Ryzeki's Asus G51J-A1 review

All signs point to the fact it should significantly out perform the 260m/360m as all they are is re-branded 9200 series Mobile chips. ATI does a better job of actually coming out with updated designs and chips for there mobile sets than nvidia.

 

Hey guys, I really need your help right now.
Firstly, I wanna say thanks to Ryzeki's review for helping me chosing this sick laptop.
I placed an order on GentechPc last week and today they call me to confirm my order, but the problem is, they say that they'll change the model G51J-A1 to G51JX-A1, all the same but video card changed to NV GTX 360M DDR5. It makes me confused. So please can anyone tell me if it's a good deal when the video card changed? Damn, it's my first laptop so far so i really want everything good, the machine will work perfectly.

Waiting for u guys, sorry for my bad english =))

 

if your paying the same money, then yea your getting a good deal. The 360M card is realistically the same as the 260, just a slight upgrade on the Ram, but lower bit rate

 

Oh, it is a good deal. Performance wise it should be the same, but the 360M perhaps gets a little less hot.

At any rate, you got yourself an amazing laptop.

And thank you for reading my review!

 

Would be amazing if the JX model doesn't BSOD, think a lot of J users will try to get their J's replaced with it

 

Yeah, though the only difference would be the video card as everything else including the motherboard seems to be the same haha So! we would all get GTX 360M cards

It would be awesome if the BSOD thing could get fixed soon. I want to play Borderlands!

 

lol same here

 

Yea, if it does not get BSOD, I think I will send mine back as a defective product and request the JX version, and its 50 bucks cheaper!!!

 

Thank you guys for responding me quickly, but I have another question:
Do they have the same gaming performance or 360 is slightly better than 260?
If yes, I ll definitely get this laptop tomorrow

 

Its all speculation at the moment, since there is no definitive information regarding the GTX 360m. But many have guessed that it'll just be the same as the 260M with GDDR5 ram @ 128bit instead of 256bit

 

Just like Hydeo said, all speculation, but it is slightly upgraded in 1 area, and downgraded in another, so I would probably put there performance on par with each other

 

that would be fantastic!
I've found a little problem with the keyboard on this laptop though, it seems that when you hold the spacebar down and move it down slightly it can sometimes get stuck into position which can be very annoying when word processing or playing video games.. I don't know if i'm the only one who noticed this but I just noticed it while i was typing this! try it to see if it locks up on you, which can happen pretty easily for me. Not to nitpick I just thought it was kind of uncool how that happens.

 

hi guys
thanks Ryzeki for the good review
i just got my asus g51j

i just have few questions to ask u guys
i noticed some issues with my laptop
some keyboard keys don't feel ok, they feel harder than others like the left Ctrl and the Caps lock.

the screen colors look so bright like the yellow is too yellow i tried the nvidia control settings u posted but still the colors dont seem normal to me

and i had bsod once while installing razer mouse driver

did any of u guys got any of these problems?

thats all cons about this laptop otherwise everything is perfect

thanks in advance

 

There have been a few reports of keyboard issues, mostly being "unresponsive" to fast typing. I do feel your report of keys feeling "harder" than others is the first ive seen personally.

Have you tried turning your contrast down a bit or using the ASUS Splendid utility to find an euqal medium for colors you like? Splendid is probably one of my favorite tools from asus.

If you can, can you look in your error logs and copy and paste what your BSOD was and post it up here for us to see.

 

on a side now to the G51J-A1, does anyone know where I can buy a new back panel cover so I can Drill MOD one for increased airflow and have another in the event I need to RMA it for service? Also, does the G51VX back panel work on this model? They look similiar, just not 100% sure if its the same or not.

 

Thanks for reading, and I would advise to post a picture regarding the screen. I haven't noticed the yellow color being a problem at all so maybe you could have a problem with the screen itself.

I didn't get a BSOD except with Borderlands so far, no other software has caused it yet. And the Keyboard issue seems weird too. Where did you buy it from? Depending on how your issues progress and what we can help with, you might have to send it to Asus for repairs.

I think you can fit the normal G51 back panel, as it is the same. You can buy it off from the Asus store for replacement parts. You can check with Ken from GentechPC to verify if the panel is the same.

 

i had the BSoD with the copperhead drivers as well. left ctrl had a crunchy feel at first, that went away a week or so after wearing it in (CoD4).

the g51's use the same chassis, so i see no reason it shouldn't fit.

 

Well, my busted headphone jack isn't my only problem any longer. It seems like Murphy's law is in full effect with my G51. Lately, the laptop has been freezing fairly often while I've been using it. What's the best way to diagnose the reason for the freezing and fix it? These problems are getting old...

 

windows event log. use your judgement to look for out-of-place stuff.

 

The freezing problems are sometimes attributable to the creative sound drivers/software. Try uninstalling it.

 

Well I just got my machine couple of weeks back and it is amazing... I just have a minor issue with the keyboard... When i press Left-Cntrl and Space Keys together my keyboard seems to freeze and stops responding... Kindly help me with this issue...

 

Goto Region and Language in your control panel. Select the Keyboard and Languages tab at the top, and then delete the Chinese keyboard layout.

 

Bah, I want to get this laptop baaaad. No one seems to have them in stock

 

because its been discontinued and replaced with the G51JX

 

My statement still stands true >.>

 

thanks for ur replay
how can i get to error reporting log so i can post my bsod details?
about the screen its not the yellow issue but all colors look so bright and shiny.
i bought my pc from Gentechpc.

thanks.

 

Well, when I got the BSOD and restarted the machine, a windows screen promted me for an action-- to send information to Microsoft or cancel, and there you can click on advanced or something like that and shows the full log of the BSOD.

The screen is indeed extremely bright. You can, and probably should, decrease brightness on the screen with FN+F5 a bit. I always use it near 50% haha

 

thanks for ur help Ryzeki i will try to find comfortable display settings

 

Whoa! Somebody's selling a 51J on Amazon for $1899 (in the US)! Could our laptop be SO desirable as to drive up prices?

 

Probably just cos u can't get it any more so they're trying their luck lol

 

considering the short run, we could call them "limited edition."

 

Hello all,
first of all, thx for great review.
I too have decided on this beast laptop.
Today, it finally arrived.
overall, everything seems to be good except one thing.

I tested the system with 3dMarkVantage to see if I am up to the standards. I quickly found out that I am not.
Here is what my score looks like

The video Card is performing the way it should be, however the CPU results are slower than what they should be.
About every review I've found benched around 5200 total score on Vantage Performance test.

I have tried to run many tests with and without 'Power4Gear Hybrid' utility.
Even with Extreme Turbo on, Turbo on, and turbo off.

I never seem to get above 5k.

I have the latest Nvidia drivers and latest directX installed.

Help.

 

Thanks for reading! As for your results, don't worry those are fine. I found out that the CPU gets inflated scores because of Nvidia physx, thus getting an overall higher score. So! You are good!

 

ahh, thx for your fast reply,
that's good to know, for a second I thought I had some lemon and would have to return.

Now, regarding the Power4Gear Turbo, Extreme Turbo, and No Turbo setting, which do you think is best to use. (I'm not worried about battery). Because I read the Turbo actually slows down things in some cases.

 

Luke, I just bypass the Power4gear setting and use Windows' high perfomance setting and have actually seen improvement in both games and just general browsing....Also as to the short run of these things, we do indeed have a limited edition, lol, as I was thinking about upgrading to the newly announced G73 and even talked to Xotic about it and was told that demand is still quite high with this model b/c of the GTX 260 and the extra HDD, but after seeing that the gpu card on the G73, while an upgrade, is only 128 bit...I'll stick with my G51J....I'm not really having issues with the BSOD anymore, but then again the only game that I play that has confirmed BSOD is BF2 and I haven't gotten one in a while. Also, the highest my gpu has hit yet is only 83C while playing crysis on high with x16 AA. This machine is a beast, and may be crippled in certain games, but those games that aren't affected run smooth as butter.

 

User l3g4cy99 has returned a new G51J back unopened from Iraq; I'm not sure to which vendor, but if you PM him he can tell you and you may be able to snag it.

Good luck; I have had zero issues with my G51J (touch wood); I love this machine.

 

Oh, a 128bit GDDR5 card can be much more powerful than our GDDR3 256 bit card hehe, the important thing is memory bandwidth, not just memory bus or speed, but both. The HD5870 is still about 30% stronger too, however I don't think that 30% extra performance is worth for me right now so I will stick to my G51J

This really is an awesome machine, despite the weird BSOD.

I use Power4Gear but I never use the turbo or turbo extreme. those lock the CPU at quad core and overclock it a bit, but that will only be useful in applications and games that do use quad core, which are not many, so most of the time they will actually lower performance heh.

 

That I never knew, thanks for the info

 

I bought it originally from Newegg.com I actually just received it in the mail today and was planning on shipping it back out today for my Refund to newegg.

 

Hey guys, I just found that on Gentechpc, the new model G51Jx-A1 is a bit more different than G51x-A1, not just the difference in VGA like before, now the G51JX in standard version has 6GB memory (2GBx3) and fewer disk space:500GB w/o secondary HD...

 

Yes, g51jx-a1 has GTS 360M inside not GTX 260M.
Personally if g51j-a1 has no BSoD issues, I would keep the g51j-a1 instead of g51jx-a1 since g51j-a1 has more power.
More ram doesn't really mean much unless you do some serious stuff that can affect the ram. (example multiple screens)

 

Thanks for the review!
I have added it to the Info Booth and to the Reviews and Owners' Lounges Index.

E.B.E.

 

Hey thanks! It feels like quite an achievement. Hopefully I can make an even better review with the G73JH-A1 haha

 

ill be waiting for it

 

My friend put in an Intel X25-M G1 80GB SSD. With ssd w7 loaded in about 30 secs. I was going to purchase his Asus G51j but then I found a forum with over 144 pages regarding the still unresolved BSOD issue so i'm waiting for the x version. Either way his windows experience score was a 7.6 with the Intel X25-M G1 80GB SSD see here. At first I thought putting 2 SSD's in raid 0 would give you the fastest score because isn't 2 workers doing the same job better than one. Anyways on a desktop configuration with a quad core OC setup - dual hard drive config in raid 0 with 2 transcend 160GB SSD's and the max score achieved on windows experience was a 7.2 see here . The intel x25 screams past that score 7.6 w/o a raid 0 config. I also found that the G51j does not have a raid 0 controller which sucks but in the end 7.6 is the best iv'e seen so far. Going to throw one of those in the Asus G51jx-A1.

My thoughts on the G51jx-A1

DDR5 is a definite plus

no dual hard drive configuration - not a big deal it didn't come with a raid option with the G51j-A1 anyways

6GB RAM - Great but going to upgrade it to 1333 - AUM DDR3 PC 10660U 4GB (2GBx2) 1333Mhz SODIMM purchased from sharinc09 on ebay. I put that in my MSI GT640 and got a 7.4 on windows experience it is cheaper than any ram out there but is definitely great quality paid $83.35 for 4GB so probably around $120 for 6GB of 1333Mhz sellers link here

Provantage has the Asus G51jx-A1 it for sale for $1428 shipped to California no CA TAX Working on a deal with FrostyComputers if they give me a better deal ill post it here.

 

New BIOS 207 (Fixed Splendid button can’t work).

 

I had sent my G51JH back to ZipZoomFly for Rma, but it came back to me! I decided to keep it. It is a fantastic laptop with a few quirks. I never did have the Bsod problem, just the shutdown problem but the work-around is easy. I will hold onto this lil' guy as my secondary laptop while the new G73JH will become my power-house.

As a side note, I ordered an LG HT10N internal blu-ray drive off of ebay for 75 dollars and installed it with the faceplate that came with the Dvd Burner that shipped with the machine. Works great! Cheap upgrade for those that want Blu-ray in the G51's.

 

I agree that it is a fantastic laptop. It sucks that there is a BSOD issue but I don't play all the time, and since Borderlands doesn't work, I just play the rest of my games fine.

I was considering keeping it, but it seems there is an offer to sell it at a very atractive price.... so I most probably will sell it.

The G73JH would be the replacement

If all works well, I will get the G73JH and make an awesome review out of it. With 24hr gaming tests to ensure no BSOD haha. If not, I will just keep my G51J and enjoy it.

 

Hey all,

I just registered here and I cannot find this laptop to purchase ANYWHERE! Newegg and Amazon have it listed as "Not Available" and another website (forgot the name) said it didn't expect anymore from the manufacture. Didn't this thing just come out a few months ago? Was hoping to make it my first ever notebook.

Edit: I just found that the G51JX-A1 is replacing the G51J-A1 on excaliberpc.com? They are both listed at the same price, but the JX is on pre-order with more RAM, less hard drive, and better graphics card?

 

It's being replaced by the G51JX-A1.