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BullDozzer · ‎08-10-2012

My G74SX have started to trouble me the last month. It started with my lag in LA noire, even though no settings were changed. With the lag, my USB-connected headset (logitech G35) started to make crackling noises, which was actually my biggest issue. In my search for a solution i installed a ton of drivers, and most likely messed my pc up a bit. To fix this, i reinstalled windows and formatted my drive, now only downloading drivers from ASUS own page.

Now it seems as my comp is less effective and getting warmer a lot quicker? After plating a game with high settings for maybe 5 minutes, the metallic parts of the keyboard is pretty scalding hot.
And also the very annoying sound crackling is back, but only after 5-10 minutes of playing, so it seems to be related to the heat of the pc, as they start to freak out when the pc is warm.
I watched some overlays before reinstalling, and the gpu was pretty stable at ~86°C.
Is the g74sx prone to dust up the air intakes?
I have tried to clean it with a vacuum a lot of times, since disassembling seems... Overamitious...

Should i disassemble and try to look over the intakes and fans, or is it unnecessary?

Anyone else have similar issues?

Sorry for the crappy post btw 😕

Cheers
Oscar

cl-scott · ‎08-10-2012

All laptops are prone to dust buildup in air intakes. You would not believe some of the dust bunnies I pulled off of heatsinks from some older Apple units at my last job. Seriously, some of them were almost as thick as the radiator arm of the heatsink, and it's amazing any air managed to make it through at all.

So a good first step would always be to take a can of compressed air to the unit and clear out any dust buildups you find.

Zygomorphic · ‎08-10-2012

Disassemble and clean it out, like @cl-scott said, laptops are really prone to problems with dust, especially because of the confines of the case making the heating/cooling problems worse. If you have pets and/or smoke, or if your house is older (or just dustier) your problems will become worse faster than someone without those environments. Pets are the worst, from what I hear. I have seen people with pets whose computers were covered in dust and hair.

I am disturbed because I cannot break my system...found out there were others trying to cope! We have a support group on here, if your system will not break, please join!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=16
We now have 178 people whose systems will not break! Yippee! 🙂
LINUX Users, we have a group!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=23

BullDozzer · ‎08-11-2012

I live in a very dusty house with 3 dogs... so yea.... :rolleyes:

I'm going to buy some compressed air and blow from the exhausts in. that have to be the right way?

And about the dissasembly.... From the pictures i seen its seems to be alot of tape, etc. Things that cannot be reapplied. Am i right, or should there be no problem? Thanks for the fast answers btw! 🙂

EDIT: Once again, thanks for the help and answers, but i might not come back with results anytime soon, since i've ran into other problems.

Idestruction · ‎08-11-2012

You normally do not want to use vaccuum cleaner on a computer to dust it. It could cause static electricity to buildup and short out your internals. Get yourself a can or two of compressed air (or even better, use an air compressor for maximum dusting), just be careful as to not tip the compressed air can sideways or upside down. You could blow the liquid into your laptop, which would be really bad.

I have not done it myself, but the disassembly is fairly straight forward, as long as you dont **** up some of the smaller connectors. The only tape I believe you would need to reapply is some double sided tape for the bottom of the keyboard, as only the top portion uses connectors to secure it.

BullDozzer · ‎08-11-2012

Idestruction wrote:
You normally do not want to use vaccuum cleaner on a computer to dust it. It could cause static electricity to buildup and short out your internals. Get yourself a can or two of compressed air (or even better, use an air compressor for maximum dusting), just be careful as to not tip the compressed air can sideways or upside down. You could blow the liquid into your laptop, which would be really bad.

I have not done it myself, but the disassembly is fairly straight forward, as long as you don't **** up some of the smaller connectors. The only tape I believe you would need to reapply is some double sided tape for the bottom of the keyboard, as only the top portion uses connectors to secure it.

I've heard that, but i just thought it was over-exaggerated, since i I've done it a lot of times on other PCs haha
Been thinking to buy some of that 🙂 Although i do have access to a compressor as of now, but will move from it within the week. So i guess I'll buy a can.

Maybe need to disassemble to acces the motherboard anyway haha. Was just bugging to not have any images to go after, only one i can find is a COMPLETE disassembly... 😞

Idestruction · ‎08-11-2012

The rear access panel should be held down a couple of screws. I have a G73Sw, so I am not familiar with how your setup is, but that seems to be how all G-series laptops are. The screws, if they exist on yours, are a small Philips head screw, so be careful not to lose them.

BullDozzer · ‎08-11-2012

Idestruction wrote:
The rear access panel should be held down a couple of screws. I have a G73Sw, so I am not familiar with how your setup is, but that seems to be how all G-series laptops are. The screws, if they exist on yours, are a small Philips head screw, so be careful not to lose them.

This is the back of the 73SW, and from what i can see, it seems similiar save from the battery placement and the access-plate screws.

If you are talking of the acces panel(which i guess you mean), on the 74 its just a big flat screw, that you can unscrew with a coin or key, but the access panel only gives access to the memory and harddrives, very far away from fan-mechanics, so it won't help much. I need to get to the fans themself, which requires to remove pretty much all of the top/keyboard-plate...

As seen here, its a whole bunch of screws to remove the complete back plating, and before that i have to remove the screen and **** aswell 😞 The full dissasembly i talked about

Idestruction · ‎08-11-2012

BullDozzer wrote:

This is the back of the 73SW, and from what i can see, it seems similiar save from the battery placement and the access-plate screws.

If you are talking of the acces panel(which i guess you mean), on the 74 its just a big flat screw, that you can unscrew with a coin or key, but the access panel only gives access to the memory and harddrives, very far away from fan-mechanics, so it won't help much. I need to get to the fans themself, which requires to remove pretty much all of the top/keyboard-plate...

As seen here, its a whole bunch of screws to remove the complete back plating, and before that i have to remove the screen and **** aswell 😞 The full dissasembly i talked about

Like I said, not familiar with your setup. That is horribly designed if you ask me... lol. I think you have answered your own question, however. I would suggest running something like Speccy or CoreTemp before you jump to doing a disassembly. Just to make sure that your temps are actually out of the norm.

BullDozzer · ‎08-11-2012

Idestruction wrote:
Like I said, not familiar with your setup. That is horribly designed if you ask me... lol. I think you have answered your own question, however. I would suggest running something like Speccy or CoreTemp before you jump to doing a disassembly. Just to make sure that your temps are actually out of the norm.

Well they don't really build them for easy servicing 😛 they rather see us buying new **** you know.

Well that is ofcourse true, i'd not do all that without knowing i have too 😛
Will look in more to the performance-story later, but not now since its bricked 😞 RItP (Rest in temporary Piece)

G74SX performance/heat Issues