SSD Not Recognized In G73SW Bios

[OSIAS]

I have a G73S
G73SW = mobo
G73SW-XN2

I have had it for about 3 years and I immediately added a SSD to run my OS from. Its always given me grief when booting like the drive doesn't initialize correctly about 25% of the time. So every now and then I get a BSOD and then I have to go into bios tell it which drive boot order and it will boot again.

Finally I got a BSOD two weeks ago. Go into bios and its not listed. I think maybe its the board or port so I take the normal HD it ships with and test it in that port and it sees it. Lets call this normal drive "A" Part # 9HV144-286 I believe its a Sata 3 drive. The Bios see's Drive "A" in both slot 0 and 1. Lets call my first SSD "B" Part # AGT3-25SAT3-120G It is a Sata 3 6gbps w/ backwards compatible to 3gbs. I tried "B" in both slots and bios does not see it.

So I say okay seems like my SSD gave out the ghost and order a new one. Lets call the New Drive "C" Part # SSD9SC120GLA-XLR which is a Sata 3 6gbps drive SSD drive. I can't seem to find better specs then that below is the new egg link.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178455
Everywhere I can find it says its the PNY XLR8

So Drive "C" Arrives and I try it in both bays and BIOS does not see it in either. I figured I got a lemon and did an RMA and got it replaced. Drive "D" arrives a duplicate of drive "C" and same thing BIOS does not see it in either bay. I tried the original drive "A" again to confirm and yes it still sees it. I reset the bios to defaults and I am using ACHI for Sata in bios.

All I can think of is this is some weird mobo error, maybe mobo firmware.

Or perhaps the mobo can only handle 3gpbs sata 3 and the new drive isn't backwards compatible, but that doesn't make sense because its supposed to be backwards compatible.

Please help before I spend any more money or time on this.

[OSIAS]

Just FYI I took Drive "D" the latest SSD into my office today and plugged it into a Proliant DL380 G7 SAS HD Backplane and the controller saw it just fine.

So its definitely not a Lemon Drive.

I saw a thread about re-seating the Mobo HD Backplane cables but that doesn't really fly for me because it sees a standard drive no issue. Also looking at the tear down video its pretty extensive to get to the point in which I could do that.

So anyone got any ideas or help please

[OSIAS]

I have dug into the SSD manufacturer and they say no firmware updates and you shouldn't need any. Only Mobo Firmware updates may resolve this.

I have been digging through the Asus site but I do not see a clear patch to updating firmware without an Win OS installed. It doesn't seem to support an offline firmware updater

I downloaded Free-Dos and Bupdater and grabbed my latest firmware but it doesn't like it and doesn't line up so it wont let me do it that way.

Any help would be appreciated.

[OSIAS]

Anybody?

[OSIAS]

I believe I have now submitted a help desk ticket as well.

[billyray520]

Something's definitely wrong. I have two SSDs in my G73Sw. Never had a bit of trouble either adding them or since they were added. (Windows 7 home premium)

[OSIAS]

Well thanks for a reply but not very help full anyone have a walk through and links on how to update the mobo firmware and which ones to grab.

[OSIAS]

Called support center and they just want me to ship my laptop they don't know what else to do probably just replace mobo.

[OSIAS]

Okay From here

http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=G73Sw&p=3&s=252

I have taken the aflash2 update utility
I have grabbed BIOS Verson 205

I created a bootable USB Free-DOS stick and launched the bios utility and it says that the current bios is the same as the bios I want to update it to so its up to date? I flashed it anyways and checked the drives again and it doesn't see them.

What avenues of troubleshooting are left? Can anyone help me?

[cl-Albert]

Honestly, I don't get involved with a lot of SSD upgrades and have never tried it on the G73SW, but I'm wondering if that SSD drive and the G73SW may just not be compatible (I have no idea how often this happens, but SSDs may not have been very common when the G73SW was out)?

If the G73SW is working fine with normal hard drives (you may want to double-check this is still true?), consider trying other brands/models of SSDs especially those that other G73SW owners have reported working?

Otherwise, if it's easier, you may want to ask the support center to confirm this if you decide to send back the notebook, but wondering if even a motherboard replacement will really solve this.

Anyway, you may want to continue getting more opinions, but wanted to run this by you and others to consider.