Sunny's G51VX-RX05 Review

And the G51 isn't even the best of the best. Try out one of those Alienware 280m SLI or the W90vp with Radeon 4870 in Crossfire.

Of course, you're spending at least twice what you did with the G51.

 

is your brother getting the g50vt-x5? because i heard those come with a 8 cell batt which is definitely better than the 6 cell the g51 coomes with. If only the g51 could pull of 3 hours on battery i would have no doubt about buying it for college.

 

Ahhh, thank you for explaining that to me. I've never liked best buys service unless its changed in recent years. Before they couldn't fix anything and had to ship everything off.

None of you guys are having missed keyboard strokes? I'm wondering if its just my machine or because im female and have a lighter stroke then you guys do. I guess i'll find out what best buy says or just use an external. Thanks..

 

I so wanted to make a joke. Nah.

But I haven't had any problems with missed keys. Does it happen all the time, or only during some specific writing?

 

With laptops its still basically the same thing, they don't really have the tools or the space to be able to hold laptops there for individual parts to come in and work on them...So turn around time for laptops usually suck, but for desktops its pretty good, because they are easy as hell to work on.

 

yea most likely the x5 version, it seems like a decent machine

 

Sorry to completely change the subject on you all, but after experimenting on this great laptop, I've acquired some really nice test results (10199 on 3DMark06) which is reasonably well, considering the high heat 'problems'. However, to the cooling subject, I have applied AC5 to my laptop, and I have seen within the past week, an almost 4 Celsius drop (Not too bad, since now my GPU won't go past 89 C while playing Crysis Warhead). Anyhow, I have been thinking, since the heatsink isn't that great in this computer (hopefully ASUS might fix that problem), I was thinking about putting together a watercooling kit for this laptop. After some careful examination, I feel that with the right modifications to the laptop itself, it could be possible, until then I'll search a bit.

 

Hey, this is my first post.
I have the exact same laptop, running everything stock as well.
I have noticed that in the Crysis beta, the tilde (~) key doesn't bring up the dialogue box (it does on my desktop). I assume this is a keyboard driver problem, as a few hotkeys in other games don't work either. How can I fix this? I have tried the three following things:
1. In Crysis, I pressed every single key on the keyboard, then did that again with shift, then with control, then with shift and control. Nothing.
2. Updated all keyboard drivers in device manager. Every one I tried (4) said that the best driver was already installed.
3. Installed the keyboard driver on the G60 Drivers/Utilities CD. I rebooted, and it still doesn't work. Sunny, or anybody who can help, I noticed that in the pictures of Crysis on the first page of the thread, the info is displayed, so I must be doing something wrong.

If you all could help me not only get this tilde key issue resolved but also the other hotkey trouble I'm having, that would be great.

By the way, I can type in word, notepad, powerpoint, etc. with all keys perfectly, it seems that this only occurs in games.

Also, xcskiier, how did you get a T9800 into there? Are you having cooling issues? Is it that much faster than the P7350 (that's probably a stupid question, but I was wondering what you were experiencing).

Thank you,
Mark

 

Don't try or waste time on it. It is currently impossible to do it since the water pump would be too big. The idea has been discussed on the forums quite extensively a while back but basically everyone ended up concluding that even if it was possible, you would have to basically design your own custom chassis.

That is a known issue with some various laptop models across lots of brands. Basically, there is some driver that assigns a different function to the "~" key. Best way to fix it is to download the program that remaps "~" to a key that is usually never used like Break or something like that.

 

Thanks, what program do I use? If you could provide a link that would be great.

Thanks for your help!!

 

I haven't used it personally but I think AutoHotKey should work

 

Out of curiosity, when I opened up my laptop, I discovered that the vent right above the fan on the bottom of the laptop is actually shut, and sealed off. Why is that? I'm sure to create a vacuum possibly, however, once I saw my friends Sager NP8662, his laptop remains rather cool, and his vent isn't covered by a black sticker (as shown in photo below). But once I peeled off the sticker, I noticed there isn't anything there, it's not even a real vent!



Please someone explain this 'non-sense' to me, I'm rather confused with this artificial vent, that serves no purpose rather than sheer cosmetic.

 

Sigh.....long story short, it is covered up because the Asus engineers found that covering that vent increased air flow across the entire system so it was better overall than having that as a vent.

 

Here is the picture of when I removed the 'sticker'. Also sorry about the picture size. I'm just really confused why ASUS would manufacture this if they weren't going to use it for any advantageous reason.



Again, what the hell. And if any of you are asking, there is no metal you can pry off from the circle to reveal a vent, its all just one piece of the case cover...

 

Wow, I would think that this would help out my CPU and GPU temps enormously, anyway, thanks Tevash, maybe I might custom drill a vent and see how well the laptop cools down, depending if anyone would like to see if the results are promising...

 

You'd actually be decreasing airflow from the GPU, because the exhaust vent is right next to where that larger vent would be. Considering the GPU gets considerably hotter than the CPU, you'd much rather have better air flow from the GPU onward that have it stagnate and give better air flow only to the CPU. I made a diagram a while back showing what kind of effect this would have...

 

Well thanks for the diagram, but at least you can't say that I didn't try to think of some way for this laptop to not get ultra hot... Anyhow, I just wish ASUS would allow my graphic card to not reach the 90's as my friends laptop (also with a gtx 260; np8662) reaches only 65 C on full load, while on full load I reach 90 C and sometimes even up to 100 C (only happened once, and it went to 102 C). Again, thanks guys for the reasoning.

 

to markl316,

it was relatively easy to install the new CPU into the G51. probably a 15min job or less.

 

Has anyone here gotten a sticky left Ctrl key?

I found that mine makes an annoying clicky sound whenever I press it a certain way, and it feels as if there is plastic hitting plastic on the inside, in addition to the normal dull thump of the keystroke. Any tips on fixing this?

 

Thanks. In your opinion, is it worth it to install the T9800? Also, are there cooling issues with the faster processor?

The remap key idea didn't work to open the crysis console. Is there another way I can do it?

Thanks.

 

Hello, I am new to the forum. But I have found it very helpful. I have gotten this laptop and it is great. No overclock and it has played every game on full settings with no problem. Anyways, I wanted to upgrade the optical drive to the Blu Ray combo. I searched all over good and the asus site and cant find one for sale. Does anyone know were one can be purchased? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

The CPU temps on the G51 are fine compared to other laptops. Upgrading to a T9800 probably wouldn't do any harm

 

no cooling issues with the new processor. You do not see a huge performance gain with a T9800, but I just found one for cheap so i pulled the trigger.

 

I have an even hotter processor, and I'm not having any issues either.

Undervolting does wonders, though.

 

If you want to open the console to check the fps, I recomend to do the following:
1- Right click the shortcut of the game and go to Properties.
2- Go to the tab Shortcut.
3- On "Target" there should be something that ends like this ...\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Bin##\Crysis.exe"
4- Add -DEVMODE at the end of it with a space after exe."
It sould look as this:

...\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Bin##\Crysis.exe" -DEVMODE

Start the game normally and your fps will appear on top of your screen.

 

So Forge do you alway overclock to 3.4? And what are your temps like undervolted compared to reg?

 

With my X9100 and GPU at stock, I hit 91C with 1280x768 resolution on 3DMark. Score was 11203.


I downclocked/undervolted the CPU to a multiplier of 10.5 and 1.175 volts. Speed was about 2.79 GHz. GPU was again at stock Asus underclocks. I "only" got 11945 points, but my temperature hit 87.


As for overclocking constantly, hell no. I only overclock to such extremes for benchmarks. My usual method right now is 10.5 multiplier @ 1.175v for normal stuff and idling. I'll go to 11.5 @ 1.250v for most games-- Prototype, Dark Sector, Bionic Commando, etcetera.

For bullies like Crysis and Supreme Commander I'll to 11.5 @ 1.300v with an overclock to 3.2. For benchmarks... well, I'll overclock to hell with full voltages.

 

I do have this same problem .. And Im a man!!

It may be just the way I type, ( Ops, just missed the "p" ), or I dunno, It happens more times while Im gaming, maybe ( Missed the "b" , and the ") I need to apply more force to the keys to it work properly ( Missed the "L" key ) ....


I didnt have this problem with my others laptops, but I still need more time with this laptop to get used with the keyboard... ( ooh cool, no missing keys while typing with more force )

 

Bah....you light typers. I've somehow developed a really fast (90 WPM) typing along with heavy force making it so that when I usually type on keyboards, it sounds like a machine gun.....the G51's keyboard, surprisingly, doesn't seem to sound that loud at all.

 

lol I love the keyboard. I guess that's just me, I am having no problems with it at all. So Forge do you hit near 90 with every game you play now?

 

Nah. Heavy games like Crysis, most definitely.

The thing is, I haven't really down trials for other intense games. I did Prototype for about thirty minutes and hit 83C, while two hours of Dark Sector might have crested me at... 87-ish. Playing an entire campaign of Left 4 Dead left me at 87C

I'm playing some really old-school games right now. Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, for one. And if that takes me anywhere near 80, I'm throwing this out the window.

Two months from now"

"I had to RMA my G51 because my fingers punched through the keyboard "


EDIT: I played Dark Sector's chapter 4 (a long damned chapter, took me about an hour and fifteen minutes) with standard CPU clocks and GPU overclocked to 565/1410/925. I maxed out at 92. This is on top of a Zalman, not active.

Since Vsync was on, I didn't go above 60 fps... but I'm thinking that standard or even stock clocks would be more than enough.

EDIT 2: Did about thirty minutes of Dark Sector, this time with a CPU underclock (10.5 multiplier, 1.75 volts, GPU at stock Asus underclocks.) Ran a rather chilly 87C. FPS stayed 60 throughout.

 

Hey, I just saw SirHase's signature... and his processor is OC'ed to 2.6 at 1.2v, would you all advise this whatsoever? I have mine currently at 2.3 GHz, however, I was wondering if I were to crank out this CPU at that speed, would it be 'ok' in the long run. I used Tevash's guide on overclocking this laptop, however I don't know whether I should OC this processor that high, seeing as it might generate too much heat. I do want to get alot of performance out of this, but would you other G51 users, who know about this laptop more than me, advise it?

 

Sweet, so a good 30 minutes of the Crysis demo, heavy firefights, lost of explosions, lots of turret-fire, every single setting on very high and no AA, ran perfectly at a very good frame-rate, and never got more than 94 degrees...

In fact the only time the frame-rate actually noticeably seemed to drop was during the cut-scenes.

This will definitely be quite the gaming machine!

 

Okay, so here's my adventure in GPU pasting.

First, I did a near transparent layer of AS5 on the GPU core... and noticed the first GPU test on 3DMark06 took me to about 106C. Gah.

Took the computer apart again, and noticed that only two corners of hte GPU core had made contact. (I noticed this because the part where the heatsink contacted the core only had "paste marks" on certain points) I reapplied paste, adding a little bit more, and my GPU temperature dropped considerably. I still hit 95C for the first two trials of 3DMark, and again 95 for a campiagn for Left 4 Dead.

I'm hoping the curing process bring a lot better cooling.

For everyday tasks and most games, the stock 2.0 GHz is more than enough.

But if you do like to overclock and get the best possible framerates, you can overclock up to whatever stable clock you want. To test for a stable overclock, run Orthos for about twenty or thirty minutes. If you get no problems in that span of time, you're a-okay.

 

Use TV dinner as your laptop stand

Dinner will be ready after 30 mins of Crysis

 

On an ancient Dell Inspiron, I did that. Or something like that.

Took two icepacks, wrapped them in towels, and put the laptop on top.

 

Bump.....anyone have any ideas

 

That was discuss somewhere here in forums. Its an LG model. But here it anyways. Next time search harder http://www.lge.com/products/model/detail/gbw-t10n.jhtml

 

Contact xoticpc. They are giving the option of having Blu-ray drives in their G51 so they may be able to sell you one.

 

Thanks. I searched all over google and could not find it. Thanks for the link

 

Thanks Forge, I appreciate the advice. I just hope I can undervolt my CPU to generate less heat. One last question, what is a decent temperature for the CPU to hit if I went to 2.6 ghz? What is the max temp I have to watch out for, that you would think I would have to underclock if it got too hot?

 

I would guess that at 2.6, you should get about 70C, maybe a little higher, under max load ie Orthos for 20min+

CPU temps for this model would probably become a big concern if it gets to 80C and you're probably nearing critical failure (hardware damage) once you enter 90C and the listed critical is at 100C

 

Oh and on the flip-side, thanks for both the advice (from Tevash and Forge) and for the optimization guide, it really helped, I guess I'll overclock my CPU to 2.5 and see what happens.

 

Ok guys, maybe you all might want the same gaming increase as I do. Anyway, there might be some different variables in my experiment (such as that I have AC5 on my computer, so that may cool it considerably).

But to you all that want a good processor clock speed for this laptop, I have put my computer under Orthos for over an hour, in a room at work (my break room; around 82 to 85 F) and clocked my CPU at 2.5 GHz with 1.2 volts. Doing this, I have only hit the HIGHEST of 67 C. So if any of you want to try this out, I recommend it, and it seems rather safe. As I just played some Crysis Warhead, I kept HWmonitor on and I never passed 68 C. If you want 2.5 out of a 2.0 GHz processor, then this seems 'ok' by me.

 

If you want the most significant performance, try overclocking the GPU a bit.

A modest 2.2 GHz for the CPU will give you good gaming performance, but great performance will need some more work out of the GPU.


I'd like to give some hard numbers, but I haven't had a P7350 in my laptop for a couple of weeks now, and I can't remember.

 

What GPU settings do you use right now with they X9100 in?

 

Depends on the game. To be honest, almost all games give me 60+ FPS at stock underclocks. The only notable game where I have to overclock above standard clocks is Crysis.

Hell, I'm usually running the CPU at 9.5x and 1.175 volts. That's about a speed of 2.79 GHz. I basically only go to full clocks when I benchmark for bragging rights.

 

Just to let you know, with alot of help from Soviet Sunrise, I've managed to undervolt the GPU by 0.05v through vBIOS flashing. There is info on it in my guide from post 246 onwards (there is a quick miniguide on post 269)

Anyways, temps dropped quite significantly for me at stock clocks (max temp of 80C through a 3DMark06 run) and everything seems stable. OCing is substantially reduced though.

Note that my quick miniguide may not be too clear so if you're wary of flashing improperly and bricking the GPU (which actually should be solved by a blind flash without much problems but still.....), you might wanna wait until I get a polished guide with pictures and everything up.

 

To all folks who rock:

1. My fan kicked in again on full blast today and wouldnt turn down till i did a full shutdown and restart. Should i get this inspected? i have warranty.

2. Im looking for a backpack for this guy because i bought a 9x14x18.5" backpack for it, and the laptop DIDNT FIT! I dont know where to find a bigger laptop for a decent price. lemme know what ur using?

3. will i get better fps/ response in online games when using an ethernet cable as opposed to wireless?

appreciate all the help ive gotten on everything.

 

I'll dig around before I answer 1 and 2, but for #3, you won't get much of an FPS change by changing connections. You'll get less lag, and a far reduced chance of a dropped connection, but FPS is determined by your hardware, not your internet.