So I was looking for a new Notebook and my budget was $1350 USD and I just couldn't find a Notebook with a 17 inch screen and decent specs with this budget.
Finally I stumbled upon a computer shop selling ASUS Notebooks and found the ASUS G73Sw for $1156 USD with amazing specs! On paper, the Notebook impressed me very much....i7 Sandy Bridge @ 2.0 Ghz./8 GB DDR3 RAM/2x500GB Seagate Momentus XT HDDs/17 inch screen/GeForce GTX 460M 1.5 GB RAM
I bought the laptop then went home, only to be surprised that the keyboard doesn't illuminate as advertised. So I did a little bit of reading on the ASUS ROG Forums and it seems that many people are facing the same issue and there wasn't any real solution to fix it. I was very dissappointed and called the ASUS Servier Center the next day. They told me that is a common problem and asked me to bring my brand new notebook for repair WOW! :mad:
So I took the Notebook over to the ASUS service center and they fixed the issue with a BIOS tool (not a BIOS upgrade but they tweaked a hidden BIOS settings with their tools) and the keyboard lights were on. :mad:
Next, I know that my Notebook has 4 RAM slots, 2 underneath the keyboard and 2 in the back panel which is easily accessible. To my surprise, ASUS has placed one of the 4 GB SODIMMs under the keyboard, but they placed the one under the keyboard and the 2nd one under the back panel! How stupid can a the tech people over at ASUS get? This leaves me with only 1 SODIMM empty to upgrade technically unless I wanted to take the whole laptop apart to access the slot available under the keyboard So again, I called ASUS, and they told me they need to charge me $50 USD to move the RAM stick under the back panel to place it underneath the keyboard with the other stick in order for me to have 2 easily accessible slots should I wish to upgrade the RAM in the future! I had to argue with them for 30 mins to convince the person in charge to do it for free since this is a brand new laptop and it is not my fault that the ASUS technicians are very clumsy to start off with to put the RAM sticks in such a weird configuration. :mad:
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Then I noticed that the notebook although has an i7 CPU clocked @ 2.0 GHz. and can go up to 2.9 GHz. in Turbo mode, according to CPU-Z it was always idling @ 789 mhz and this was a BIOS bug and ASUS still didn't fix it! The last BIOS update for the G73Sw was 1 year ago in February 2011! I read about this on the ASUS forums as well and all the ASUS owners were facing this issue and had to use a program called Throttle-Stop to enable the CPU to run at the rated speed!
Finally, after using the Notebook for 27 days in total, I was browsing the net one night, and suddenly my screen started to flicker on/off then the color just changed to pale yellow! I tried restarting the Notebook, turning it off for a while but that didn't help! It seems like one of the cables which connects the LCD to the motherboard got loose! I had at this point and was not ready to take my Notebook again to that Service Center!
I fought all day long with the management of the store I bought it from and with ASUS but they refused to take back their crappy Notebook and give my back my money and instead offered me to leave it at their service center for repairs!! I barely used the damn thing it was always having troubles, random lockups, weird issues here and there!
So I called the police and they sent a cop who forced them to refund my money since I have a valid warranty and the laptop is still fairly new!
Thank god the police here in Dubai are very helpful and assisted me otherwise I would have been screwed!
This is my first ASUS laptop and the last! :mad: