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Here are my pics. First time I ever did this so i apologize for the quality. m18x - Imgur

Soo............ Guess who's joining the owners lounge.. Yeah.. me After a failed attempt to replace the motherboard on my M17x-R3 during which the tech also broke the video cable (still works if you put it just right, otherwise no image on the screen) i've decided that it's enough troubles for a week old computer. So i called my rep and arranged a return (Stam, you don't know it yet but it's going to your house since i need a US address for Dell to pick it from) Next, i called in and ordered me an Avenger.. I didn't even want to consider re-ordering the R3. My "honeymoon period" (Thanks Brian for the term) with my R3 was short and very quickly i realized that it's not for me. I had nothing but issues with it from the get go so, i thought i want something better built. Scored a nice price too (complaining about the import taxes i had paid for nothing plus the shipping of the R3 back helped a lot) Including taxes and shipping i paid 2514$ for the following config :

I wrote an article on my website and wanted to share here (you can read in spanish) EDIT: A complete guide to disassembly the Asus G50 can be found here: http://forum.techinferno.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/560-official-asus-g50-disassembly-guide.html#post6282 At this time we will see how clean and apply new thermal paste to an ASUS G Series (Republic of Gamers) more specifically the G50VT X1 model, however, this process may be the same that applies to all G50 and G60 series. This laptop began to raise their temps, mainly GPU. Before making the process of cleaning the fan / heatsink and applying new thermal paste, the temperatures were in: Normal use: CPU: Between 30 ° and 40 ° GPU: Between 60 ° and 75 ° Doing a "stress test" with FurMark 1.9 (only 3 minutes) CPU: Between 50 ° and 60 ° GPU: Between 90 ° and 97 ° reaching 106 °!! Note: Furmark stress tests performed in order to know the answer to take your 3D graphics card generation and whether it will be able to run the most demanding programs and games. As you can see, the temp of CPU (both cores) are not unusual, tem are quite acceptable, but the GPU is too FU***** high. After performing the cleaning process and application of new thermal paste temps are: Normal use: CPU: Between 26 ° and 38 ° GPU: Between 41 ° and 58 Doing a "stress test" with FurMark 1.9 per 15 minutes CPU: Between 40 ° and 47 ° max 57 ° GPU: Between 80 ° and 90 ° with a maximum of 92 ° Playing for a while Hydrophobia Prophecy the GPU max temp was 88° I started with the cleaning and application of new thermal paste. What we need is a tube / syringe of thermal paste, I used Artic Silver 5, a Phillips screwdriver. Antistatic cleaning cloth, a pair of coffee filters (yes coffe filters!) A lot of patience! so lets started! You must remove the top / main deck of the machine, so you'll see the following parts that you need to remove: As you can see in the image, the red circles are the screws that you need to remove in order to release the heatsink and fan. Also be sure to remove "gently" fan connector marked with the blue circle. After releasing the screws and the fan connector cable, "gently" pull up the CPU headsink, may be a little stuck but do it slowly and gently. Later will do the same with the fan cooler, the fan "box" is attached to the GPU headsink through a "duct tape" so you must be gentle to avoid any damage. Once released the Fan cooler you can put aside while you go to releasing the Headsink of the GPU. In my case, this Headsink was quite stuck, but after a few attempts you finally pull up once you've removed the headsink you now should start cleaning...the fan box has 3 screws that need to remove to be able to clean easily. Likewise, you should clean the sink grids that are filled with a lot of dust, preventing a good flow of air. This process can be slow, because in order to clean the grates you need something small to get inside and clean the stuck dusting. In my case I used a set of Screwdrivers that can also serve for other tasks. After cleaning the headsink you should proceed to clean the processor and GPU. Both have thermal paste residue that should be removed. You can find many online methods, but the one I used is quite practical. What you need is isopropyl alcohol, Widely used in cleaning of photographic lenses and electronic contacts, as it leaves no marks and is fast evaporating. It can be 99% pure or 70%. You can use 'Q tips "for this process, wet (very little) the Q tips on alcohol and rub it gently on the surface of the CPU / GPU to completely remove the thermal paste. Must be completely clean, you can use the "technique of the credit card" which as its name suggests you use an old piece of plastic card or similar to clean the remains of thermal paste. DO NOT use anything that could scratch the surface Once you've completed this process, the CPU / GPU will be like in the picture below (Note that I used a cloth underneath the laptop to prevent scratching) The next step will be to apply new thermal paste. In my case, as I said before I used Artic Silver 5 with very good results. For more information about this product you can see the official manual here. There are different methods for applying the thermal paste, you can find videos on youtube like this I applied the Artic Silver 5 method. Do not apply too much or little thermal. The recommendation is to cover the entire surface of the CPU / GPU evenly to avoid the so-called "air bubbles" Do NOT use your finger to apply the thermal paste, because the human skin contain grease and this will contaminate the electronics surface. For that we will use coffee filters in our finger, and gently apply it the thermal paste. The purpose is: the thermal paste is a driver which sends the heat from the CPU / GPU to the heatsink and through the fan, this hot air is taken out of the laptop. If exist "air bubbles" well...no good thermal conductivity, so: high temps, that's my explanation, let's see the Wikipedia: The thermal paste, also called thermal silicone, or thermal grease is a substance that increases the conduction of heat between the surfaces of two or more objects that may be irregular and do direct contact. In electronics and computing, is often used to help heat dissipation of components through a heat sink. A hair, piece of lint, and even dead skin cells can significantly affect the thermal interface's performance An important point to note is that any thermal paste need a break-in period can be a couple of days or a week depending on computer use. By this, temps will decrease gradually, so if you dont see a big difference in degrees after apply new thermal paste take it easy, you must give some time to adjust. Remember to monitor temps to confirm that you did a good job. To do this you can use programs such as HWMonitor Here is my temps on HWMonitor NOTE: I know, my english sucks...but I try ..take care and be safe!

Hi Guys! I ordered my m14x on the 30th of April and it has finally arrived! I ordered it from the USA because over here in New Zealand they cost $3099 and so even including shipping it was cheaper. Anyway, my m14x looks amazing and I cant see any problems with it so I am really happy!

I found this, might help someone. Is a official guide to disassembly the notebook asus G50 series...

The T|I admins and moderators would like to congratulate Steven on being chosen for the M14x forum moderator position. After careful consideration, we took into account his contributions to T|I and forum activity and felt he was the best candidate for the job. We would like to thank all those that applied and will offer them a moderator position should another one become available in the future. Again, congrats Steven and welcome to the T|I family.

Excellent find Nando, this should definitely come in useful for those that want to disassemble their G50.

This is one of those moments, when the old guy with thick mustache stands from the corner, approaches you with open arms and says with a heavy Italian accent: "Michaelo, welcome to da familia!!!"

Congrats very nice decision Michael... now all of you guys need cheap source for 2920XM!

LOL! Did I call it or what? Congrats Michael, you made the right choice.

Thought i'd join in. Ordered my Avenger just now, EDD is 6/13, hoping to get it faster than that!

ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES HERE.. THANKS CANADA!

Hey Guys, just found this forum! wondered where everyone from NBR was disappearing to Steve, you may remember me from the M11x, M15x and BFBC2 threads. Haven't got an m14x yet but as soon as my m15x sells I am going to get one. Couple of questions though. Whilst gaming on battery with your profile is the laptop much quieter? Why disable turbo boost in BIOS? If you set it to max of 75% that should also disable TB. I have a MBP 17 with the 2720qm and 6750m, I do this all the time (on battery and mains, I leave it at 90%). I find the laptop is much much quieter even with the gpu overclocked but I still get really good fps. I think the TDP on these SB cpu's is well over 45w with full TB. I did some power draw readings at different settings (50/75/90/99/100) whilst also monitoring fps of games. I found 90% was the most efficient on the mbp. I can dig them out if it helps anyone

bifnewman, RGB LED screen has, as the name suggests, LED backlighting and therefore doesn't use inverter board that is found with CCFL backlit screens. See: CCFL inverter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . On the other hand from what I understand (don't exactly quote me on this): LED backlit screens have a LED board, which supplies less voltage because it's driving LEDs vs discharge in gas tubes. The cable for connecting each of these boards can be different, too. I'm not sure how exactly sure how is this made on M17x (I was doing a replacement like that on one Thinkpad; I was just going from LED to CCFL). Typically, the difference will be that on inverter you'll see a small transformer (a small fat coil) while the LED board won't have one. Put out some pics.

lol man so awesome, i left HP years ago and never looked back sometimes i wanna buy them mostly the Elitebooks but just never going to happen dell and other things always catch my eye quicker. Man i really have to learn throttlestop. But that is the true, the effect and impact as a consumer onto the big bad corporation to govern them and get things like throttling fixed is just so awesome, always strength in numbers!! I hate those beat headphones one of the most POS ever headphones terrible, the few Denon headphones i have owned sounded clear, have more bass and always clear no matter the volume range is! Not an audiophile either easily could be though i loathe those beat headphones lol, and all in the rap music videos with Marshall and Dr. Dre; HP and Dr. Dre products are always there and plus now HP's stock has been suffering looks like WebOS phones newer ones, and tablets, which i hope doesn't happen.

If he does beat you, pick the M18x up and walk away. I mean, it's a laptop, saying it's beaten by desktops is to totally miss the point. $700 for dual gpu, cpu, mobo, ram isn't much these days though, I think you should win most tests.

New HP Envy 17 owners are starting to see the light over on the NBR forum. I'm seeing log files while gaming where their systems are spending 80% to 90% of the time throttled down to the minimum which is only 798 MHz. They are not overheating, just throttling for the hell of it I guess. As soon as they start using ThrottleStop, their problem is instantly solved and a 2630QM is then averaging 2600 MHz instead of 800 MHz while gaming. Core temperatures then shoot up over 20C higher since the CPU is finally being utilized. Maybe that's why the ThrottleStop download page here on Tech | Inferno seems to be getting a good work out since yesterday. There will be more HP users heading this way, guaranteed. I mentioned to them that Dell finally saw the light about 6 months ago. The forums used to be full of one throttling Dell laptop problem after another but you rarely hear about throttling with their recent releases since last fall. No flaming, just telling it like it is.

i saw something like that

well thats pretty awesome about the screen. im used to my old 1600X900 21" screen from my old desktop. this should more than thrill me. So guy at work is upgrading his old amd machine into a new amd machine and wants to "benchmark race" hes making a big adu about how he will kill my expensive laptop with his machine. he spent 700$ on dual video cards a motherboard, processor and ram. he is sticking with AMD for video cards and processor. I think i may still win even though he is building a desktop. edit: whats your thoughts. he bought all parts from new egg.

I had an Asus G51 that had a similar layout and I put sinks on the GPU/CPU heatsinks. Also cut a hole in the bottom cover and put a mesh there so the fan could breath and it improved cooling quite a bit.

ndeed!!!~ during that whole entire seven day long break between classes last week , was presented the chance to see Thor in IMAX 3D on two different occasions - NICE!~ it was even better the second time - but special effects and concept of principal character Thor aside, do agree with the realistic 6-7/10 overall. would love to see hollyweird start leaning more towards the nolan/snyder production style (and stop cheesifying everything), but not expecting too much... now bring on pirates, hangover, and super 8!!!~

11.5 would be great, especially along with the 11.4 results!

haven't mess with the ram setting yet, but prolly will once i order some hyperX's. atm i just use the auto settings.

I'd like to think the Rebellion at heart but we've got a few Palpatines that are pulling the strings at the moment.

I will say this... my family, for generations has been a part of either the Us military or Us reserves. Almost all the wars after the civil war... I think my family has earned the title of being Americans. With that said, I really do wonder... Is the United States of America, The Empire or The Rebellion?

Wow.. im only 1 of 2 in the 35-40 range.. oh well.. 38 years young and still pew pewing campers. Just remember folks... SAVE A SOLDIER BY KILLING A CAMPER!

Flame! FLAME!! 1. They didnt intend to work on these, they are throw away systems. Who cares if you paid 2k for one, you obviously had money to throw away. 2. Uhm, I personally saw DR. Dre putting some cool looking parts (cpu?) in that commercial so bite your tongue! 3. See #1. 4. Hey for the price they charge you can buy a backup for when the first one melts... 5. Dr. Dre is a real Dr. and KNOWS how to make some 1" speakers. At least he's human, nuff said.

@MW - I appreciate the suggestions. 75 seems to be the sweet spot for me so far. If I lower the minimum I get to lowered frame rates. This setting is specifically for gameplay... I tested it with BFBC2 which uses all threads in my setup and the gpu as well. I already have a SSD and the other options are off in bios. Wireless I need for gameplay so I keep it on and at max performance for bookstore online play. Best Wishes, StevenX

For work I enjoy the 16:10 ratio of both screens, it's something I would have a really hard time to get used to otherwise

M17x-R2: RGB LED. My favorite and the reason I am happy every morning I get online and look at pretty colors! Thinkpad X200 tablet: Samsung PVA Superbright Outdoor Viewable LED Desktop in the office: Dell SE198WFPV 19" matte @ 1440x900 (Yes, that's correct! ) and surprisingly decent color reproduction. Decent monitor otherwise but pretty poor in comparison to my laptop screens. I bought it when I came to US and had no clue about different screens. Also, I'd prefer 4:3 19" any day for office work tho.