G73Jh GSOD Vbios Update

[sicmofo]

Hello. I'm new to these forums, but have owned a G73jh A2 for about 2 years now, and have had occasional GSOD problems. Having finally found what appears to be a solution here, I would like to try this fix, but am hesitant due to my general lack of technical knowledge. To put it another way, I'm scared to death that I might brick my cantankerous baby if I do something wrong.
My question(s): what kind of firmware maintenance should I do before/in addition to updating the vbios? For example, I see in a previous post that I should update my bios as well, but a couple of hours on the forum has failed to yield a link to that bios version (whatever it may be), or instructions on its installation. I keep seeing references to chipset updates, debates about the stability of different catalyst driver versions, exhortations to use driver sweeper and ati crap cleaner, etc, but all of the conversation seems to assume that I know why I need these things and what their effects on my comp's performance will be. The "drivers, apps, and how-tos" thread gives a wall of links with little to no description, and if there is any actual "how-to" it's buried in the 60+ pages of the thread. The "G73/74/53 series driver and application reference" thread is similar.
So what are the best-practices and order of operations to get my machine performing as intended?

Thanks in advance for any hand-holding. Obviously I need it!

PS: A locked sticky thread kept up to date by moderator would be incredibly helpful for this sort of thing, and apologies if something like that already exists.

http://rog.asus.com/notebook/17-inch/g73jh/

Here is the link for everything you might need. Updated Catalyst drivers can be downloaded from the amd website. in regards to performance issues, if you ask me, if it aint broke then dont fix it. If all games are working fine on your laptop and you dont run into an overheating gpu then i would advice against updating anything. but blowing some canned air into the vents every now and then to keep the temps down wouldnt hurt

[Disane]

Hi there!

I believe I've made a post previously a few months ago. I've problems upgrading my ATI Catalyst drivers. I also experience missing letters when typing on the keyboard and the touchpad is useless.
I've just registered my notebook at asus.com and became a VIP member of something like that. Anyway I would really like to put an end to these problems, so I checked my BIOS and vBIOS yesterday:

BIOS ver. 211 (Outdated)
vBIOS ver 012-017-000-004-0359-A33G (Outdated)

And I have a m5870 P/N: 60-NY8VG1000-C14 (I believe this is the series that is very much affected by GSOD)

Interestingly, so far I have not had any problems with the stock drivers. No, GSOD at all. The only problem I have is that I'm unable to update my ATI Catalyst Drivers. Last time I got a BSOD when trying to update the AMD ATI Catalyst Drivers (sorry but I can't remember what the error message said, but I can remember that Windows Instantly rebooted my computer after showing me the blue screen message). After I've recovered from the faulty update, I lost my Catalyst Center as well. I can't launch my Catalyst center anymore, and I can't say which Catalyst driver am I running right now.

I can play Diablo III, StarCraft 2 without any problems. No overheating at all...
But when it comes to OpenGL applications even Matlab (at least the OpenGL rendering) doesn't work which I need for my work at the University.
I've tried installing RAGE which also failed to start (Tech4 launch engine gave me an error that some OpenGL module cannot be initialized). Need for Speed: The RUN also failed to start, Battlefield 3 as well (It seems all games which use Frostbite 2).
2 Weeks ago I've tried to install Max Payne 3. It kinda worked until I've started a new game from the game menu. In the options menu I couldn't change anything and the VRAM indicator showed 0 / 0

By the way the notebook is still under warranty if I'm right. The bottom of the case says that I've purchased it on 2011-01 and I have 24M Warranty.

Anyways, I want to know if there is an ASUS Service Center located in Austria/Vienna, where I could let someone update both EFI BIOS and vBIOS for me with full responsibility.
Cause I don't think I have the nerves to do it alone...

[Disane]

Hi there!

I believe I've made a post previously a few months ago. I've problems upgrading my ATI Catalyst drivers. I also experience missing letters when typing on the keyboard and the touchpad is useless.
I've just registered my notebook at asus.com and became a VIP member of something like that. Anyway I would really like to put an end to these problems, so I checked my BIOS and vBIOS yesterday:

BIOS ver. 211 (Outdated)
vBIOS ver 012-017-000-004-0359-A33G (Outdated)

And I have a m5870 P/N: 60-NY8VG1000-C14 (I believe this is the series that is very much affected by GSOD)

Interestingly, so far I have not had any problems with the stock drivers. No, GSOD at all. The only problem I have is that I'm unable to update my ATI Catalyst Drivers. Last time I got a BSOD when trying to update the AMD ATI Catalyst Drivers (sorry but I can't remember what the error message said, but I can remember that Windows Instantly rebooted my computer after showing me the blue screen message). After I've recovered from the faulty update, I lost my Catalyst Center as well. I can't launch my Catalyst center anymore, and I can't say which Catalyst driver am I running right now.

I can play Diablo III, StarCraft 2 without any problems. No overheating at all...
But when it comes to OpenGL applications even Matlab (at least the OpenGL rendering) doesn't work which I need for my work at the University.
I've tried installing RAGE which also failed to start (Tech4 launch engine gave me an error that some OpenGL module cannot be initialized). Need for Speed: The RUN also failed to start, Battlefield 3 as well (It seems all games which use Frostbite 2).
2 Weeks ago I've tried to install Max Payne 3. It kinda worked until I've started a new game from the game menu. In the options menu I couldn't change anything and the VRAM indicator showed 0 / 0

By the way the notebook is still under warranty if I'm right. The bottom of the case says that I've purchased it on 2011-01 and I have 24M Warranty.

Anyways, I want to know if there is an ASUS Service Center located in Austria/Vienna, where I could let someone update both EFI BIOS and vBIOS for me with full responsibility.
Cause I don't think I have the nerves to do it alone...

UPDATE: I've just called the ASUS Service Hot Line in Austria. It appears that there is no Service Center in Vienna. I also received a confirmation that my notebook is still under warranty. The guy said I should do it alone and when done, after flashing the EFI BIOS, I should set the it back to factory mode. Is that alright? What do you guys think?
In which order should I flash my Notebook? EFI BIOS 211 to 213 and then vBIOS 0.120.017.xxx to vBIOS 012.020.xxx ?
Or, first vBIOS 0.120.017.xxx to vBIOS 012.020.xxx and then EFI BIOS 211 to 213 ?
Thank you for your answer in advance.

In the next few days I'll be backing up all my data and try to figure out how I'm going to do this. It would be a drag if the notebook would fail on me. I've got work to do on it, in the middle of july. I cant really afford a brick -> RMA :S

[stmalk]

Thanx for software but I encountered another problem after installing this VBios. My ATI CCC doesn't save scaling setting anymore. I use external 27" Samsund LED panel with my ASUS G73JH and before upgrading VBios it worked on 1920x1080 perfectly. But now, I edit scale parameter, reboot my laptop and after rebooting I'm getting a small scaled desktop in the center again. And I always should go to CCC and to to scale settings, move them back and forth and after this everything goes full screen again.
I don't know why it's like this but I googled one guy who encountered the same problem with his ASUS 5870 GPU and he reflashed it using this http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/7...24.100104.html

I don't know if I can do the same as I used VBios version from this thread. I'm afraid something can go wrong and kill my laptop.
What do you guys think?

and yes, my BIOS is 213

[Randypants]

Can someone just please lend me assistance?
I've been trying to update my bios with the previous method listed in the forum and my USB drive that I just bought and it is write protected. I don't know how to word this but I just need some help because this tutorial lacks any in-depth information about fixing my vbios.

[madmatter]

In the battery fix OD version of bios by Chastity does anyone know what files I need on the flash drive to perform the update. I cannot get this to work. Thanks for the help.

[seastar]

...what to say... I've been experiencing intermittent issues with my G73JH, all related to BSODs and GSODs. I'm a gamer, which is why I bought a gaming laptop, so I'll be up-front and say this usually occurs in games; specifically, Diablo III and then Guild Wars 2.

With Diablo III, I eventually got it to work by reinstalling the Asus driver for my ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870. I already had the Asus driver, but I reinstalled it as it seemed to be having issues and I didn't want to risk a generic ATI driver. That worked for the few months I played that game.

With Guild Wars 2, it's been more...odd. The issue happens randomly and not when expected, meaning, it doesn't necessarily happen during graphic-intensive sequences or heavy-battle situations. Sometimes, I'm just running around clearing map and BOOM! BSOD. Arena Net tried to help - they told me that my driver was ancient and told me to get an updated one from ATI. I did.

All was well for about 2 months and then....GSOD. Twice yesterday. So I updated the ATI driver, which also happened to release an update yesterday. Catalyst Control Center had serious issues, so I deleted it and left the driver. All was well, again, and I played for several hours in intense story mode....

But I'd gotten an email from Asus by this time advising me to flash my BIOS. I stumbled on this thread (thank you, it is helpful) and tried this. I was golden for about 2 hours and then...no, not a BSOD or GSOD... I got an update, computer rebooted, and then windows explorer became unresponsive. Win 7 would just not boot up!

So I've restored to an earlier point in the day and it's running again. Redid the update and it booted. But I'm afraid to flash again. It seems odd that it would have caused problems hours later, though, so I'm curious what thoughts you all have?

I have run Malware and AV, both clean.

[xeromist]

Doing a system restore won't revert the vbios so if you did the update then you are still updated. I would keep an eye on it and possibly set up some temperature monitoring to ensure that you aren't overheating.

[warchicken]

...what to say... I've been experiencing intermittent issues with my G73JH, all related to BSODs and GSODs. I'm a gamer, which is why I bought a gaming laptop, so I'll be up-front and say this usually occurs in games; specifically, Diablo III and then Guild Wars 2.

With Diablo III, I eventually got it to work by reinstalling the Asus driver for my ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870. I already had the Asus driver, but I reinstalled it as it seemed to be having issues and I didn't want to risk a generic ATI driver. That worked for the few months I played that game.

With Guild Wars 2, it's been more...odd. The issue happens randomly and not when expected, meaning, it doesn't necessarily happen during graphic-intensive sequences or heavy-battle situations. Sometimes, I'm just running around clearing map and BOOM! BSOD. Arena Net tried to help - they told me that my driver was ancient and told me to get an updated one from ATI. I did.

All was well for about 2 months and then....GSOD. Twice yesterday. So I updated the ATI driver, which also happened to release an update yesterday. Catalyst Control Center had serious issues, so I deleted it and left the driver. All was well, again, and I played for several hours in intense story mode....

But I'd gotten an email from Asus by this time advising me to flash my BIOS. I stumbled on this thread (thank you, it is helpful) and tried this. I was golden for about 2 hours and then...no, not a BSOD or GSOD... I got an update, computer rebooted, and then windows explorer became unresponsive. Win 7 would just not boot up!

So I've restored to an earlier point in the day and it's running again. Redid the update and it booted. But I'm afraid to flash again. It seems odd that it would have caused problems hours later, though, so I'm curious what thoughts you all have?

I have run Malware and AV, both clean.

Did that, crashed to blue screen. Had to restore to an older version of windows, but my Bios is still 213 and vbios is still updated to 012.020.000.032.0383.G730

If you ever figure out ANY hd5870 driver that works, Ill take it I mean the driver that came with the system was made in 2009. I've heard that the 10.8 Catalyst Control center worked, but the only 10.8 I could find was for desktop and not the mobility version.

[shortnstubby]

Sometime after a fresh reboot can be 10mins or 10 hrs I begin to get this weird pixelation that will eventually lead to a BSoD what does not make sense is that if I play a full screen dx9+ games it will never have an issue and will never crash. its only when im at a desktop using different programs or browsing the net. I have tried almost everything I can from running msi combuster for numerous tests, memtest 86 for a few hours, prime 95 for well over an hour even ran some video card memory test program. and all return back 100% fine. I have went as far as formatting and then doing a full system restore. but all of this seamed to start shortly after I brought the bios of the motherboard and gpu up to date. have tried all the gpu bios from this thread which lead to same result, and got the 213 bios off the asus website. I also have tried many different ati mobility drivers including the 10-8 that is recomended in this forum, the 12-8 and 12-10 as well, all lead to same issue.

The exact model of my laptop is the: G73JH-X2
http://www.microcenter.com/product/3..._-_Matte_Black

Here are a few screen shots of what happens:
g73jherror1.jpg
g73jherror2.jpg

Thank you to anyone that can provide help. I am willing to try anything at this point.