it's business. Malaysia is a relatively small market compared to other countries. if we have a population like in those countries, with good buying power, i think we will get cheaper stuff, too.

to most people, i really don't suggest them getting ap sets for a number of reasons. first, buying local units is to help local industry to sustain and grow. without sales numbers the local reps cannot bargain with manufacturers for better things. second, local warranty is important because once you bought the machine, it helps you a lot when dealing with faulty parts. although it also depends on the quality of service centers, at least you have a valid right to claim from manufacturers. some brands (like asus) do offer international warranty, but whether the local service center will honor the warranty or not is still uncertain, and it involves certain processes to make it work.

however, if you know how to maintain and repair laptops, get the right parts without paying a fortune when bad things happen, and you are willing to bear all risks, you can always do that. note that you might end up spending more than saving some bucks (short-term savings vs. long-term risks of paying more. you decide). by the way i still prefer to spend my money in my own country, if it's possible.

This post has been edited by horns: Aug 22 2014, 11:45 PM

a nice beast you have there.

please pm holloway for enlisting

Nice Wow.. It seemed that you purposely registered just for this competition. Thats your only post. So damn lucky!

oh haha!

for a g55 preloaded with w8, the license key is embedded in the bios. you can use tools like belarc advisor to retrieve it. alternatively, since it's a stock w8 (and NOT w8.1), you can use advanced tokens manager, atm (http://joshcellsoftwares.com/products/advancedtokensmanager/) to back the activation tokens up and restore it when you completed a fresh install with the right windows version. atm will NOT work if you're on w8.1.

as for fresh install, you need to get the right version of w8 in order to use that key. you can find out the windows version via slmgr /dlv at command prompt run at administrative privilege. (usually it's core or single language) also, grab all the relevant drivers from asus support page for your laptop first.

there are many ways to restore stock w8 from hdd to your new ssd. imo the simplest one is using macrium reflect. (this is called cloning) all you need to do is to clone c partition and system partitions from the hdd to your new ssd.

take note of this: DO NOT do anything to your stock hdd BEFORE you confirmed that your ssd is working well. (do this by pulling out stock hdd and boot with new ssd alone). keep the stock hdd for a bit (don't convert it to storage drive). this is because in cases you for some reasons wanna restore the system into factory state, you need the stock partitions and system image intact.

the best bet now is just do a clean install. all you need to do is to grab windows 8 core or single language (from technet, or msdn), and do trial and error installation. the good thing about this key embedded in bios is that it should be automatically activated if the right windows version is present. if it's not, you can still call MS for phone activation.

although you still can retrieve the factory .wim file for restore purposes (via linux), now you need some more work to make use of it.

this is exactly why the very first thing to do when getting a new laptop, a recovery usb stick should be created even before the laptop is used.

remember to back the activation tokens up after successful activations with atm. usually the windows key has certain activation limits. however with token restores, you can do unlimited fresh installs with the same hardware.

you should learn to do that. this is because g55 is still good for a relatively wide range of upgrades. cpu up to 3840qm; ram up to 32gb/4x8gb; wifi to .ac to match your .ac wifi router; hdd to ssd; msata ssd; additional hdd caddy to replace dvd/bluray drives. you can even make a raid with 1x sata ssd and msata ssd to boost the speed.

i have done all the above, and confirmed that they all work very well. for gaming, yeah it doesn't last long. however for other purposes, it's a good machine.

the other reason to learn the teardown of g55 is for laptop maintenance purposes. when you are familiar with it, you can do a proper dust cleanup and replacement of thermal pastes for your cpu/gpu under half an hour to 45 minutes.

just follow the guides at the first page of this thread then you should be all good. the key is to be gentle and patient.

to replace wifi card you don't need to go all the way to a total teardown. the card is just under the keyboard, below the left side of the display panel.

yes, i use the same intel 7260-ac. https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3227346

i have an old asus rt-ac66u wifi router. it works very well. (866.7mbps for me) however i think there should be new models available already.

well. i know i shouldn't ask you to refer to the guides at the first page because your machine is a g750 (and there are no tear-down guides about g750 in this thread yet haha!). however something like these vids at youtube should give you some ideas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsv8Vtml-E0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0dkQ4rajyM

good luck

This post has been edited by horns: Sep 25 2014, 07:59 PM

yeah the screws. of all things for asus to be generous, they chose to be very generous about screws

the whole teardown process is actually simple. however it become tedious because of the screws.

also, please note that in general there are two service areas in your laptop. when you take off the small back cover, the area that you can see is called user-serviceable area (for instance, for g55 basically it means 2x hdd bays, 2x ram slots, and 1x dvdrom / bluray drive). that's how far asus allows a user to touch the laptop's internals. the rest are actually non-serviceable by a user.

unofficially, as long as you do not touch parts that are covered with warranty-void stickers, you are fine. just put the stock parts back in case you really must send the laptop in to a service center. (the only sticker that i saw in g55 was a tiny yellow sticker, covering one of the cpu heatsink screws).

wow. direct conversion showed jy high end is MYR 10k (xe.com).

although the specs look good, pricing wise that means it's more expensive than the current aw 17 highest end. (4910mq, 32gb, gtx 880m, with 3 years of warranty, for MYR 9,766.00). no matter how i calculate also cannot justify this one. one word: cra.a.a.a.zy.

hm.. alright it makes sense

if the rumor is true about 980m (i saw a review that said it's equal to 2x 680m), this is a must-buy. i'm now still using 680m to play bf4. with mixed video settings, you can play bf4 online at 1080p with more than 120 fps. to me, 680m is still a damn good gpu.

with the same video settings, gtx 690 is doing more than 120fps for bf4, at 1440p.

for fps games, it's better to have more fps lol!

riku2replica's right. unless you like the idea of compact form factors, it's much better to build a custom rig yourself.

cheaper is one advantage. however the better part imo is that desktop pc's usually have the processing power to last for quite some times. it should have rooms for upgrades down the road.

there is no need to put everything in in one go. just plan your purchase. get anything that is enough to cater for your current usage, then do upgrades at your own pace.

uh? asus people told you that? wow. they must have never been to their own rog forum.

at least for rog g-series, there are two areas in a laptop. one is user serviceable/upgradeable, and one is non serviceable to users.

in general, when you open up the back cover / bay door, the area under that back cover is the user serviceable area. (normally, it means 2x empty ram slots if they haven't been filled up already, hdd bays, dvdrom drives. perhaps there are other parts for newer models). normally they don't put warranty stickers to block you from changing stuff in user serviceable area.

the rest is non-user serviceable.

the stock hdd is right there under the back cover / bay door, so it is considered as user upgradeable.

however, you should know that any faults due to your own installations will make the warranty automatically void (read the warranty information in your laptop box) the fact is that it's hard for you to achieve that, because they are very simple tasks. with patience and carefulness, you will not damage anything.

the first thing you must do is to create a recovery usb media for system restores to factory settings. this is handy if you don't have the matching windows installer for your laptop. grab a 32gb usb to do that because the restore file might be big. you can use the same usb stick to restore the factory image on your new ssd. (while you're at it, you can grab the latest drivers from the asus support page for your laptop and store them in the same usb for future use)

note that it's better to use new parts for these changes / upgrades, and keep the stock parts intact. (meaning remove them from the laptop) do not do anything like repartitioning the stock hdd, because that usually cause issues to recreate recovery usb. (i don't know why but that's how many other people screwed up the handy f9 recovery method in the stock drive too) when you replace the stock hdd with a ssd, remove the hdd from the system, put in the new ssd, and do the factory system restores.

for warranty claims, there is a service center at the top floor of lyp.

msi.. yeah. it's sad. maybe one day asus laptops will be no more in Malaysia. (like those who have bailed from here)

for g-series, recently asus is giving its users some good parts. i was surprised to see samsung xp941 in a g751 as stock ssd. that's the speediest ssd in consumer market now. it's good to see asus is putting efforts, but maybe they should look out for other things also. (like better customer service)

that had nothing to do with honesty. it's a nuisance.

the seller could just tell the details about asus laptops (if he can, because that's actual preference of the customer), then comment on his views about asus bad services, finally proceed to recommend other brands.

they have to understand that some of us really do not depend on after sales service to use laptops. we know how to get a relatively perfect one.

lol! not many truly appreciate what asus has done. only those who played the laptops inside out know the actual reasons why people still pick g-series. (despite 'so many' complained about its after-sale service)

difficult? no, it's not difficult. it's tedious. (namely, the excessive amount of screws) however, practice makes perfect. after 3 times of doing the same thing, now i only need 15 minutes to do a full tear-down of a g55. the locations of every screw, cables, etc. are now very clear to me.

it's the same with any laptops. for instance, it's super easy to maintain aw (fan/heatsink/vents cleanups), but if you wanna access certain parts which are not exposed by the back cover, meet all the screws first. (aw18 is relatively not as friendly as aw17. still, it's not difficult. i checked the internals and then swapped some parts since day one when i got mine)

we can make ourselves from unlucky to lucky. a simple way to prevent getting lemons: test your machine once you get it (all of the parts, ports, cpu/gpu, screen, etc.). do the exchange while you still can. once we get a working one, it will work well. with that you lower the risks to get a lemon. i think all of us should practice this. it's electronics, a product from mass production. the risks are always there.

about part damages, well yeah we still need their service. i don't have the chance to do that yet. well i will never have that chance because my g55 is out of warranty now it's already 2 years old+ hahaha)

everyone must start somewhere, beginner or not. there are tons of videos out there to learn how to do dis-assembly. all they need is a screw driver set, care, and patience. (i broke 2 screw place holders in my g55 during the first-time tear-down hehe that's because i was careless. after that incident, i can dis-assemble all my other laptops without breaking anything)

right

previously i was too eager to see the internals that a very quick turn of screw drivers broke the place holder. and the same thing happened twice lol!

g551 is better imo

oh. i didn't notice the sorry. (i thought all g-series have 2 fans!) if there is only one fan, then forget what i have said :/

you can't compare a laptop to a desktop. laptops are for mobility and convenience. if you are not concerned about mobility then i must say you should go for desktop instead.