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G51VX-A1

post #1 of 10
8/24/09 at 3:24pm
Thread Starter 
Hi I have ordered and had delivered a Asus G51VX-A1 that was supposed to be new, however it definitely wasn't. I'll start at when I received the delivery box, I checked it thoroughly for any damage that may have occurred during shipping before signing for it and it was in decent shape. So my excitement was at its peak when I pulled the box from the packaging. However that was quickly dulled when I started to pull back the packaging and noticed that there was two layers of the blue Asus packaging tape. The "check contents if seal is broken" was still intact, so I continued only after grabbing my camera to document anything out of the ordinary. The exterior box containing the backpack, mouse and eee sticks were all there and in new condition, but when I got to the laptop box itself there were two layers of the "check contents" sticker, and one that had definitely been removed before I received it. Definitely refurbished. I pulled the contents of the laptop box out and everything looked in order at first glance, no scratches and fine blemishes.. looked new anyways. First quirk was the keyboard that was lifted out of place about 1/4 to 3/8 an inch in the upper left hand corner. Pushing down put back into place, as its only held in place by retention tabs. Next was booting it up. After the bios loaded... nothing. first and most obvious thing to me was a dead hard drive, I opened the bottom up and I saw the hard drive cage just floating in its bay, NO SCREWS to hold it in place!! On top of that the "warranty void if removed sticker" on the processor had two layered and one broken and someone's sweaty glove print all over the copper heatsink. However I buttoned it all back up and decided to see if it would boot anyway and it did. Ran a few benchmarks and checked temps which were fine, it was when I got up from my chair that I noticed that there was a crack in the upper right side of the screen bezel at the seam emitting blue light from the case lights.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to describe it as best I could. I'm basically upset that Asus and the reseller would try pawn off used something used as new and charge the full price. All in all if I had received a "new" laptop I would have been really happy with it, but it wasn't. Looking around on the internet I've noticed a couple reviews (newegg) with "problems" booting and its probably the same disconnected HD and missing screws. I'm sure that this isnt widespread and pretty isolated, but has anyone else here got something similar?
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post #2 of 10
8/24/09 at 3:41pm
Sorry you had such a bad experience! I've got a G51Vx-A1 review unit and it had none of those issues. Everything worked fine and was buttoned down correctly. The keyboard on mine has some noticeable flex, but it's securely in place.
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post #3 of 10
8/25/09 at 6:28am
Thread Starter 
Hey, thanks man. Is your keyboard held down by screws and tabs, or just by the tabs by chance? The one I had floated, I could move the entire keyboard left, right, up, and down without a lot of effort. I could see the screw holes in the bottom marked with a K and the screws were in there and secure, and not sure if they were replaced with the screws that might have been shorter from the hard drive cage.
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post #4 of 10
8/25/09 at 8:18am
Just checked. There does appear to be some wiggle room, maybe a millimeter or so from left to right and the same from top to bottom. However, it still appears to be held in by both screws and tabs. It certainly doesn't "float" and if I hadn't been testing for that kind of movement, I never would have noticed it.
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post #5 of 10
8/26/09 at 6:16pm
Thread Starter 
Hey Djembe another quick question if you don't mind, did you receive something for the windows 7 upgrade in the box? Or is that just BestBuy retail boxes? The Asus upgrade site system apparently did not have my serial number, and I had to apply for the upgrade. Four days later I received a automated response that I could now apply for the upgrade after I email them proof of purchase. Which is great, two days after I sent the laptop back to buy.com. Thanks by the way for the help, it's much appreciated!
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post #6 of 10
8/26/09 at 7:57pm
I'll have to check. I don't think so, but I didn't look very closely since it's a review unit and I'm obviously not going to have it for very long.
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post #7 of 10
8/28/09 at 12:15pm
Thread Starter 
Hey I just got my new G51VX-A1 from Mwave, and from the get go it was better packed then Buy.com did it, and most of all it was brand new! (do a little dance.. sing a little...n/m). The keyboard is defintitely a different and feels a lot more responsive, this one fits with the play you described, the old one had almost three times the play. The screen is alot better looking too I noticed, and no crack! There was no upgrade to 7 certificate, so I assume with confidence that most of them are upgraded via serial number online. I'm off to go run some comparisons and play a little.
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post #8 of 10
8/28/09 at 7:01pm
Nice going - give us your personal review and benchmarks whilst at it.

cheers ...
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post #9 of 10
8/28/09 at 10:29pm
Wow good thing you got a new one dude but the glove print on the heatsink is normal. I've had the same on my G50 and new G51. It's all hand built so copper attracts prints fast.
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post #10 of 10
9/8/09 at 9:39am
Thread Starter 
Overall this is a very nice laptop and basically I’m just going to nitpick it a little. The sound out of the box is probably the lowest point for me, but after uninstalling the sound blaster software and making a few adjustments in the realtek software and dolby digital sound in the control panel it sounds louder and slightly clearer. I’ve used for the last some odd years a creative Xfi music extreme card to give you an idea where I’m coming from. Through headphones the bass is adequate and treble and definition is pretty good, in my opinion I’d say it’s about 70-75% of what the Xfi can achieve. As far as the built in speakers go, my Toshiba P105 beat these out easily but at least these aren’t built into the palm rest.
I bought this mostly because I like having the high resolution of my 24” monitor on something portable, and the screen extremely clear, whites are bright and clear, while the blacks take a little adjustment to get right as it looked a little washed out at first. I ended up uninstalling the Asus splendid utility and a few of the other utilities I know I’ll never use. Instead I used the built in Nvidia control panel settings to adjust color, and turned the brightness down a bit and achieved pretty good results as the splendid utility was to clumsy for me with only 3 RGB sliders. Like others have noted, I see the blue lights faintly when the computer is in standby in a darker room but has no noticeable effect while the display is on.
As far as wireless goes the out of the box the original driver had problems connecting to the Actiontec Fios router, but after a driver update with the latest Intel set I haven’t had a glitch after that. The driver still operates with the Asus wifi utility, and Intel’s My WiFi is an optional install that creates a wireless personal area network and is handy for sharing an internet connection and pushing files around.
The design on the cover is different than the first one I got is that it looks like someone hit the bold button on the production line. The first laptop was definitely more elegant looking, while this one isn’t overwhelming I wish they would still have used just plain old black though.
Temps for me have been pretty good. While the internals are fairly hot, it stays cool enough to keep in my lap comfortably, but keep your small pets and hands clear of the exhaust. While in game on a second monitor using HwMonitor for me the processor peaks at 70c, the 260m 97c at the max and I’ve watched the temps while in game and are averaging about 5-10c cooler than max. I checked the Intel site to make sure 70C on the proc were ok, the thermal limit of the Q9000 is 100c which made me feel a little better about the temps. At idle the proc is around 42c on average, the 260m 65c. All these temps are using the laptop in my lap, no cooling pad, and a room temp about 75f (24c).
All said this is by far one my favorite laptops with it’s high screen res, dual hard drive bays, backlit keyboard, quad core multitasking, a capable graphics card, an access panel to all replaceable components, and number pad all in a 15.6” form factor. I would definitely buy it again even with all the hassle I had getting one that was new. But I’m sure I was just one of the “lucky” ones who got something used, and learned a lesson for myself about online stores, shipping, customer service, other than my normal Newegg while adding a store to my tech list and never using a couple others again.
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