So this morning I couldn't get my lappy to wake up from sleepy mode. Turns out the GFX card has died during the night some time :( After about an hour of trying every trick in the book to get it working again, I had to make the call to ASUS. I think the guy was a bit surprised when I just took charge of the conversation and listed every test I had run with no joy. He then gave me an RMA number and told me to fill out a form on their site. Minutes later, I get an e-mail saying that my request for service was denied due to being out of warranty...
A few hours later and several phone calls, I managed to get a proof of purchase and that made them finally accept that the laptop actually has 3 months left on the warranty. Woho! At least I got lucky in that the GFX card failed within warranty, but man it still sucks.
Adding to that, I am now borrowing my wife's laptop, and Steam is refusing to let me install Warframe!
Anyone else had bad experience with ASUS hardware? I've been using ASUS components for as long as I can remember sticking with them where I could for the last 14-15 years. This is actually the first time I've had anything with an ASUS badge that failed. I was just shocked at how #careface their support was compared to others. Especially as I can see the GFX card is quite a common issue on this particular model.
Asus stuff has been pretty reliable for me over the years, I only ever had issues with one motherboard where overclocking + their chipset drivers messed up software raid. Regarding gaming laptops, I've fried a few, always in the same way yours has died - graphics card hotpot. My last XPS laptop went through three sets of SLI graphics cards before finally becoming an expensive 9 lb coaster (because the three year warranty had finally expired).
I had good and bad experiences. As for laptops, when I came to the lan I bought one from the UK. HP pavilion with nvidia 8800(or the one under that). Only gamed on it during the lan, and sold to my sister to use for skype/office documents. Needless to say, it failed after the warranty expired. Some vga issue as well..
As for Asus, my previous machine had an RoG Formula MB, it was utterly rubbish, constant problems. My current Z87 Sabertooth is holding steady.
I can give you one tip, if you want to game, use a proper pc. If you think about it, compare the cooling we have in our towers and keep in mind the vga heatsink/cooling. Now put that in a laptop; even if they work for a while, they're not built to last.
Quote from: Gorion;385342laptop; even if they work for a while, they're not built to last.
That's the basis I work on. The laptop is a temporary purchase that will need to be replaced when the warranty expires as the laptop will cook itself during that period and die!
Yes, I did work for the company that did service on Dell and Alienware, so I know GFX issues are quite common. The reason I went for the Asus laptop was that the cooling solution on it is far superior to that of it's competitors. Apparently still not good enough though. Still pretty lucky it failed 3 months before the warranty ran out! Hopefully it will last me one or two more LANs before needing to be replaced.
I have actually toyed with the idea of making a new bottom chassis for the computer with 3d printing. Making it bigger and designing water channels in the chassis and maybe even make the chassis it self act as a waterblock for the gfx card and cpu. It would have to have an external stand-alone radiator and pump though, and not be verry mobile anymore
You might as well sell the laptop you'll be given, and build one of those mini/lanbox machines.. Lan attendees should generally have spare monitors you could borrow.
That's something I'd love to see Vargen, 3d printed laptop chassis with built in water cooling channels!
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I've always bought ASUS motherboards, and of the ~10 I've bought not a single one has failed on me - so I'd vouch for their reliability.
Gaming laptops are always going to be susceptible to this kind of failure - packing high performance SLI graphics hardware into a very small space is going to get hot.
I built my new PC into a Bitfenix Prodigy (http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/chassis/prodigy/) case with LAN portability in mind, and it's superb. Takes a full size graphics card, has space for plenty of kit and it stays relatively cool & quite under load. You could probably fit it into luggage if you're flying, but there are smaller cases available - this effort (http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/blog/39/corsair-250d-mini-itx-gaming-build) from Corsair looks rather nice.
I've been reading into desktop vs laptop gpu recently but none of them really touched on reliability as a big issue. I was umming and erring about whether I stick to laptops for my SC-capable gaming system and this thread is making me think higher end laptops (sli etc) might be a bad idea...
Fwiw my old VAIO is still going (maybe 5 years now?), though its 5650m is hardly pushing boundaries.
Quote from: suicidal_monkey;385359I was umming and erring about whether I stick to laptops for my SC-capable gaming system and this thread is making me think higher end laptops (sli etc) might be a bad idea...
It is a bad idea. Get a suitable PC with suitable cooling for gaming. The whole "gaming" laptop concept is a ridiculous, they simply cannot handle gaming.
Quote from: Gorion;385369The whole "gaming" laptop concept is a ridiculous, they simply cannot handle gaming.
I'm not sure anyone would argue that gaming laptops can't handle gaming (my SLI-equipped Dell XPS certainly could, even at desktop resolutions), but I think if you buy a gaming laptop you need to accept that it will not
last like a desktop. In that respect, gaming laptops can't handle gaming.
The way I look at it is this:
My desktop PC needs a graphics refresh usually every 3 years in order to keep up with games.
The CPU in my desktop lasts a little longer with overclocking.
So I apply the same 3 year cycle to laptops as anything longer means the laptop would be playing games with technology that was unable to keep up with the computing requirements of the game, which would make it not fit for purpose and would mean buying a new one anyway!
So........
When I buy a gaming laptop I aim to buy it with a 3 year warranty (very unusual for me as I never buy extended warranty with anything else).
I accept that at the end of the warranty the laptop is essentially 'end of life'.
I cost things over that 3 year life cycle (ie I expect to have to buy another in three years, I do not expect it to last five years!)
After expiry of the warranty, when the laptop fails I buy another.
Keeping the laptop to more or less within warranty period means the technology is still young enough to play the games and do the job of a desktop.
Keeping the laptop within warranty means that failures are covered by the warranty.
The expectation has to be that a gaming laptop will not handle gaming for any longer than your warranty period.
Like TL says here, you don't really expect a gaming computer to last any longer than 3 years without any form of hardware upgrades. My reason for choosing a laptop was to make attending LANs easier. Bringing a desktop system on a plane just isn't practical. Also I would have to rely on borrowing a monitor from someone. With a laptop, I pack my bags and go.
Come to think of it. How would I even go about transporting a liquid cooled system on a plane, as there are stupid regulations on how much fluid you can bring in your bags now?
Quote from: Vargen;385374Come to think of it. How would I even go about transporting a liquid cooled system on a plane
Never mind a plane, I struggled getting my first liquid-cooled behemoth to the LAN in my
car.
After a second hernia/LAN of liquid-lugging I gave up and bought a gaming laptop....!
Quote from: TeaLeaf;385373if you buy a gaming laptop you need to accept that it will not last like a desktop. In that respect, gaming laptops can't handle gaming.
That's what I meant. Also, the way they dissipate heat is simply not enough for gaming purposes.
As for travelling, simply build a lanbox with no water cooling.
[video=youtube;txMj_WYLzPA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txMj_WYLzPA[/video]
And, there's your hand luggage.
Quote from: Gorion;385377That's what I meant. Also, the way they dissipate heat is simply not enough for gaming purposes.
As for travelling, simply build a lanbox with no water cooling.
And, there's your hand luggage.
Having seen TL's (and others) gaming laptop in action, I can vouch for the performance - it's excellent.
I have the case in that video - there's no way you could fit it into hand luggage,
especially on a budget airline. Cargo luggage perhaps, but I can totally understand the desire to travel light. Gaming laptops seem like a good fit in that case.
Bottom line is that the gaming laptops fill a need, so long as you accept their shortfalls. They're not as good as a desktop, but they're small enough to be easily portable :thumbsup:
And if you ever forget to have breakfast, you can cook some eggs'n'bacon on the GPUs too! :roflmao:
I guess you could use the Cooler Master HAF Stacker 915R Mini-ITX case for a LAN box. That is 22,8x24,8x57,8cm, so I guess it would fit into the overhead compartment.
Still I prefer the laptop for traveling light, even if it will eventually die to overheating.
Delantival had a custom flight-case pc...I'm sure there's a photo on the forums somewhere!
The laptop's been great for the lan and for being easy to get out of the way at home. It's definitely not as fast as a desktop you'd get for the same outlay, but I've never really had success with upgrading parts in my desktops. I once prolonged the life of a pc by 6 months or a year or so with a new gpu, but I usually ended up building a new machine due to huge step changes in performance and incompatibilities of available cpu/gpu/ram architectures. Maybe I don't get good enough kit to start off with though!
Quote from: TeaLeaf;385373When I buy a gaming laptop I aim to buy it with a 3 year warranty (very unusual for me as I never buy extended warranty with anything else).
...
The expectation has to be that a gaming laptop will not handle gaming for any longer than your warranty period.
This sounds like good advice - I am (probably) going to continue complaining about my old laptop :rolleyes: until the next gen of gpu are out (apparently Q3/4 this year?) and then see what my laptop vs desktop choice is. I noticed that scan run a 2 year warranty by default.
p.s. on topic (...:blush2:) the only hardware I recall buying that failed was an abit motherboard (no end of issues with it before it died) and an odd glitch with a silverstone (FSP?) psu. Everything else just sort of became obsolete...
My fav was HALS no case wonder!!! ok you werent allowed to drink near it but the air cool was impressive :)
I guess you could just buy an aluminium suitcase and mount the components in there. Could even make it watercooled with quick drain system, so you just fill it up when you get to the LAN, and empty it when you leave. That could be fun actually. But if I get my hads on a 3D printer, I just have to do a new bottom chassis for my gaming laptop. Even if the laptop becomes outdated, the pure awesome would be worth it :p
Quote from: BrotherTobious;385394My fav was HALS no case wonder!!! ok you werent allowed to drink near it but the air cool was impressive :)
You mean this old one? :norty: [ATTACH=CONFIG]2680[/ATTACH]
That's the puppy! I was most I impressed mate
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Quote from: BrotherTobious;385613That's the puppy! I was most I impressed mate
Hehe it was a spur of the moment thing when I the night before I flew to the lan noticed that my old laptop couldn't even play cd without lagging to bits and my big case was to big and heavy to bring on the plane so I had to improvise.
Getting the laptop back tomorrow. Apparently it got fixed by my former employer, so I guess I will have to check if they messed it up :p Not much they could mess up though, as I removed all extra memory modules and both harddrives before sending it in. Just hope they put on some fresh thermal paste and didn't re-use what was there.