RainMotorsports (Clutch's) ASUS G50Vt-X5 (Best Buy) Review

maybe someone already asked it, but I don't have time to read all the topic =x...

I tried to install windows 7 in my G50, the system work great, but the hotkey, oled screen e some other things are not working =X. I tried to use the same drive that cames in the Restore DVD and research in Asus support But I couldn´t find the specific drives for windows 7. Anyone got it working flawless in Windows 7 ?? and if you could ... how ?? where did you get the drives and etc ?? cause with the vista drivers... these things didn't work =X.

Thanks.. and hope you guys can help me

Obs: Mine is the X-1 (the only diference is the processor as I'm sure you know =D)

 

I believe this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=405257 is the one you're looking for.

 

Thanks a lot =D... I'll try it ^^.... If at least the basic things work right.. thats good enough for me (cause when I tried , the keybord don't work right =X..). Hope that work...otherwise I'll be forced to get used to Vista =X with all the bugs that it have

 

You will specifically need these steps to get the hotkeys working:

 

First of all,

Thanks Clutch for this wonderful review. I've had this laptop actually for quite a few months (It is my first laptop), and I thought it was great besides the lack of a few USB ports and bluetooth.

By the way, Clutch has his laptop that is 'modified' with a Intel Core 2 Duo T9600. Is there a way you can change a CPU? Is this hard to do? I've done it with a desktop, but not a laptop. So I was wondering how complicated it is.

Thanks all, First post =)

 

My understanding is that it is a bit difficult to do and changing the cpu will void your warranty

 

i am having hissing problem while using the headphone :S

Is there anyone know the solution ... ( I have tried driver upgrade )

 

Thanks Clutch for this awsome review!

I just ordered my G50VT-X5 off of ebay for $699, not that big of a discount but owell I'm still stoked I just hate waiting on the mail

Anyone thinking of buying this computer I recommend that you look into going to Bing.com and using there shopping feature and search ebay or tigerdirect.com. I've seen people save $50 or more with Bings new cashback service thing that they offer. I remembered this 1 min after I ordered mine, I kicked myself haha

 

It has nothing to do with the software/driver, it's all hardware as far as we know...

 

I know you can upgrade the CPU on the Best Buy Version but is it possible to Upgrade the GPU to the non Best Buy Version taht comes with the Standard G50vt-X5 for higher Refresh Rates and/or is there a way to use the HDMI Port to hook it up to a HDTV at 1280x720 and have it appear normal on the TV?

 

Both the G50vt-x5 and -x1 models were sold exclusively at Best Buy. When the term Best Buy version comes up, it refers to those two models. All G50vt models come equipped with a 9800M GS, so there's no point in swapping the gpu from the other models.

I haven't tried to connect via HDMI, but I think it should scale down to 1280x720 just fine. It might not be ideal, but resolution is a personal preference.

 

I know from the Asus Website the Non-Best Buy Versions Graphics Card can handle Refresh Rates upto atleast 1920x1080 or higher. Is there a way to achieve that with the Best buy Version of the G50vt-X5? or any Firmware Upgrades that better the Graphic's Card; if so Could you share some of you wisdom with me on how I might go about upgrading it or where to look for the Firmwares for the Graphics Card and also if you know of any the BIOS.

 

Is there a way to have the laptop start up in Turbo Extreme Mode instead of having to manually do it everytime? Thanks

 

do you really think they put a different gfx card in the non BB models?
that would not be cost effective on asus's part. they are the same card. I run duall monitors with a combined res of 2732 x 1536 so yeah it can handle 1080p.
p.s. mine hated hdmi i went for vga

 

my G50Vt-X5 displays 1920x1080 just fine on my Samsung 46" 1080p screen and that's through HDMI.

Plays all my games just fine and displaying them all just fine. It was doing the same when I was on my old G1S-A1 before it died and I had to get this G50Vt-X5 replacement.

 

Has any one placed a T9900 CPU in their Asus G50VT-X5 and if so what does the Vista Experience Rate it at 5.0-5.9?

 

can anyone help me installing a 2nd hard drive? thanks

 

What do you need to know?

 

he also posted on a thread in the main section of the asus forum, drive is recognized but now showing in my computer, I posted a /possible/ solution. Mine had no format when I received it and vista wouldn't recognize it in my computer, I had to format it via disk management first.

 

Yeah thats what I had to do too when I got mine.

 

Can you tell me how did you install the hard drive and what type of hard drive that fit for the laptop please.

 

I was wondering what type of CPU's people have put in there X5's. I have been thinking about switching out the p7450 with something a bit more powerful.

 

I would guess a 2.5" SATA 9.5mm tall HDD is a safe bet. Maybe 12.5mm tall would work too but that needs additional verification.

I would imagine it's as easy as popping off a panel, pluggin in the HDD and screwing it in. Of course if it's the second HDD you may run into problems due to missing bracket and screws. I think people have solved that by reusing 2 screws from the other HDD and using foam to fix the HDD in place.

We also have a disassembly guide for the G50 on the Info Booth.

 

I need help... I have a Western Digital My Book Home edition and I use esata to plug it in my asus g50vt x5 but since i upgraded to windows 7 x64 ultimate it wont recognize it. WHat i have to do is uninstall The Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller under device manager then restart and windows will automatically install the drivers for that and my wd and it will recognize it.. but when i take it off again and plug it in it wont recognize it so i have to do the same thing again uninstall and restart.. how do i fix this?? even on boot up it wont recognize my wd drive..

THANKS!

 

The two HDD bays are slightly different sizes. The second bay is a tight fit for a 9.5 mm drive (in a pinch you can put one in w/o a bracket, but it's not a good long-term solution for regular drives). The primary drive bay is deeper, and should handle a 12.5 mm drive, but I have not tested this.

 

I love my ASUS G50Vt-X5! I don't do much gaming, but I do plenty of photoshop and 3d work in zbrush and it works great. I'm primarily a mac user but i couldn't afford a high end macbook and the ASUS has suited my needs. Thanks Clutch, your review is what sealed the deal for me.

still much to learn about tweaking it for best performance!
thx.

 

Ok guys, I'm going in. Never worked on a laptop before. Took the bottom cover off and was like... Ok... there are three heatsinks and all the copper goes into a fan that looks like it ain't going nowhere...

But here is what I got:
1x g50vt-x5
1x super talent me 128 me (choosen purely for speed/low heat)
1x p9700 (choosen more for running cooler then speed)

My goal is to use this laptop as a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) so with the fast drive it should rock. I actually didnt need the speed of the processor but the goddam p7450 doesnt support win virtualization and my sound equipment only operates in 32 xp so I have to make my win 7 act like retarded backwards generation. me off but the money is worth it to run win 7 for other e. Even though I am now missing one arm and a leg.

Question 1: So I figure i need to take off all the copper heatsinks, which is cool, and I believe I need to take the fan off from the other side first (by removing the keyboard?). so can anyone describe this process in a little more detail? I would be super grateful. This is the most important question for the complete noob. (Also how do you ground yourself when handling laptop parts?)

Question 2: I have no idea whats under those heatsinks, can I replace the thermal pads (if thats what they are) with arctic silver for all of them?

Question 3: After all this, I also need to install the HD. Does it have to replace the WD in bay 1 if I want to install windows and boot off of it? My ideal scenario would be to run windows and all sound programs off of it then record to it and use my other drive for storing files once done. Would that lead to best performance or would I be better off running windows on SSD, sound programs on other drive, and then record to the SSD?

This is a beauty thread, thanks for the inspiration.

 

there is a disassembly guide for the G50 here which should answer the first question:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=318551

 

That is awesome!!! There is two parts about the guide I don't understand

in one part it says "squeeze the vacuum handling pump on the cpu and use this to lift the cpu away"

Vaccuum handling pump? Wazzat?

Also what is the other chip that is heatsinked? Do I also apply thermal grease to this chip?

and does anyone know what you ground your wristband too

 

well first thx Clutch. after reading your review and this topic, i bough the G50VT-X5. but im a gamer, i sold my Q6600 desktop to get more mobility and the P7450 isnt enought for me, so i bought a T9400 and OC'ed it to 2.8Ghz. i got it for 125$us used, i had to bough it at this price ... . i put some MX-2 thermal paste everywhere and i added some ram heatsink on the cooper link between cpu/gpu and chipset. after 1 hours of Renegade-X, a UT3 mod , who need more and more juice than UT3, i got those temp CPU (Realtemp) : 61c/61c and GPU (Nvidia gadget) : 79c. idle temp are CPU : 40c and GPU : 47. room temp : 25c

how you guys find those temp? if i start my Notepal Infiniti to min, i drop the temp to 57c for cpu and 76 for gpu @ max load

 

Those are Solid temps, I would be proud

Me on the other hand. I did replace the CPU as well: p9700

Its gorgeous. Runs smooth, no OC. I didn't want an OC, my comp is for a DAW, not for gfx. Hell the stock cpu woulda ran fine, the important thing is taking care of the major weak link (adding SSD drive for major write speed) and stability. Stability is even more important the speed. With sound you may be capturing something completely unique or playing to a crowd. Comp failure is not an option. But I needed virtualization for some sound gear so.. ya.. Anyways, with win 7 apps everything is super fast and solid (though Ive yet to run games. Just got through stress testing).

The actual process went like this: I pulled off the main two heatsinks (cpu) and was totally impressed by the stock thermal solution. The copper heating core itself IS a thing of beauty, and I am even now wondering if thermal tape would further help with heat by lessening radiation to external environment in close proximity to the chips... Not going to try that but I am a BIG fan of keeping temps down. It leaves headroom and when things are running hot I always kind of feel a little edgy. I like the utter stability low temps offer.

On that note, ya the cooling solution is elegant but the actual thermals in between are complete bollocks. The cpu grease was baked and sparse (on a less then one year old laptop?) and the sound card had a thermal pad.. workable but less then desirable. Anyways when I was in there, I glanced sidelong at the GPU. "Should I replace the stock thermal?"

I know i should have, but just at that moment as I was trying to use alcohol to scrape the residual goo offa the soundcard chip, the alcohol ran down under the amber colored piece of square plastic. "Does that alcohol have thermal grease in it? I think it does" my paranoid, not wanting to buy a whole new laptop/cpu system self said. "We better just close this up, go on our way and pray." "Ya, good idea."

I had already yelled at everybody including the house pet in pre-zen ripping apart an electronics device mode, so I was not high stress. Just - scared. I think its the tight space and the inaccessibility of a laptop if something fries that scares me.

Anyways, I fled. I popped the other two heatsinks on, pretended the GPU would be fine and fled. Tail between my legs. I didn't want any more risk. I have a proper ssd drive coming in and i have one broken electronics component on the go... I HATE broken electronics.

Anyways.. Now Artic silver on the cpu. Idling at 33-35. Heat up to high 40's.
GPU, Idle? Anywhere from 50-70. 85 under stress. .

Its like damn... Why didn't I take that extra step? I can imagine the stock thermal in my mind right now, its some kinda dried out white crusty crap. Thats probably losing me 5-7 right there, maybe more. The arctic advantage is probably another 5 c. Id be sitting at a pretty 73 load right now, instead of wondering whether I really stress it in a hot environment if it will go over 90.

Im used to desktops. 90 anything scares the pants off me. I would be typing with a fire extinguisher beside me right now.

 

that are belong to us is fom some mega drive i think lol

 

Hey Clutch how hot does your Asus G50 run? I see the CPU is over-clocked and so is the GPU. How do you keep it cool?

Thanks, Nick

 

I just ordered mine yesterday. I am just looking for a cheap gaming laptop and this fits my budget! I ordered on eBay with Bing 10% = $619-$62+$14(shipping)= $571 refurbished. I hope it comes as good as new!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Asus-Core-2-Duo...iewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item2eaadf918f

 

Well I can say that my stock G50VT-X5 runs Battlefield Bad Company 2 smoothly!

 

i need help i have a g50vt-x5 now
and i have windows 7 32 bit i want to make raid 0 work but i cant can some one guide me threw the process my email is


[email protected] add me
please help realy sad
i love this laptop

 

Hey, MrPico, I bought the exact same G50VT-X5 on the same Ebay auction a few days before you. How did you get the Bing 10% off? Looking forward to getting this Lappy next week. Good luck with yours.

 

@AdmiralQ
You get bing cashback by registering for a cashback account on www.bing.com
Requirements for eBay are you need to use the Buy It Now feature and pay with Paypal.

After registering with bing.com you have to find eBay in the cashback stores list and select "Go to Store" It will redirect you to eBay and you will see a ribbon on top of your eBay screen(next to user login) that says how many % cashback. It takes 60 days to get the money though. Make sure you see the cashback ribbon on eBay.

Since you already bought it, you can't get the cashback...
This might be useful for your future orders though

@outlaw--star
Try this website with the guides.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=279387

I'm not sure, but I think this guide in there might help:

mike1977's guide on enabling SATA Enhanced mode after installing XP in Compatibility mode.

 

Thanks mrPico. Appreciate the cashback info. Good to know for the future.

 

@Prepseb
At what resolution and setting are you running BF:BC2? Would be nice to know if this laptop is going to keep up with modern games for awhile.

@AdmiralQ
Cashback % changes. Sometimes eBay get 20%.

 

this laptop will keep up with games for awhile

i just bought bioshock 2 well preorderd off steam and that games plays smooth on native res and everything maxed and i get around 40s and 60s fps and up.


but ya i still cant find a game that murders the g50vt-x5 well gta iv takes alot sense its more for quads but sense the new updates i get 20s and 30s now.


like to upgrade the cpu soon too a p or t 9600

 

I first tried at Medium. It was all good then I tried High, still good. I don't remember the exact the setting but it's running in native resolution. (G50VT-X5). I'll post my exact setting and FPS as soon as I can

And yea GTAIV runs perfects with low settings.

All to say that this laptop and the 9800GS is just awesome for the price I paid

 

I want to return mine for this one lol. But won't be worth it to pay return and shipping again

http://cgi.ebay.com/Asus-Core-2-Duo...iewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item2eaadf91d6

 

You want to return your X5 for a X1?

 

Yeah... why not? The X1 I linked has a P8400 CPU and 802.11n wireless card. The color looks cooler too..

Better than the X5 I ordered.. P7450 and 802.11g...

But I won't return it because the shipping fee is not worth it. It would cost me too much. I will just keep my X5 and be happy with it

I haven't received my X5 yet. Scheduled to arrive tomorrow!
I just ordered a 60GB OCZ Agility from Newegg yesterday for $169.99-$40MIR=$129.99
Will install it into the X5 as soon as it gets here
Hope everything works fine!

 

if you get some 667mhzs ram you can overclock that 7450 nicely


that's what i just did with mine today when i tried new gskill 667mhzs ram and now my cpu is running at 2.7ghz gona try more sense it seems too want too go even higher lol

with the stock ram i could ony hit 2.45 stable.


and it helped in games crysis plays so much better now.



update got it too 2.8ghzs and got a 10456 3dmark 06 i didn't think this small cpu can go this high lol

 

Wow... will definately change the ram if I find out that it bottlenecks my CPU's overclock! I see a lot of people stop at around 2.45Ghz so I thought that was the max for the CPU. Thanks for the info.

I was looking at some P8800 on eBay for $200. Could probably get these above 3.0Ghz. Will consider buying one if I can sell my budget budget laptop that I am currently using. Lol.

 

How can you get 1680 x 1050 if you have a X5?

And don't forget that you have DirectConsole. Allows you to OC on-the-fly your CPU.

 

Uhm.. I dunno.. It's weird.. I don't have the laptop yet. Out on delivery truck -.- Come on Fedex! Bring it to me!

Shows 1680 x 1050 on specs from the site I bought it. Only complaints I have is Wireless only g, weak CPU, and design kinda attract unnecessary attention
http://cgi.ebay.com/Asus-Core-2-Duo...QptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item2eaadf918f&afsrc=1


Update: Yup... It's not a 1680x1050 but the wireless adapter is a AGN according to my device manager! I'm not playing with it yet because I have a lot of school work due tomorrow. I will fresh intall Windows 7 on it once my SSD arrives! Can't wait to see a performance boost because the internal HDD already makes this beast so snappy!

 

Good luck.

I bought the same refurbished model and it worked flawlessly for a few months before everything slowly went downhill. The wireless adapted stopped working and before I could reformat using the system discs (1-2 weeks), the machine would no longer boot up.