Asus

I Have A Chimera!

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My new portable monster arrived today. Unlike my recent return I’m really impressed with it! I already tested a few games on it this evening just to make sure it’s road ready. Didn’t even need to do an OS-Reinstall, at least on the Windows side (the Mint side has already been on my list for a reinstall to try a newer version).

This particular model (the G703GS) sports some serious RGB on both the front and the back.

I tested Crash Bandicoot among other games, and the only one that gave me any grief was Skyrim… but I’m pretty sure that’s because of my new refresh rate. The G703GS has a 144hz 1080p display (previous laptop only did 75hz) with G-Sync enabled. Skyrim is notoriously known for breaking at framerates far above 60fps thanks to the physics engine being tied to your refresh rate (at least for Oldrim, not sure about Special Edition). My version has a Coffee Lake i7-8750H 2.2 ghz hexacore processor and a GTX 1070. Packs enough of a wallop to most likely last me a few years, and by then maybe I’ll luck out and get a gaming laptop with a Ryzen. 😛

Now I just have to figure out what my lunch time game for tomorrow will be…

ASUS Tech Support Says The Darndest Things

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One of the key things I’m looking for in a laptop right now is a minimum of three hard drive bays. My current laptop has two NVMe slots and one SATA. I’m looking at a couple of good candidates for upgrading to, but the problem is the online documentation for these models isn’t exactly clear on how many drive bays come with each laptop, as there are different revisions of a particular model out there that have different things like screen size, the amount of RAM it comes with by default, etc. If I look up any motherboard I can immediately find information on its home website (even ASUS), but when it comes to their laptops you really have to dig on these newer models to figure out which revision comes with what, and nothing of what I read online in their manuals or in disassembly videos has given me an idea of a drive layout. I contacted ASUS via email to inquire about upgrading…

Hello,

I am interested in upgrading from a G752VT to a GL702VS, and I currently have two NVMe drives and an SSD that I would like to move over to a new laptop. How many m2 slots does the GL702VS have?

Thank you.

Over 24 hours had buzzed by, and I get this gem as a response (Note: I changed the reference number):

 

Hello ***********,

Thank you for your response. My name is David S. I appreciate the time out you have taken to notify us of your concern and I apologize for any inconvenience caused. I’m grateful to be able to further address this matter with you. I have escalated your query to our senior engineers for more information. Please allow 1 – 2 business days for feedback.

Thank you for the opportunity to address this matter with you. We value you as an important ASUS customer, and we want to ensure your experience with us is fulfilling.

If you have any other questions, comments or concerns please feel free to reach out to us again. Thanks for contacting ASUS support.

Please make note of your case number for future reference: XXX666XXXX

Regards,
David S.

ASUS Product Support

Concern? The only concern I have is in this overall response… did they even bother to read what I wrote? Why are they responding to me as if I have a broken laptop? All I wanted to know was how many drives that laptop could hold in its fucking badonkadonk case.

What’s even more concerning is getting this exact same email again this afternoon… wtf?

Linux is now working on my ROG G752VT

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After beating my head against the wall some more I figured out why my NVidia drivers were installing incorrectly. Disabling UEFI in BIOS seemed to do the trick, and hey! Suddenly I could install the latest graphics drivers via driver manager (with the proper PPA added)!. I now have Steam installed, plus Waterfox and some of the basics. Even got the Steam Controller udev rules sorted. Now I’m finally ready to test games on another computer and have a more portable version of Linux.

Now I’ll just need to remember to enable and disable UEFI when booting between Windows and Mint… ugh. :rick:

Look what arrived!

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It has arrived! I’m too tired to put it on right now, but if things go well I might see some more HBM graphic goodness during my weekend. I can even color it to match my keyboard and mouse! I’m going to have bling out the arse. :happy:

I may also start collecting parts to get my Ryzen setup started. All I really need is a new motherboard, processor, and RAM to go that route. Maybe within three months I can get started? :happy:

Upgrades Upgrades Upgrades

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It seems I’ve found someone who wants to buy a gaming laptop, so I spent the entire night researching a worthy upgrade. I looked between Asus and MSI and have come to the conclusion that Asus would be the better one to stick with for now. While I don’t like how I can’t take out the GPU and upgrade it to a different one the ROG series laptops run much cooler. Asus ROG series laptops have good vents in the back of their laptops whereas with the MSI ones tend to be on the sides. Some of them are on the back and the sides, but the vents are smaller.

I’ve also decided that at the very least I’ll invest in a laptop that has an NVidia 8xx GPU or higher so that I’ll have DX12 support. Although I don’t see myself using Windows 8 or 10 anytime soon it’ll at least be nice to futureproof myself a bit. The G74SX held up more than awesomely over these last couple years, definitely got my moneys worth out of it. I only have to lower my settings in a few of the newer games. That 560m was a great card.

So between the new motherboard and new laptop I’ll be busy for awhile.