OK SO.....I was super SAD when I heard and researched all of the SATA controller issues that can occur. Having some of the same symptoms on my G73Sw, I thought I was going to be stuck with purchasing a new motherboard. Anyways.... I continued to try more things such as UPDATE BIOS and more drivers. To no avail I still could not get the motherboard to recognize that and SSD or HDD was plugged into it. It would ONLY recognize the Optical Drive(Slim Blu-Ray Drive) and any USB thumb drives I would plug into it. I then started thinking about how the week earlier when I purchased this laptop from a USED source and it was NOT WORKING at time of purchase because I needed to open up laptop and remove the BAD DC Input Jack and I replaced it with a BRAND NEW DC JACK from Ebay. So I took apart the laptop again to check some connections, I WAS SOOO HAPPY WHEN TO MY SURPRISE I noticed that the SATA connection to motherboard was not completely connected so I connected it and VOILA!!! MY SATA ports work FLAWLESSLY!!! I was still upset to find out though that the SATA controller is only a SATA 2 and I had spent extra money to purchase a BRAND NEW Corsair Force 3 (SATA 3) SSD to use as my O.S. drive. Oh well, I am loving the speed I am getting with my SSD EVEN THOUGH its only SATA 2. I actually thought it was SATA 3 when I purchased it but I received an email back from ASUS tech support and they said it was a SATA 2 (HM55) controller on this motherboard. So I am VERY HAPPY that my laptop is working GREAT NOW with my SSD and all of my new games installed. I do have one more issue though that I have not been able to fix!! I have tried 3 different drivers from ASUS support, windows 7 driver and another tech support website that had different one listed. The issue is with the AUDIO more precisely ONLY THE LAPTOP SPEAKERS(headphone jack works GREAT!!!). I am stumped with this one. I did have the sound come out for about half of a second right after I logged into NEVERWINTER for the first time on this laptop. Anyone have any suggestions with this one?? Speakers don't work but headphone jack works GREAT, I don't think the motherboard (sound chip) would be the issue if the headphone jack works RIGHT?? Speakers might need to be replaced?? I would think that would be unlikely since if they were blown they should at least have SOME audio ouput just SUPER poor quality with blown speakers. Am I correct? Anyone else had issues with SOUND after BRAND NEW CLEAN Windows 7 Install???? Thanks for help with my last issue as well guys!!!

Unfortunately, no sound from the speakers after a clean Windows 7 installation (including audio driver) most likely eliminates any hope of a software or configuration fix. With default settings, you should've heard the Windows startup sound on the first boot.

You could confirm a hardware problem by booting up to a Linux "LiveCD" distribution. If the speakers remain silent and headphones work under this new OS, you'll know the problem cannot be resolved in Windows.

Since you recently reported some sound from the speakers, it may be possible the headphone jack has a bent internal clip, causing it to appear as if headphones are ALWAYS inserted and disabling the laptop speakers. See http://forum.notebookreview.com/5879478-post337.html for more information.

You could check this in the Audio Manager - it would graphically display headphones inserted in the jack when they are actually removed. You may be able to carefully bend the clip back into it's proper position or use a registry workaround to direct audio to either headphone jack or laptop speakers.

Otherwise, I think it's a similar situation to your SATA Controller issue - a pinched or broken speaker wire or a bad connection.