Asus G550J

The other day, I saw an advertisement for a new Asus laptop, with Nvidia GTX graphics processor. It was tempting but I told myself I got a laptop about a year ago. Yes, I got the Lenovo Y500 a year ago. But a few weeks ago, the display starting showing signs of problem... There would be specks of static and sometimes the entire screen would have a gray tint to it.

Then, a few days ago, after a reboot following Windows update, the Y500 booted up into a black screen. And when I tried to install a new version of Linux Mint to try and recover the Y500, I overwrote the entire disk... losing my data. And still, the laptop won't boot. I guess it was the Y500's way of telling me to fall to my temptation and get that new laptop.

And so now, I am with a new Asus G550J, with i7 processor, 8Gb RAM, Nvidia GTX850M (4Gb video RAM) and almost S$2000 poorer. And that is not even counting what I have to pay to get my data recovered...

Still, it feels good to have a new laptop. ;)

Note: The Asus G550J has a gigabit Ethernet port, but it seems that the Windows driver, when set to auto-negotiate, will only use 100 Mbps. The way to solve this is to go to Device Manager, locate the device Realtek PCIe Gbe Family Controller, then under the Advanced tab, look for the property Speed & Duplex. Change its value to 1.0 Gbps Full Duplex. This will allow it to use its full speed.