Beta BIOS - Possible Missing Keystroke Fix

Where's that final BIOS we were promised for "next week"?

 

Still awaiting it's release.

 

hey you said that you had working touchpad chastity
what are you waiting for

 

Just trying to be sympathetic.

 

just trying to get a new bios.

 

I am glad to see this issue has received such timely support....

.. /eyeroll.



I guess i should have known what i was getting into when the best buy machine i was playing with before purchase also had a tweaky touchpad, but I really didn't think it would be as bad as it has proven to be. The fact that the JH laptops have had this issue for so long is disgusting, and Asus really should be ashamed. Be it a hardware recall, or a real fix, something should have already been in place.

 

While I symphatize with other G73JH owners problems (heck, I'm one myself), I wouldn't put too much blame on ASUS. I think they're just a bit in over their head. I mean, a few years ago I hadn't heard the name ASUS except in spec sheets, now they're expanding like crazy in pretty much all tech markets in existence. And the G73's aren't the only products that has issues, so I think they simply haven't thought about expanding customer support as quickly as they've been churning out products, which is hard to do considering the tempo they've been going at.

Of course, that doesn't help the average G73 owner. But I do think that they're trying their best, and they need a few years to really "settle down" to the big company and brand they've all of the sudden become. Personally I think it's understanable, as I can only imagine the headaches they're going through in terms of product support already.

 

LOL, sry....

 

can somebody POKE Garry and remind him that he has unfinished job?

 

Sorry, but there is NO ONE else to blame but Asus! If they are in over their heads, that is their fault; they should not have bit off more than they can chew.

And lets be even more real - this is not their first laptop. Or their second. They have made quite a few of these, and they do not exhibit the same issues (I know my wife's G71 is what encouraged me to get a G73). Asus needs to step up, and truly help out affected users.

 

LOL The g70/71/72 were TERRIBLE for overheating. I'm pretty sure asus fixed the overheating problems with the g73/53, but introduced a new problem with the touchpad.

Though you're right, it's annoying that they send units out with problems. I'm quite surprised though, that after a year they're still supporting it - possibly because they havn't fixed all the problems ... but still. What other computer company will support a laptop with bios updates a year later? Not dell (let me tell you >_<).

 

I thought I was completely safe buying a laptop with a 2 year warranty. It never occurred to me that there could be a software issue with no fix.

 

Let's not jump the gun without Gary posting the last beta. I think everyone needs to relax, I dislike the touchpad as much as everyone else (Although I haven't had any real trouble lately at all) but there's no point in cursing ASUS just yet when they're obviously trying. I honestly haven't seen a company actually come on the forums and continuously help people with their problems before this one. It doesn't really make any sense for people to be all over Gary yet hate ASUS when he represents ASUS. But yes just be a little patient and wait for the BIOS.

 

They certainly haven't proven that to me. Given that my expensive (for me) laptop is not usable in a way that it should be, no, i will not be patient. Asus promised a fix, and has failed to deliver on that said date.

But really, what is the motivation for them? They have my money, and they priced it just well enough that i can't return it for anything comparable, since ASIDE from the touchpad, there is nothing else comparable.

 

You're absolutely right, there is absolutely no motivation for ASUS to help us but what do you know, we have Gary here helping provide fixes and helping the people out here get their RMA's and problems sorted out. You're obviously exaggerating that it's not usable in any way, if that was the case then I wonder why you didn't return it the first week you bought it. My touchpad is bad but it's never explicitly ruined my experience with the G73 and if that's your only issue then just pop out a cheap USB mouse until the fix here. You can either be patient or fruitlessly keep whining about it, it's not going to make Gary and his team any faster.

 

i just want him to release the bios so he can start fixing the vbios and creative
i don't need this bios (i don't think it will fix someting for me)

 

I've gone round and round with this saga and I know that my friends here know it. I have whined about it enough to fill a novel.

My last saga was going from beta 1 to beta 4 and having my touchpad so screwed up that it was unusable. Lately I've been on Beta 3 with Synaptics 15.1.9. The touchpad works pretty well but it's still too sensitive. I can work with that. You just have to keep your other hand away from the TP while using it and don't let fingers "droop" too close to the surface or you'll get two finger gestures instead of pointer movement. Not ideal, but it works fine as long as you get in the habit of putting one finger on it and keeping the others away.

The problem has been that it still misses a spacebar here and a key there every once in a while. Well I've been pining for an Alienware R3 primarily because it doesn't have this keyboard. I was cruising their forums and ran across a reference to this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/4002107-post37.html

Our TP driver doesn't have the poll rate setting referenced in the driver but our registry settings look just like these. I added the Registry DWord just like they did in the post. During that time I was missing a lot of space bar presses. Since I added that DWord and rebooted I haven't missed any key presses at all. I typed a big long stupid missive in fake email about how much I hate this keyboard but love this laptop. I never missed a key. While typing this very wordy post, I haven't missed a single key.

Can some of you pop this DWord into your registry right quick if you are missing keys and see if this makes it go away? It did so for me, I think.

If you don't want to read the other post, it's really simple. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\i804prt\Parameters and add a DWord value called PollStatusIterations. Set it's value to 1 and reboot.

Apparently one of the Alienware models had a similar dropped keystroke issue and this fixed it.

 

Jody: Well, I just tried this fix and it seems to work! Wow! I just typed a full page of text, copying an article from a magazine and no missing keys. At least so far. I used to have some dropped keystrokes so I resorted to using my W500 for anything that required any long typing sessions. I'll continue using my G73 for the next day and see if the problem stays away. So far, so good!

 

The registry fix didn't work for me.

Also, will somebody please repost beta bios 3? Thanks in advance.

 

Do you think this would have any effect on the touchpad?

 

I don't think it would make any difference at all with the touch pad. Mine is just as overly sensitive as before.

I don't think this will work with Beta 4 since it changes things in a different way than Beta 3.

I believe this is beta 3 linked in Chastity's repository of golden G73 stuff...
http://pcaudio.org/stuff/B42C18F.RAR

 

As for me, I never had issues with my touchpad. However, you might want to try this registry change and see if it works. You can always delete it if it doesn't fix your touchpad issue.

 

Obviously they're trying, but the fact of the matter is that G73JH isn't the only product that requires extensive support from ASUS. It's regrettable that the products they send out have flaws which needs fixing in hindsight, but they are obviously devoting time and resources to minimize the problems as best as possible. Which is a good thing in my book.

And really? Not bite off more than they can chew? Of course they have to take quite a few risks in that regard in such an unstable market as the consumer tech-sector. They owned the netbok market, but that seems to be diminishing with the new tablets and pads coming out. Of course they have to be quick and devote many resources to expand into the new markets that are eating up their old ones. That's not a matter of planning for years before they jump into the new markets. They have to jump in before it's too late for them.

To be able to move fast enough for scenarios like that, you have to be quick in your turns. That's both a blessing and a curse for the consumers; it helps innovate the sector, but it may produce some less than stable consumer products. But that kind of comes with the territory. I mean Intel just recalled their new flagship, and that'll cost them at least a billion dollars according to their own calculations. That's a bitter pill to swallow; one that mighten bankrupt companies who aren't in such an advantageous position (such as ASUS.)

 

I do like asus's laptops though. I admit, the g73 looks really nice, and when it first came out, it was the cheapest in price but came with the best specs (8 gig ram, 5 1tb hardrives and BD).

What I don't like is how long it took just to fix the earlier gsod issue when they should of known it was a big issue. keyboard fix took.... 8 months? come on seriously...

However, since they proved they can fix the issues, and still waiting on touchpad, I would hope that their future products will be almost perfect.

With that said, once asus comes out with a sandy bridge model, I'll b selling my g73jh for it

 

JODY YOu are the man this is awesome! I had just been living with the missed spaces and having to double check everything I type. Great work !
This helped for about 45 minutes, then the space bar issue came back

 

I can't imagine why I never ran across that before. I have tried endlessly to fix this problem and I stumbled upon that post by accident. It has sure straightened out mine so far. I sure hope it stays this way!

Please let us know if yours starts acting up again. Mine is still good with the addition of the registry value.

 

If this works, then wow. I'm looking forward to some responses on this.

 

I did it, and it hasn't caused anything bad to happen ...

 

Holy crap. Trying now.

Edit:

Gonna type this entire post without ooking up or typing slowly. Let's see if there are any missed keystrokes. I really hope there aren't. I'm gonna blabber about my day or something. We had about 30 centimeters of snow in Canada, and every university but mine got shut down. Sucks. This meant I had to go to class and frantically take notes with this laggy keyboard. Perhaps this fix will actually work and save me the grief of going back and re-editing everything I type. I'm gonna look up now.

One missed keystroke in the beginning it seems. Perhaps it was just my typing. Will report back on whether this actually fixes the problem. Something tells me that ASUS may have got beaten to the punch on this one; the touchpad seems to be a lot more responsive as well.

 

Jody - When you say yours is 'overly sensitive' do you mean it wigs out or it senses to much and stops working? Mine is the latter, it works for a while and then stops. I can tolerate the occasional quick exit of the cursor to the right of the screen but it drives me crazy when it stops receiving click taps and then it won't move properly.

I am wondering if it one could change those reg settings to see if it will help the tp. I don't know enough to make any changes myself. I can do the reg edit but to try and tweak beyond the directions...

 

Thanks Jody!

The registry tweak worked like a charm for me. I've been testing it like crazy since I rebooted and I have yet to miss a single keystroke. Before this tweak, I couldn't type 5 words without losing a keystroke somewhere.

...now if I could just get my left pinky finger to reach that darn SHIFT key properly!

Thanks again, Jody

 

Mine wigs out completely on Beta 4. I can't use it for five minutes before it is completely hosed. I flashed beta three and reinstalled Synaptics 15.1.9. It behaves now. It's really sensitive. If my left hand is too close to the toucpad it won't work. If I lay my right palm on the palm rest the cursor gets "stuck". If I use one finger it works just fine. It never stops like it did before. However, I was still missing some keystrokes. I think adding the registry value fixed that. I'm hesitant to declare victory without further testing but so far so good.

Note that I am not typing on it now. While I'm at work I "dock" my laptop with a monitor, mouse, and ergonomic keyboard. At home when I'm blathering away in the forums I use the laptop keyboard.

 

I added the line to the registry but it has not helped my tp. Oh well it was worth a try.

 

Sorry. I think it is a keyboard thing.

 

yeah i did the registry mod, and lets just say my keyboard and touchpad were not working afterwards... you modify the dword to a decimal value of 1 correct?

 

You add one registry key. The key type is DWord. The value should be set to one. I can't imagine why that entry would make your keyboard or touchpad stop working. I can believe it would have no affect at all, but kill your keyboard?

 

Thanks Jody

This works for me... for while xD

I add the key type of DWord x64, this make difference?

I'm happy, my kb is very better now, but I still miss some keys.

 

I am runnning 64 Bit win 7,when I create the new Dword the only option is 32bit (the 1 is hexadecimal) so that is what I used. Also using V15.1.22.0 for the TP Driver.
This did not kill anything, Please correct me if I am wrong!!

 

waiting for bios vbios creative drivers and a free cookie

 

Lol. Well there was that dword already there, all I did was change it from 1200 to 1 (decimal) and it borked my keyboard... I'll verify that I did the right thing when I get to work. I may have modded the wrong thing completely. <3 registy export and import!

 

Update: it doesn't fix the keyboard problem entirely, unfortunately. It's a little bit better though. Thanks for the minor fix. Still waiting on Gary. Touchpad is still broken as crap.

 

I think that may have been the wrong key. This one doesn't normally exist.

It should read PollStatusIterations...

I think the one you changed is PollingIterationsMaximum and it was originally set to 12000 in decimal. I don't know what that one does... messes up your keyboard apparently. There is also one called PollingIterations and it should be set to 12000 in decimal as well. This is a new key called PollStatusIterations and it should be set to a value of 1.

It may do nothing. I am pretty sure mine is working OK now. It could be a Jedi mind trick, though.

 

These aren't the keys you're looking for.

 

i8042prt parameters

Interesting that the default value for PollStatusIterations is 1, which implies that software should use 1 if the value does not exist in the registry. So if adding the registry value with its default value fixes something, then some bad programmer dropped the ball big-time.

Also found comments about Windows updates over the years that make the value appear and disappear depending on the update...

I can't believe the old PS/2 port is still being used after all these years LOL

 

I'm not sure it is making a big difference anymore. I'm still missing some keystrokes. It's really hard to say if it is "better". It's not a lot but they are still there. I can say for certain that somewhere between going from the original bios 211 to beta 3 and adding the registry key my dropped keystrokes are far fewer.

I won't be a happy customer until they are completely gone. This is a ridiculous problem for customers to endure after a full year of ownership. I am very disappointed in Asus at this point.

 

Agreed. I just used my girlfriend's Macbook *shivers*, and typing on that thing felt like heaven compared to my G73. My explanation for using a Mac: she was playing Left4Dead2 on my laptop while I was typing up a document on her Mac But it also made me realize that not only does it drop keystrokes, but it feels like the keystrokes that do register don't pop up on the screen as quickly as they would on a normal keyboard. Maybe it's just in my head though, we'd be dealing with a matter of milliseconds, but they do add up over thousands and thousands of keystrokes.

 

Yeah there is a bit of a delay. You don't notice it unless you're constantly working on another laptop and switch over. It puts you in a mentally odd place, to type and have that half of a half second delay...

 

I am definitely not a Mac person. I have used exactly one Mac laptop for more than ten minutes in my fifteen years in IT. My wife brought one home from work last summer for a couple of months. That is the absolute best keyboard and touchpad I have ever used! I LOVED it. That's why I wasn't worried about the island keyboard on this rig when I ordered it. I thought it would be the best keyboard I've ever owned. Well... this one is nothing at all like the MacBook. Nothing at ALL. This one has me thinking I never want one again. All of the gaming laptops have this kind of keyboard. I've been shopping for the last week and they ALL have it. The Alienware laptop doesn't say it has one and it doesn't look exactly like this one but I bought my son an m11x for Christmas and it darn sure is an island style. It just has really tight key spacing so it doesn't look like one. I will say that the m11x keyboard works flawlessly and this one gives me nothing but grief. It is so sporadic though. I haven't missed a single key while typing this.

 

Maybe it is because my windows x64 is ultimate and not the home premium.

 

lol careful with the m11x hinges though, don't open and close that sucker too much or the screen will fall off