Performance Stuttering on G73

[Wuzseen]

For 6 months now I have been struggling with G73JH-A2, there have been moment's where it has been my best friend. And, like a good friend I've stuck with it.

I've experienced GSOD errors, the computer randomly turning off, a touchpad that finds it in its heart to make the experience of using a computer as difficult as possible--I have made it past these and lo and behold a new issue arises.

If it's not one thing, it's something else with this laptop it seems.

Recently a new issue has arisen whilst using the laptop. Randomly it seems, my computer decides to lock up. I can still switch windows and minimize/maximize them. This often happens while opening or closing another application. However, it has happened with seemingly not catalyst.

At the same time I've also been having issues with games running--especially Team Fortress Two. It seems every few seconds during game I just drop 50 FPS for a few seconds and then come back up. I notice this particularly in CoD: Black Ops, League of Legends, and Team Fortress Two. Ironically, the game that gave me the most trouble when I first got the laptop (World of Warcraft) now runs incredibly smoothly. Albeit, I think the graphical improvements brought in via the latest expansion had a lot to do with it.

A third problem I've been having is on boot up and logging into windows. Immediately upon logging in Catalyst Control Center Monitoring Program has an error message--it crashed. This has been happening for longer than the previous two issues. I feel like this is bad and could be related so I'd like to include it. I can't prove any correlation between this and performance decreases though.

I've gone through so many reformats and I'm a little tired of wiping an entire computer. I've seen a lot of helpful information passed around on these forums and I could really use the help. I'd like to give some things a try before I wipe it again.

[Chastity@ASUS]

I had a lockup issue with my desktop system, and I've been seeing that a lot in many forums. I think it's OS related, perhaps with an update. I'd suggest updating to the new SP1 RTM that's out. I just did a reinstall, stayed away from WU as much as possible, and went straight to SP1. So far no lockups.

[Wuzseen]

if (when, probably) it comes to reformatting I will check this out, thanks.

[Fezteeny]

I had a lockup issue with my desktop system, and I've been seeing that a lot in many forums. I think it's OS related, perhaps with an update. I'd suggest updating to the new SP1 RTM that's out. I just did a reinstall, stayed away from WU as much as possible, and went straight to SP1. So far no lockups.

So youre saying that i shouldn't use Windows Update...i thought that was good for the PC, but as it seems, Asus customer support-via phone-told me that an update has made some issues with the graphics card. Im pretty lost

Thanks,
Fezteeny

[Chastity@ASUS]

99.5% of the time Windows Update is perfectly fine. Occasionally, it stinks up the bathroom. This is why we have System Restore and backups.

[Fezteeny]

How do you know which updates go bad?

[Chastity@ASUS]

You don't really, until WU replaces/updates it in a later update.

[MarkS]

How do you know which updates go bad?

Failure of updates is extremely rare, and failures that cause system crashes/BSODs are even more rare.

Driver updates could cause issues, however, and some hardware companies push driver updates through Windows Update, so I personally change the default auto-install-updates setting and instead choose to view updates before downloading/installing. That way I can take a quick look and make sure I'm not installing a "new" driver that I don't want or need.

[Spanner_Man]

Failure of updates is extremely rare, and failures that cause system crashes/BSODs are even more rare.

Driver updates could cause issues, however, and some hardware companies push driver updates through Windows Update
..snip

Windows Update service (WUS) only push drivers that are generic. Every OEM has their own "spin" on each internal hardware device which does cause issues.

More then once I've seen a BSOD caused by a driver update pushed by WUS.