dstrakele wrote:
Check out @mindtripper's last post on this page of this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/582628-aes-ni-support-truecrypt-sandy-bridge-pro....

You need to install a modified 203 version BIOS that will void your Warranty, but it will give you the functionality you seek. From what I read of ASUS RMA Warranty repairs, the Warranty is of limited value anyway...

Don't attempt unless you've familiarized yourself with BIOS Update Procedure using EasyFlash.

EDIT: You may need to PM @K41H over at the Notebook Review Forum to get a working link to the proper files.

Thanks I'll look in to this... but this is something ASUS should have supported right off the back, AES-IN drasticly speeds up AES-IN encryption

Well, I agree that adding the microcode patch into Bios needs some effort from ASUS, but I don't really see the benefit of removing AES-NI support in Bios in the first place. Also, if this is a gaming laptop, how about a working numlock button instead of the calc button?

For myself and others who do not like features deliberately crippled at factory, for no apparent reason, there is the modded BIOS route. When ASUS does not want to enable the feature for g74sx, it's nice to have at least the community to support a good product.

Grendel wrote:
Well, I agree that adding the microcode patch into Bios needs some effort from ASUS, but I don't really see the benefit of removing AES-NI support in Bios in the first place. Also, if this is a gaming laptop, how about a working numlock button instead of the calc button?

For myself and others who do not like features deliberately crippled at factory, for no apparent reason, there is the modded BIOS route. When ASUS does not want to enable the feature for g74sx, it's nice to have at least the community to support a good product.

Odds are it was never in the BIOS to begin with, as AFAIK, it was never once advertised in even the technical specifications for the unit. We may as well be blaming Microsoft for not supporting PAE in their 32-bit versions of Windows (well, one version of Windows Server does). At any point has Microsoft advertised that their 32-bit versions of Windows such as XP, Vista, 7, or 8, support more than 4GB of RAM? Could they enable PAE support to get the same 48-bit addressing they'd get from an x86-64 version of the OS? Absolutely, but they decided to go with the cleaner technical solution of just shifting everyone to a 64-bit platform.

cl-scott wrote:
Odds are it was never in the BIOS to begin with, as AFAIK, it was never once advertised in even the technical specifications for the unit. We may as well be blaming Microsoft for not supporting PAE in their 32-bit versions of Windows (well, one version of Windows Server does). At any point has Microsoft advertised that their 32-bit versions of Windows such as XP, Vista, 7, or 8, support more than 4GB of RAM? Could they enable PAE support to get the same 48-bit addressing they'd get from an x86-64 version of the OS? Absolutely, but they decided to go with the cleaner technical solution of just shifting everyone to a 64-bit platform.

AES-NI is not Physical Address extensions in any sense... AES is the de-facto industry standard for encryption and Intel is not the only CPU manufacturers that have included instruction sets for AES in their CPUs, AMD has Geode and VIA has Padlock and there are even ARM and other RISC CPUs with instruction sets for AES. Your argument is moot; it has nothing to do with support of a standard, as instruction sets for AES are widely supported. It is not that ASUS is not supporting AES as whole; many of your other products have it because they have new versions of the Sandy Bridge Microcode... This entire instance is poor product support, lack of caring on the Part of ASUS that there has been myriad of other updates to the Sandy Bridge Microcode that are reliability and performance updates that are vastly more important than AES-NI.

cl-scott wrote:
I'm not claiming this as any kind of official response, but the G series are GAMING laptops. Supporting some encryption instructions in the CPU is probably a pretty low priority when it would be of pretty marginal value for the uses you mention. I have absolutely nothing to back it up with, but I'm betting if you looked at actual use cases like you list (HTTPS, Skype, wifi) that there would be no real performance benefit. You'd probably have to use a benchmarking program to quantify the results at all, and even then it'd probably be miniscule.

Now if you were using whole disk encryption... Then you might start getting into the area where there would be some performance benefits, but how many gamers are going to do that? Probably very few. And I'm sure someone's going to ask why Intel would go to all the trouble of putting it in there if it was of such marginal value, and the answer is that Intel wants to sell chips to government agencies, researchers, and even possibly places like law firms that will be very sensitive about privacy. They want to make sure that those people are buying systems with Intel chips as opposed to AMD.

Finally, I'm going to edit out the email address you rather unwisely put into your post Clarkis117. I assume you get enough spam as-is, and don't need bots that scan through forums like this looking for addresses to harvest adding more.

That fact that I paid over $1200 for a product from your company and I get this level of support for something the Chipset Manufactor says should be there but isn't, URKS THE HELL OUT OF ME! But your Right I shouldn't expect An Advertised Feature to be in a product, that was advertised as having it or that the CPU Microcode in the current BIOS is over 10 Revisions Behind the current Microcode for SandyBridge and a Majority of the updates are for increased reliability. So, When I as Customer come and complain about a problem I'm having with one of your products, I expect to get a answer other than Tough **** You Shouldn't have Bought One of Our laptops. Your Job title said something about customer loyalty... well you're not doing your job well at all because I'm not buying another ASUS product in the near and distant future; especially, If the response I get from that from your compay openly critizes me for complain about something THAT WAS ADVERTISED THAT THE PRODUCT HAD. I'll make sure to include your name and email address in my complaint to the Better Business Bureau, and I'm also writting a complaint to the Federal Trade Comission for falsely advertising your product. I might go as far to sue ASUS in small Claims Court because I've been playing this game for well over two months trying to get an Answer about this and a solution to it, I'm tired and piss off at ASUS...

Oh and by the way this has costed a lot hours with the amount of time I have spent on the phone with your product support, writting these posts, and emails... time which I'm not too happy that I lost to begin with

Clarkis117 wrote:
WAS ADVERTISED THAT THE PRODUCT HAD

ASUS advertised that the G74 was going to support AES-NI?

If you're referring to the fact that this is a feature of the chip, it doesn't work that way. System builders and resellers add & remove features of included components all the time because they're selling a final product, not components. The FTC, BBB, etc aren't going to be interested unless ASUS advertised a feature that wasn't delivered. I mean, you're more than welcome to try and feel free to keep us updated but I just don't see how it's going to gain traction unless you have any relevant advertising on this feature.

BTW, lest my title is confusing I don't work for ASUS so I'm not actually sure what was or wasn't advertised. I'm just going based on what I could (not) find on Google.

Clarkis117 wrote:
That fact that I paid over $1200 for a product from your company and I get this level of support for something the Chipset Manufactor says should be there but isn't, URKS THE HELL OUT OF ME! But your Right I shouldn't expect An Advertised Feature to be in a product, that was advertised as having it or that the CPU Microcode in the current BIOS is over 10 Revisions Behind the current Microcode for SandyBridge and a Majority of the updates are for increased reliability. So, When I as Customer come and complain about a problem I'm having with one of your products, I expect to get a answer other than Tough **** You Shouldn't have Bought One of Our laptops. Your Job title said something about customer loyalty... well you're not doing your job well at all because I'm not buying another ASUS product in the near and distant future; especially, If the response I get from that from your compay openly critizes me for complain about something THAT WAS ADVERTISED THAT THE PRODUCT HAD. I'll make sure to include your name and email address in my complaint to the Better Business Bureau, and I'm also writting a complaint to the Federal Trade Comission for falsely advertising your product. I might go as far to sue ASUS in small Claims Court because I've been playing this game for well over two months trying to get an Answer about this and a solution to it, I'm tired and piss off at ASUS...

Oh and by the way this has costed a lot hours with the amount of time I have spent on the phone with your product support, writting these posts, and emails... time which I'm not too happy that I lost to begin with

If you can show me even a single example of where Asus advertised this feature, then I will make sure it gets kicked up the corporate hierarchy.

Otherwise, let me just say this, and not as a company rep: You can go the lawsuit route, but a judge is just going to ask you the same question I, and xeromist, did above: Can you provide even a single example of where Asus claimed this feature was supported. If not, they're going to throw your case out. For that matter, I'd be curious if you can find a single major laptop vendor that advertises support for that feature.

I'd love to be able to help you, but basically this would be like me complaining that the Big Mac I ordered wasn't made with 100% angus beef. Does McDonalds ever claim that the Big Mac uses 100% angus beef? No, so what exactly is the foundation of my complaint? I'm not trying to make fun of you or anything, I'm just bringing up some counter points. The G series of laptops are marketed very heavily as GAMING laptops, and AES-IN would be of pretty marginal value for probably 99.999999999999999999999999% of people who would buy a gaming laptop. In fact, encryption leads to inevitable overhead, which is typically the exact OPPOSITE of what gamers want. Even in the use cases you specifically mention, the amount of benefit gained would be completely negligible. If you were a mathematician who does encryption research, then you have my empathy, but you're still essentially blaming Asus for not offering a feature it never said it would offer. My car isn't a hybrid, and at no point did the dealer or maker of the car claim, or even insinuate, that it was. If I were to then complain that my car didn't get the same gas mileage as a hybrid, let alone have a magic never emptying gas tank (wouldn't that be nice), I would personally expect people to make fun of me.

So if you can find me some kind of promotional material where Asus says AES-IN support is included, I will kick your complaint up the corporate food chain. And if you think that maybe I'm conspiring with the people who manage the website to remove all trace of this info, there are sites like the Wayback Machine which will do regular captures of other sites and archive them. You can go back to the day the G74 was announced.