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G750JX BIOS 208 Update - Concerned about doing this

Retired
Not applicable
I have spent a few days reading through many of the related threads on this, as to not ask repetitive questions, but I'm left with concerns about proceeding based on where I'm at now.

I'm a few weeks into enjoying this new laptop and I've done a couple things this weekend, that I don't believe are related:

Upgraded primary HDD to Samsung SSD and moved original HDD to 2nd bay.
Used this forum to correctly do a clean install of a Win8 PRO DVD I got on student discount, did the PID.txt file and everything appears to be perfect post install.

After the install, I believe this was just the first time I noticed this, while I typically use DC power, today I was in another room on AC and letting Windows do a huge pile of updates since my clean install, and I noticed it took a lifetime!

This prompted me to review all the threads about BIOS 208 and the sticking of the CPU at .77GHz, which is exactly what mine does on AC, vs roughly 2.8GHz or more on DC.

I took instructions from threads and started by downloading the WinFlash utility from ASUS and the BIOS 208 file.
First I went to install WinFlash, and I get an error that it's only compatible with an ASUS notebook, which I have, but guess it doesn't see it that way due to the clean install......so that's as far as I've gotten.

My main question is this, I typically run on DC power and this thing has otherwise been an excellent machine to date.
While I'm willing to spend the time to research and learn new things, I'm concerned about the risk of "bricking" a $1500 laptop. I've built a desktop myself before, 6 years ago, and the SSD/Win8 Pro deal went well, but I wouldn't consider myself a talented tech guy otherwise.

Am I better off living with the slow performance on the few times I run on AC power, or is there hope that I could update the BIOS to 208 (I've verified I am running 207 today) without trashing this thing?

Appreciate any feedback and while I've read a lot of the threads in this forum, perhaps I missed one about the "non-ASUS" notebook failure on WinFlash, or someone has other advice.
Thanks!
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9 REPLIES 9

hmscott
Level 12
lebowski wrote:
I have spent a few days reading through many of the related threads on this, as to not ask repetitive questions, but I'm left with concerns about proceeding based on where I'm at now.

I'm a few weeks into enjoying this new laptop and I've done a couple things this weekend, that I don't believe are related:

Upgraded primary HDD to Samsung SSD and moved original HDD to 2nd bay.
Used this forum to correctly do a clean install of a Win8 PRO DVD I got on student discount, did the PID.txt file and everything appears to be perfect post install.

After the install, I believe this was just the first time I noticed this, while I typically use DC power, today I was in another room on AC and letting Windows do a huge pile of updates since my clean install, and I noticed it took a lifetime!

This prompted me to review all the threads about BIOS 208 and the sticking of the CPU at .77GHz, which is exactly what mine does on AC, vs roughly 2.8GHz or more on DC.

I took instructions from threads and started by downloading the WinFlash utility from ASUS and the BIOS 208 file.
First I went to install WinFlash, and I get an error that it's only compatible with an ASUS notebook, which I have, but guess it doesn't see it that way due to the clean install......so that's as far as I've gotten.

My main question is this, I typically run on DC power and this thing has otherwise been an excellent machine to date.
While I'm willing to spend the time to research and learn new things, I'm concerned about the risk of "bricking" a $1500 laptop. I've built a desktop myself before, 6 years ago, and the SSD/Win8 Pro deal went well, but I wouldn't consider myself a talented tech guy otherwise.

Am I better off living with the slow performance on the few times I run on AC power, or is there hope that I could update the BIOS to 208 (I've verified I am running 207 today) without trashing this thing?

Appreciate any feedback and while I've read a lot of the threads in this forum, perhaps I missed one about the "non-ASUS" notebook failure on WinFlash, or someone has other advice.
Thanks!


You should always update to the latest correct BIOS for your G750.

28782

In your case lebowski the latest right now for the G750JX is the 208 BIOS, but there is also a BIOS for the G750JXA - BOS 203.

I don't know how to tell the difference between a JX and a JXA... does someone else? If you are someone else with a JX(A) reading this please double check to make sure you have the right BIOS before updating.

I had BIOS 207 on my JX, so the 208 BIOS was the right one for me, and it sounds like the right one for you too lebowski

The Asus manual, which you can download in your language from the Asus website, has instructions on how to update the BIOS from the BIOS. In my English translation it starts on page 81 and completes on page 82.

If you don't have the Asus Power4Gear software installed, you don't need to uninstall it after updating the BIOS to 208... I found Asus Power4Gear caused problems for me by continuing to limit the CPU speed to 800mhz on battery while under the Power4Gear Power Saving plan.

I use the Windows Balanced Power plan setting the Processor Min/Max to 0%/100% to get best performance / lowest power/heat generated. For benchmarking / testing I use the Windows High Performance plan with the Processor Min/Max set to 100%/100%.

Because you have a clean install I thought I should mention that some people have complained that the latest Nvidia drivers from Nvidia cause problems and so they only use the Asus Nvidia drivers - which are way old in features.

You could try to install the newest Asus Nvidia driver and then do a regular (non-clean) install of the latest Nvidia driver over the Asus one - and see if that works without problems.

The complaints are that after doing a clean install of the newest Nvidia drivers they can't reliably boot, so beware.

DeltaActual
Level 12
i have no idea what it says in the manual, but - update your BIOS only with EZ Flash, thru BIOS. Do not use WinFlash.
G614JV

DeltaActual wrote:
i have no idea what it says in the manual, but - update your BIOS only with EZ Flash, thru BIOS. Do not use WinFlash.


28789

28790

English download
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/G750JW/E_eManual_G750JW_VER7780.pdf

There are lots of other interesting tidbits of info in the manual.

For those of us with a full Asus Windows 8/8.1 install, Asus winflash works fine. It schedules the BIOS update at the next boot, and doesn't have the danger of doing the BIOS flash while running Windows.

hmscott wrote:


For those of us with a full Asus Windows 8/8.1 install, Asus winflash works fine. It schedules the BIOS update at the next boot, and doesn't have the danger of doing the BIOS flash while running Windows.

I've read so many horror stories about Winflash - a big NO-NO for me.
G614JV

DeltaActual wrote:
I've read so many horror stories about Winflash - a big NO-NO for me.


That was from the days when Winflash did the BIOS flash while running Windows 🙂

I never had a problem with Winflash, but others have. IDK what other apps running caused a problem, but I always made sure I quit all other apps before doing the Winflash update.

The only BIOS disaster I had was when MSI put out a BIOS update that bricked my motherboard, done from the BIOS using a USB thumb drive. It doesn't matter where you apply the BIOS if the BIOS has a problem. I had to wait a week for MSI to send me a replacement BIOS chip to swap. Good thing the BIOS chip wasn't soldered on, I would have had to turn around the motherboard.

Retired
Not applicable
When in doubt, read the manual......my bad! I'm pleased to report that I do not have a $1500 paper weight on my desk this morning, but do have BIOS 208 up and running. :cool:

I have seen others mentioning some testing programs (Intel?) to compare the AC vs DC performance.
I do not know where those are, but I'll do some digging after work today.
I also will check out the power settings programs I have in use, I don't have ASUS Power4Gear installed since I did the clean install.
I do still need to check out the rest of the drivers for updates since the install, but otherwise everything seems to be running ok.

The only test I did this morning was simply to run a video from a website on both AC and DC to compare simple performance.
On DC, the CPU speed ran consistently around 3 GHz with a peak of 3.05.
on AC, the speed was more inconsistent, spiking to around 2.5 at the start, then dropping to .77, then settling in around 1.0 to 1.1 for the rest of the 60 second video.

Not intense testing I know, but it may just be power settings, as the screen was much darker on the AC test, so I'm assuming this is all settings.

Next time Windows has an update (probably in the next 5 minutes!) I'll see how that compares to yesterday's slow crawl.
Thanks all for your help and guidance.

villiansv
Level 11
Congrats on getting your BIOS updated, it does help with increased performance on battery.

I hope you take the following as it was meant - a friendly educating paragraph, rather than nitpicking.

AC = Alternating Current
DC = Direct Current

Wall sockets provide AC. Your power adapter converts this AC to DC, which the laptop uses. The battery itself only provides DC.

So AC is usually meant as "plugged in" while DC as "running on battery". You seem to be using them in the opposite sense, which could lead to confusion. In general, electronics run on DC.

Retired
Not applicable
haha, no, it would take much more than that to offend me, no clue why I used them in that manner anyway now that I think about it.
I'm here to learn from folks.......I think it's funny when I read some of these threads and see people get all wound up about this or that.
Thanks.

kingfish
Level 7
i use WinFLash and had no problem. 🙂 now running with 208 BIOS 🙂

Performance on my machine goes a bit higher though. plug or unplug 🙂
G751JT | 24GB | 2 x 1TB HDD | Nvidia GTX 970M | Windows XP