Vicious's G50V-A1 Review

Thanks for the review, Vicious.

Just one quick question - have u tried dual booting with Windows XP? i'm not yet quite comfortable leaving XP behind and was hoping you could point me in the right direction. I know there loads of guides floating around out there for dual booting, but none of them mention booting from a recovery CD vs. a retail copy of Windows.

Thanks again

 

This time around I went all Vista, I did a triple boot on my last laptop and found after a week I never used XP anymore.

I do believe Ken has all the details for booting and using XP on his thread including the drivers you would need.

 

Which thread?

 

The G50 review thread by GenTechPC (Ken). It's linked from the Info Booth, I think it's review #2 for G50 (or #3, maybe).

 

Have you done any overclocking on the GPU yet Vicious? Maybe it's a beast OCer...

 

I tried but have not found a compatible overclocking driver/software yet.

Rivatuner is the only one that sort of worked but it was detecting the wrong clocks.

 

Did take any screen shots of it yet but full 60-62fps at all times in Doom 3 with Ultra High settings 1280x800.

I think I will try to beat the game this time around, last time I got so lost and gave up and always was low as heck on ammo.

Halo 2 - Not running right maxed out runs near 50fps 1680x1050 but the game is very jumpy. Rolling back to an older driver may fix it but its not worth the effort to me.

Bluetooth sucks on this model I do not like the bluetooth stack it uses and it wont work with my wiimote so without my wiimote I have not bothered to install GRID yet.

 

NVIDIA has an overclocking tool as well. Not Coolbits... forget the name.

 

Ntune, already tried it. Causes BSOD

 

I like your balanced approach towards product evaluation.

 

What specifically don't you like about the BT stack?

 

try evga precision overclocking tool

 

BTW, anyone that cares I lowered the price of my C90S to $1,200 in the buy/sell/trade boards.

 

well that it has no connect/unconnect feature that I can tell wich seems to be the most basic thing that you would expect to find. I guess you can just use the wireless console to kill BT or go into the properties of a connected device and turn off the service for it but thats not a proper way in my opinion.

The other thing most important to me is that it wont work with my wiimote

I have yet to try my bluetooth headphones yet or my ear piece to see how well they work but I will do that soon.

 

HUH?! wait a minute the wiimote uses bluetooth?

 

Yes!

I have a whole thread for it:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=255085

 

pulled the trigger and finally got one! your review convinced me. Ordered from GenTech this morning. Can't wait!

 

Change Log:

Added the Power Draw Section!

 

Cool! welcome to the club

 

Just FYI if you or anyone ever encounters the Error #132 WoW problem with ths G50 it's easy to remedy. Simply put the game in windowed mode and if you want fullscreen as if it werent in windowed mode click the maximize checkbox in video settings and for some reason there is no error in windowed mode.

 

I wonder if this is why I have never really noticed a 132 error, always playing in windowed mode.

 

Nice power-draw review. Some of the things are nice to know.

It is well-known that the LCD backlight is one of the main consumers in a notebook.

Turning off Vista Aero and Sidebar also makes a big difference to battery (10-15% AFAI remember).

As to firefox, it may be the lack of backgd / 2D image, but it may also be that opening the tab, rendering and constructing the page hierarchy puts some stress on the CPU. When any application starts there is also a lot of HDD activity, and that's valid for Firefox too, so there will be some more power draw at that point.

WMP taking more power for 10 seconds though -- I don't know what it does...

 

Update!

Added the bluetooth review:

Bluetooth:

At this point I have spent over a week with the bluetooth and tested it with all of my devices. My personal evaluation of the bluetooth is not the greatest. It works 100% and it seems to support all of the bluetooth protocols and infact it may be better than the old bluetooth card in my old laptop in one important way so let me explain.

So to start with the good or the bad? Well lets get the bad out of the way. I have a pair of Plantronics Pulsar 590's they are a very great pair of bluetooth headphones, and I have a Motorola HS815 cell phone headset (earpiece) so those are the devices I primarily used to test with.

The first test was well connecting the devices, this part was pretty easy, just put your device in pairing mode and from the bluetooth control panel select "add a new wireless device" and it did the rest. So no problems here. Where I had a problem tho is disconnecting the device.... There is no "connect/disconnect" buttons on the software that this card uses. I guess its the Microsoft BT Stack and the card itself is a Broadcom card. So that means to disconnect a device you have to use the wireless control panel and turn off your bluetooth completely and that sucks if you want to turn off only one device, or you have to turn off the device itself. In 99% of most cases thats not a bad thing as you would turn the device off anyways if you do not intend to use it any longer to save its batteries. Its worth noting that under the advanced options under "audio" you can disconnect from a device but only for audio devices.

The next test was range, I am almost certain that the range of this card is not as good as the one that was in the C90S I previously owned. I used to be able to go from one corner of my house to the next with the C90S running my headphones and jam out with almost no interruptions at all. The G50V about 3/4 down my hallway it loses signal completely. Also a neat little trick I used to use before I got the headphones is using my cell phone earpiece as headphones. I used to turn my laptop on in the back office at work and listen to music while working at the front desk. To any guest it would look like I have my cell phone connected for calls, but in reality I was streaming music to it. With the C90S I could be up front with full signal and go almost as far as to where breakfast is setup with very little break up. The G50V I cant make it even close to breakfast without the loss of signal. So I do not know weather the flaw is the card itself or the antenna that its connected to. I also do not know if the C90S was just better than the norm or if this model falls short but the range is less. For the normal person this is not a big deal as you probably would use a mouse/keyboard, or headphones while using the unit so range is not an issue, but if your like me and like to jam out with headphones and want the 30ft or so your supposed to get it may be an issue.

Last test was quality. Quality seemed to be the same on the Plantronics, I connected them and was treated to some audio bliss listening to music with so much more bass and quality (and volume) than the stock speakers can give you. I can not recommend the Pulsars enough they have been great to me, and they are travel friendly too! (Just remembered I even reviewed them HERE)Now the Motorola how ever if memory serves me right it sounded better on the C90S. It never sounded great on ether unit as its a headset designed for phone use, that means the BT protocol it uses is the low quality mono voice for audio out and then the mono in for voice (recording). Its not meant to be used as a headphone but it can as I have done it. The quality was horrible on the G50V while only bad on the C90S if memory serves right. However since it has been a long time and I did not do a side by side test this could be my mind playing tricks on me. I have not used this thing for music since I got the Plantroincs so its hard to think of its quality as being as good.

On a final note, if you did not see me rant in another G50V thread the first thing I tried is to use my Wiimote on the G50V and it failed. I was and still am so disappointed in this. If you did not know the Nintendo Wii uses bluetooth for the controllers and they can be used on a PC. You can do SOOOOO much with these controllers. I have wrote custom scripts for them to do anything from play Super Nintendo games, to controlling Winamp. All of the functions can be used, the IR pointer, rolling, tilt, shake, acceleration, sound, leds. You can get a feel for it in my guide/thread that I wrote HERE

Well anyways the Wiimote will bind with this card fine, but the computer will not send or receive information back and forth with it. I have not gotten it to work with another bluetooth stack yet as bluesoliei will not install for me but another version may work (I hope) this is also the main item that has issues with no "disconnect" button in the software the controller is on when its blinded and off when its not. So the only way to turn it off is to uninstall the device from the bluetooth software (or you can hold the power button on the controller for 5 seconds as a secret but that sucks if your Wii is around because then it will bind with the wii and turn it on)

Oh! almost forgot that one little bit of "good" news. I noticed that the way this card/software works is it likes to auto bind. I used the Pulsars a few sittings and instead of going thru the process of connecting to them like normal, they were already connected and in use when it detected them as being turned on. So I guess thats why it has no connect/disconnect feature as its supposed to be all automatic. This could be a good thing for the people that use a mouse or keyboard because no hassles for you. Just turn on the laptop and your devices and your ready to go.

So Final Bluetooth Evaluation is a 7/10 it works as needed, but points off for the range and not working with the wiimote also wish it had a better interface for the software.

 

Do keep us updated on the possibility of the wiimote binding with this laptop

I actually cannot remember the last time I used bt...

 

thanks to all your comments and especially Vicious's review I found the perfect notebook! just ordered one!

 

Welcome to the club!

The only thing I really want to do now is find a valid way to overclock the gpu to see how much more performance the 9700gt can give us. Crysis is the only game that I really wish I could turn up more. For a mid end notebook tho at this price it was a very good value and I can loo back and fully appreciate my purchase decision.

 

my c90s gpu went out....$800 without gpu its yours

 

Any info on battery life? Also, out of curiosity, how would you compare this notebook to the Dell Precision M4400 - I'm aware the Quadro 770m is comparable to a 9600m gt DDR3, but that system has an LED LCD Display, 9 cell battery option (which dell says should last for 4 hours) and weight of about 6 pounds. Theres also a 7200rpm HDD option.

 

Gah i want my dad to get this for me... i cant convince him that asus is a respectable company..

 

Are you in the US? In that case, the warranty terms (2year overnight shipping + 1 accidental damage) and quality of service and support is 10 extra points for ASUS, something that you should mention to your father.

 

haha no i am all the way in kuwait

but we have an american adress thing from aramex, and they just ship it over here

 

Hey Vicious, a question about the fans:

I understand the fans generally stay on even when the laptop is idle. However, are they really even noticeable on low? My Inspiron 9400's fans are on 24/7, but you have to really train your ear to hear them.

How loud are they gaming? Are they noticeable over the game's music/explosions/etc.?

You didn't touch too much on heat in your review. I take it that it's more or less a non-issue on this notebook?

 

I'm looking at another laptop, but keeping my C90 because I work on them in addition to gaming Need something to keep me in business if one is "out" for some reason. Looking at this one and M50 (I NEED that number pad being an accountant)

 

I can not hear the fans under normal operation at all, my "ultra silent" zalmans nc1000 makes more noise. I can only hear the fan when it kicks into high gear like playing Crysis, at that point its no high pitched fan noise like you may be used too but more of a air movement noise. I would say it reminds me of how a 120mm desktop fan sounds in operation but just slightly louder. I think you hear all the air being forced out of the side vent more than the actual fan itself.

Heat is a non issue, just recently my right side palm rest started being warm where my hand sits due to some hdd activity that Vista must be doing in the background and thats all. No hot spots, cpu & gpu both run ice cold for a laptop.

 

Vicious, i apologize if this has been asked previously. But i've just received mine from gentech yesterday. I opted for vista as the OS but was wondering where to search for the xp drivers as i'm planning on reinstalling with XP. i've visited the download center on asus but unfortunately they've listed drivers only for vista. thanks again in advance

 

If you see Kens short review: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=282100

He did some XP tests and states that all of the Vista drivers work for XP except the IR, Smart Logon, and Direct Console (and display I think would be on there but get those from laptopvideo2go.com)

 

It recomendavél use RAID-0 for better performance? Is it worth it?? I will use it for games .. After enabling RAID,'ll have to re-install or use the DVD to restore the windows?

 

I do not recommend raid 0 unless you plan to do a lot of video work. It may speed up loading for a few games if they have large files. Crysis I can notice loads faster but other things can actually go slower, like installing files.

Id also bet a finger that using raid 0 or 1 will reduce your battery life by a noticeable amount. I only used the raid 0 for testing in my review so I can say I tried it before I talked about it and also since I do actually do some video work now and then.

 

ok, thanks Vicious, My g50v-a2 should arrive until Saturday from gentech..

 

Okay, I'm doing a clean install, and I just inserted the driver cd. A command prompt has popped up, and I don't know what to do. Help?

 

You installed windows already right? Use recovery disk #1 to install windows.

After that when windows is installed you use the driver disk to install your drivers. If its not auto running, go to your my computer and explore the disk and look for a setup file.

 

Well, when disk 1 is donme it's thing, I insert the driver disk, let it do whatever. It then takes a long amount of time saying it does something, then crashes saying driver IRQL not less than or equal to, or something like that.

 

er thats a calculation error I think maybe ram or cpu related... Strange.

Recovery did not take long it had windows installed in no time, about 3/4 thru the install it asks for the driver disk, so you put it in and it does its thing and after that step finishes windows is done.

No drivers are installed at that point tho your in a fresh windows install and then have to install the drivers from the driver disk and it actually took longer than the windows install for me.

 

Okay, finally got it to work. Do I install all of the drivers or just some select drivers?

 

Up to you, install all the recomended stuff and then pick out of the optional what you want.

 

Vicious, maybe I missed it but what is the actual weight of the laptop? is it 6.5 pounds ...heavier? lighter?

 

Um I have not tossed it on a scale or anything I just know its light. So what ever the offical specs say I would assume to be true.

Its a tough plastic body so its about as light as it can be for what it is.

 

One thing that people are maybe not aware of is that using RAID0 makes your data significantly less secure. The probability of a data-destroying event becomes larger (simply because either HDD failing will result in data loss, coupled with other effects e.g., using both HDDs all the time increases wear rather than using just one of them at a time).

So, if you use RAID0, do frequent backups! Once a week should be the least frequent if you love your data...

There is no free lunch unfortunately. Increased performance comes at the cost of reduced reliability, in this case.

 

Id swap back to independant drive operation if I knew a easy way to do it without having to install my ton of games/programs again and having to do another backup of files over the network wich is rather slow.

I know there are programs that make a image of your hard drive, norton ghost comes to mind (even tho in general I hate norton programs and have heard horror stories of ghost) but is it possible to say create a image of my drives to my desktop hdd via network and restore it that way?

 

Yes there are many disk imaging and backup apps out there, each with their own quirks and disadvantages. The more "mainstream" ones have a lot of options, I'm sure there is some way to back up and restore via network. In the worst case you'll need a USB enclosure for your desktop HDD.

Acronis True Image comes to mind. Works well as long as the partition you restore to is of an identical or larger size as the partition that was backed up. Has some quirks when trying to restore on a smaller partition.

I'm not sure about Ghost, I haven't used it.

There is also a backup solution from Paragon, I believe.