.

 

Thanks, we are excited...although I gotta play as many video games as I can before the baby is born cos I won't have time after that

 

Have you guys ran 3dmark on this machine yet? and if so, what was your rating and can you please tell me the selections you made to run the test.

 

3DMark06
Settings default Resolution 1280*720
Everything stock 10139 marks
GPU overclocked to Nvidias stock 10540 marks
GPU(Nvidias stock)+CPU(15%) overclocked 11600 marks

 

ah.. that's why my score was soo low.. I maxed out the resolution lol

 

I have a bit of a problem, why my overclock option doesnt overclock my laptop? It only seems to accept the power saving and stock options but not the overclocking one, it just dont change at all.

 

My keyboard backlight keeps turning off after every reboot. Any ideas on how to leave the light on as default?

 

Do you have Quad? If yes Quad CPU is not supported by Turbo Gear. Use SetFSB. If you have Dual core CPU. You should enable PowerGear in bios. Go to BIOS settings(F2 during booting) Find String TurboGear[disabled] change it to [enabled] and you are done.

 

well mine is enabled but the problem I'm having with the software is that it will not show in the bios during boot up or in the computer properties that the CPU is over clocked. Also when it's OC'ed some of the games have problems such as dialogue in ME2, it cuts short every sentence.

 

I got the Dual Core and thanks, will try it right away.

 

mmmmmmm...yeah. I was misinformed by my so called engineer friend. I went poking around the Asus forums and this question has already been asked...in fact, here's what I've discovered.

So...apparently if your unit shipped with a quad-core, you can upgrade it, but if it shipped with a dual core, it's missing a phase of the VRM and the quad-core chips won't run....

'tis a shame, was looking forward to putting a quad-core in this thing. so uhh...yeah...i take full responsibility and apologize for my incorrect information.

for starters, during the BIOS boot the CPU runs in it's standard mode. TurboGear is something that's only active when windows is booted up...so you're not going to be able to tell it's overclocked by looking at the BIOS info. As far as comptuer properties, it's possible that windows doesn't update those as much. Pick up a copy of CPU-Z ( www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) this thing will, in pretty much realtime, tell you what your current CPU speed is. I'll post some screenshots at the bottom of my message showing you.

As far as the BIOS setting for TurboGear....when my laptop was out of the box..it seemed to work just fine...which was verified by CPU-Z...HOWEVER....in revision 401 of the BIOS the change listed is "Update TurboGear rule". Honestly, I don't know what rule was updated as it worked before the update and works after the update...however that was the main reason I flashed the BIOS. Like I said, mine shipped with revision 303 on the chip and I believe revision 302 is the .ROM file sitting on the root of my C drive...I felt since those were such early revisions the upgrade my benefit me...might not....didn't break anything so..no harm no foul I suppose.

Upgrading the BIOS is easy. You need to go to the asus download page ( http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us), click on all the right inforrmation (notebook, g72 series, g72gx); now on the page that pops up with the category list you'll see "BIOS (6) [BIOS History]". This is where the BIOS ROM images are contained. Download the ZIP and unzip the .ROM image to your hard drive. Do not use Win7's built-in unzipping tools...when I used that to unzip the file the flasher wouldn't accept the ROM image...I had to get an actual proper unzip utility (in my case, WinRAR)

Now, there's a few ways of doing the actual upgrade. There's a WinPhlash utility under Bios-Utility that will flash the BIOS from Windows...but as anyone will tell you, that's risky and really silly in my book...here's now I do it. Shut the laptop down and power-it back on and go in to the BIOS setup (F2 during the logo), on that screen you SHOULD see "Start EZ Flash" or something similar (I cannot remember the exact wording), select that option and the system will go in to a flash utility. You basically select the .ROM file you unzipped and it'll guide you through the rest. Make sure you're plugged in to a good power-source at this time as I'm not sure what it'll do on battery (probably work since it's a BIOS utility). It'll flash the first part of the BIOS...then the boot-block, then it'll be done. If it gives you an error about being an invalid bios file...or something about a bad boot-block, then your unzipping utility didn't do it right.

One other thing I'll tell you is that if you're curious as to what your current BIOS revision is...CPU-Z's "Mainboard" tab will tell you.

I've put the core speed in a red box so you can see it. As you notice, even in standard it's showing a full ghz lower than normal...probably because standard mode is an "on-demand" deal.

 

I swear... Why is it that I have nothing but problems with my Asus laptops? They suck!! I'm never buying another Asus product again. Everything they make is absolute crap.

My wireless adapter doesn't work again. Nothing works. I even tried the last thing. I re-installed the drivers from the CD, but it didn't work. It's a piece of crap!!

Edit: Finally got it working again. What a pain. Why does the driver keep going bad?

 

Define "nothing works" and "driver going bad"....becuase it sounds like you've just got a simple WiFi hiccup. I've had these too...the WiFi indicator light comes on during BIOS, then goes off...normally this happens when I've booted in to Linux and back to Windows.

I too thought it was just a screwed up driver deal...but an hour of button punching I managed to get it to come back on. Next time it goes out...you know, Windows says there's no wifi networks...and the status light on the front isn't on, try one of these things..because it just did it to me about an hour ago. Press Fn+F2, this should kick it back on. If that doesn't work...go to network and sharing center in control panel, and on the left, click "Change Adapter Settings"...find the Wireless connection, right click and select "disable", after that's done, flip the wireless switch on the right side of the computer to off. Now, flip it back on, right click on the connection and hit enable. This has kicked the wireless back on every time.

I mean, this thing isn't perfect..I've had a couple of hiccups here and there...the NVCPL.DLL error when booting...sound cutting out in adobe audition...my keyboard failing to stay lit (simple windows reboot fixed it)...but these things by far are not the piece of junk your frustration is telling you.

 

I was just really frustrated. I spent nearly an hour trying to get the wireless to work and everything failed. What you described sounds exactly like my problem. The wireless randomly shutting off and everything. I'll remember what you said for next time.

 

oh, dude, I understand. the first time mine did it I went ballistic because I was hoping I'd finally gotten a laptop that wasn't going to have strange issues....however, once i figured out how to get the thing to come back on...it really didn't bother me as much because each time it's happened (which has been a whole three)...i was able to get it working in about the same length of time it took me to notice the problem to begin with.

 

Have you flashed your BIOS to newer one? I faced your issues with wireless, but after updating BIOS no issues at all. Wireless workes flawlessly. Try to update BIOS.

 

Really? I've been having this problem with revision 602...and they haven't released a newer version....

I'll say this..under normal circumstances...the wireless works flawless. There just seem to be some occasions that for some reason makes it hiccup, as I put it. One of the times was after my networking snafu with a 32-bit install of VMWare Workstation...Win7 was locking up hardcore as soon as the desktop booted and I determined since networking was working fine in safe mode...that was the culprit. I rolled back to the previous day and found that while I had no lock-up..I had the disappearing wifi. The FIRST time I encountered it was right after i booted in to an Ubuntu install that for some reason has no working wifi in. Worked on the live-CD...but fails do work in the OS...the light is on but no one is home. However, after rebooting back in to windows the wifi is always gone and I have to do the Fn-F2 bit to get it back (flipping the switch doesn't help unless i'm doing the enable/disable bit).

I wondered for a while if the wifi card required firmware to be loaded in order to work, similar to how my broadcomm did things (and why getting wifi working in linux was a PITA)...but that's apparently not the case...or is...either way I'm getting the same strange behavior with the new BIOS and it seems to happen after booting Ubuntu.

 

I haven't any issues after flashing BIOS on same OS. It's been 2 months now.

 

I'm currently having a problem with the button that controls overclocking. It worked when I first bought it but now it's not working. Anyone know how to re-enable it? Also, what's the one with the circle and the lightning bolt.

 

Have you reinstalled your OS or uninstalled any Asus program related to hotkeys or keyboard(ATK)? That lightning bolt is turbo mode enabling button. Circle one is powersaving mode.