Beta BIOS - Possible Missing Keystroke Fix

I have gone back to using a mouse on the computer, I have to take it with me when I go out as it is a pain to do so.
My trackpad has gone from working to not working , when you use it for a few hours is when it starts dropping out and doing crazy thing.
The scroll will quit first and then it goes down hill from there.
My (s) key stops with random use and it will not come back no matter what I do. That is in till I restart the software and it is back.

This is just a list of issues that are not fixed and it seems that no matter what is given to us to try it just does not work. Something in the hardware has to be causing these problems and it looks like the software fixes are not working.
And on the RMA's I would rather ASUS send the parts to us so we can fix them as the Centers that are fixing them are not doing a good job on most,
I had to send in a Brand New system as it would not run more than 20 minutes out of the box and when I got it back it was not the same one, and the one they send was not right as the parts where not the right ones or not put in right.
I did not see this in till I had used the computer for a few weeks, And I have been fighting the keyboard from word go,

I have been using ASUS products for years and when I had a problem they fixed it or replaced it quickly. But with the G73 they are not doing this and we have waited for months using machines that are not working right.

Right now I am looking for a Phone number to an ASUS manager so I can call and see what can be worked out, as emailing has not got anything done, I have never got an answer back from anyone on this.

If anyone has a contact number it would be great!

I am tired of being avoided so I am going to try one more time to talk to someone in ASUS .

You know if one had bought a car or anything and it did not work like these do then it would have been replaced.
And the , it is a High end machine and you have to tune it does not make it with this. You can not tune what is not working.
These are hardware issues .

 

Chastity, it appears the chipset driver posted on the G73JH & JW ASUS Support Page is a slightly newer version than the one you linked to over at intel.
Is there a specific reason you recommend using the older intel one?

 

@BattleNut

I think it's crazy that so many G73JH users find alternate ways around using the trackpad....and just live with it. It bothers me to know that a major component is malfunctioning on my unit. I have a Razer Mamba that I could use but it's attached to my M17x R2. I bought a laptop(G73JH) not a desktop.

Asus reps have refused to let me speak with a manager in the past. Gary has yet to respond to my request for a Asus contact with some kind of authority to over see my possible RMA.

If you get a hold of someone who can provide some level of customer service please PM me or post here their contact info. I don't care if it's long distance and not toll free. At this point I'll try anything........

 

I don't use my touchpad much, mostly because it's TOO big - and I do enough gaming that I've almost always got a mouse in anyways.

To be honest, I'll probably keep buying asus products. The price is right and service has been great on everything else I've ever owned by them. But, I'll never buy a high performance laptop from them again...

 

What happened to the sticky?
This is one of the last problems in a long list of problems that has not been rectified.

Why & who removed it?

 

This is the same thread -- if you'll notice on page 1 I said it was going to be sticky for "a few days" -- it's been quite a bit longer than that, the thread has died down enough where I'm sure awareness of it is not an issue. It's easy to find and is linked from the top of the big index sticky.

 

I replaced my trackpad/button assembly with a new one by swapping the surface panel. I have extensively used it since the repair earlier. I have been playing Plants vs. Zombies for 3 hours and no problems thus far. I used that game to speed up the problem for test purposes. It is soooo smooth and the button has feedback when pressed. I think I may have fixed my problem. Good thing I had 1200.00 available to make the repair.

 

Nice, Skygunner. I wonder if the problem was some sort of short / poorly attached wire - or something with the hardware itself?

 

Update- We have been working with Synaptics on the reports sent in (thank you once again) and have a suggestion to try. For those still with the problem, please go into the Synaptics Control Panel, under Scrolling go to Pinch Zoom and disable it. Test the keyboard to see if the missing keystrokes are still evident, if so please send me a report.

 

This should be disabled BY DEFAULT, as pinch zoom is useless and annoying... lol

 

No workaround here, everything works here. Swirl, two finger scroll, everything is responsive.

Good luck with yours. No workaround necessary. Hope you figure out what is wrong with your system.

 

So far I believe it's hardware(trackpad button) or the ATK like Gary mentioned or a combination of both. EVERYTHING works perfect except for one small hiccup. I even wrote a couple of reviews at bestbuy.com, watched some anime, and played several games with it. I tried going into sleep mode several times.


After about 5 hours of playing Plants vs. Zombies which usually immediately triggers a trackpad rebelion, I decided to turn down the volume with the Fn/F11 keys. While the on screen volume down icon was on, I tried to move my cursor. It was a full on rebelion for about 4 seconds!!! As soon as the icon disappeared it was back to Perfect again and has stayed Perfect ever since.

While carefully dissasembling the portion to get the surface panel off I didn't notice any loose or un-seated connections. I'd say Asus did a decent job manufacturing.


Uh ohh...
I just tried to left click and select an entire paragraph, then let off of the left click button, then left clicked. While holding down the left click to move the paragraph I could not move left or right until I released the left click.

After about 10 minutes in this post, I can not replicate this error.

Update: My co-worker and I both performed the swap/repair. She told me this morning that her unit has performed flawlessly. Her trackpad was more prone to malfunction than mine.

 

I think that if its a hardware problem asus should just say so, and replace everyone KB and Touch pad. I don't have KB problems only Touch pad.

 

I think whatever it is, a company the size of Asus and the resources it must have available to it to track problems must already know what the issue is, for this reason I think it must be a hardware problem.

If it was software they would have been able to fix it after 8 months of being aware of the problem. I do not know much about the inner workings of hardware components but I imagine there is firmware in there that cannot be updated. I think this is further demonstrated by the fact that the JW does not have the trackpad issue. I think the only spec difference is the video card, someone who knows more about it will no doubt correct me on this. My point is though the issue was corrected in the next model release which makes me think Asus knows exactly what it is.

Maybe they continued to ship the flawed JH model with the hope of being able to fix the issue with software but have not been able to. I think it is time they come clean on what the actual problem is and figure out a way to make it right.

 

Just tried 2nd BIOS. Didn't work. Guess this is the end of the line. We're all stuck with defective units and there's nothing we can do.

Missed keystroke count while typing this: 6

 

I had to do a full format after the bios update to get rid of missed keystrokes. Maybe it was just to make sure the drivers, ATI, ATK and everything else was up to date, but ...

 

No particular reason, I didn't realize Intel rolled back again. Anyhoo, here's a link for 9.2.0.1015 from Asus

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/Chipset/Intel/Chipset_Intel_WIN7_32_64_z9201015.zip

 

I installed all of the updates in the order recommended by Gary in the OP. I still missed a lot of keystrokes. I have since done a clean install where I only installed the software packages he recommended in the order he stated. I then used the utility disk and/or internet to load up the rest of the drivers not addressed. I seem to be missing very few if any keystrokes now. It is so few that I could believe it was lazy fingers the once or twice that I actually missed one. I hope it continues to work properly because that little problem will drive you to drinkin' as they say down here in Texas.

 

Thx Jody, you are only confirming the idea that the drivers for both KB and trackpad need to be fully uninstalled, possibly CCleaned, then reinstalled for the beta to be effective. BTW, Driver Sweep 2.8.0 has MS keyboard and mice cleaning features.

 

As of right now, the BIOS ranked from closest to fixing the keyboard problem would be:

Beta 1 > 211 > Beta 2

Beta 2 was fine when I just updated it, but started going boinkers (to the point where the keyboard would stop working completely).

It seems that the keyboard is fine right after the update, but gets worse as time goes on.

 

I think it is interesting that the keyboard problem and the touchpad problem act the same yet as far as I know a machine is affected by one or the other, not both. Does that mean there is some randomly assigned IRQ that is the cause of the problem.

 

It can be both.

 

I can consider myself some what lucky then that I only have the touchpad problem, although typing definitely contributes to my touchpad failures.

Prior to doing a complete fresh install of Win7 to see if that helps I thought I might try and use a driver sweeper of some kind. I have never used one before, can someone recommend a good one and let me know what to watch for or tips on how to use it.

Thanks and Happy New Year.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/544183-driver-sweeper-2-8-available.html

 

I removed the drivers and reinstalled , and I am still losing the (s) key every now and then, but it has not been as bad the last few days.
I am trying to see if I can find the reason this is happening .

 

I don't know why but is it normal that I did all the steps and my GPU Clock drop to 405MHz/1000MHz on voltage 0.95 I have use the AMD GPU Clock Tool to put back the normal GPU clock

 

PowerPlay is the cause

Go to CCC < Graphics in the to Left cornor < Power Play < Then click Enable Power Play

 

Ahhh ok thanks before its was always staying on 700/1000but I see now that when not playing games its will go on 405/1000 and will go 700/1000 when im playing games

 

I had a bit of a revelation, when using the touchpad, pushing a key will temporarily turn it off. I mean, obvious, right? Well, if your keyboard is missing keystrokes, maybe you've got a little bit of condensation or sticky something stuck on it - it's HUGE after all - and that would make you miss keystrokes, even if you didn't have stuff on it - just having it super-sensitive might.

 

Nope it doesn't. Sorry, working fine here.

 

I spent the other night with Jody (woohoo!) and got that laptop working properly finally, so yes, it is possible to lick this puppy to the wall.

 

That's right! What a way to ring in the New Year!

 

I'm on beta bios 2, as well. And if you're not having problems, then good for you

I was trying to explain what *might* be the cause of the malfunction, not describe a perfect example.

 

I tried Driver Sweeper 2.8, I used it on my ATI Display driver. I removed everything it tagged and then rebooted. Problem is though I could not reinstall it again, it kept giving an error to do with MOM.Implementation. I had to use system restore to get back to my proper resolution. On a positive note though the whole time I had the ATI driver uninstalled the touchpad worked perfectly.

 

I think you're on the money, DCx. Chastity's info is along the same lines. The touchpad is very sensitive. It isn't shielded worth a darn so it picks up input in a wide area on the palmrest... even from under the front edge of the laptop. The PS/2 bus gets swamped and you can't get your keystrokes registered.

I wonder what blocks the ability of the TP to read. I was wondering if taking it apart and taping a patch of foil over it would block it from "seeing" input from below or to the sides of the actual touchpad. I don't want to do any more surgery on my laptop for a while since I just got it back from RMA and it's behaving pretty well, but I did consider trying to shield the tp in some way the next time I'm in there.

I had thought about doing something else crazy too before my RMA. I looked around the internet for a USB bus touchpad that was the right size or nearly the right size. I was thinking of frankensteining one in there and just have the keyboard on a bus all alone. I didn't really find anything that I thought would work. I was think about consuming one of the USB ports internally to a grafted touchpad. It might require soldering it in or perhaps slipping a port out of it's "keeper" and just plugging it in inside the laptop.

Crazy talk for a laptop that still has over a year of warranty left. Once that warranty is up I might break out my electronics toolbox and do some surgery.

 

ok, posting updates.

I've been doing the run with the new bios v2, reinstalled all drivers in the order

I get Stop 0x3b errors on sleep and screen blanks.

I've isolated it down to ATI sys file: atikmdag.sys gives a memory access error.

any suggestions peeps?

using chas' vbios and beta bios v2

i still have missing keystrokes, but the touchpad is awesome.

 

http://pcaudio.ath.cx/stuff/Mobility Mod 8.79.6.2 RC3 Dec16 [email protected]

 

I experienced multiple BSOD's related to atikmdag.sys on my desktop's 5870 on a clean install of Windows 7 x64. I had repeated problems on the previous install as well. I was thinking that it was time to ditch the card... hell... ditch Windows entirely!! LOL

Ultimately, I decided to go back to an older ATI/AMD driver - in my case Catalyst 10.5 - and so far haven't had a single BSOD. FYI

As for my G73JH, my wife is using it now periodically with the touchpad disabled and has no complaints. I am happy with my 17" MacBook Pro.

Good luck and happy 2011!

 

Update

My co-worker and I haven't had one single problem since the last time I posted...this is unbelievable!!!! I highly recommend swapping out the entire surface panel(I kept my original keyboard).

 

How much did a new surface panel cost? And where can one be ordered from? Also what if there is a chance of getting one again that is defective.

I am glad yours is working well, cheers.

 

My impression is that he bought, swapped and returned a few units from his local best buy. I mean, if asus wasn't repairing them because they're not defective, then he's not doing anything wrong

 

New BIOS on front page.

 

You are the man, and thanks to everyone else that made this happen. Hopes it works.

 

Was attempting to update it via Winflash. The bios is older than the current version. I am using beta 2 right now. The date of the bios is 7/27/2010.

 

Thank You. For awhile I was seriously considering selling this unit ahead of my sandybridge schedule but since my problem has been fixed. I may keep it

EXACTLY


It looks like the new Bios only addresses missing keyboard strokes. My keyboard has NEVER had any issues. Now that I look back I don't think any Bios updates specifically mention fixing the touchpad. It's probably because it's hardware related.

I'm so glad a swap(hardware) fixed the touchpad issue.

 

Just wow. That's all I can say. I think this latest update has actually done it. I was still missing the occasional spacebar press even with all the right software on a clean install with bios beta 2. Right now I have typed quite a few test paragraphs and have missed zero keys and not one spacebar. I thought perhaps my keyboard was faulty since it was seeming like lots of space problems. I was also still missing the occasional double letter like the word "missed". This is apparently not happening any more. What a huge relief.

I will keep testing but this one is a keeper. As someone stated a few posts up, the easyflash screen will identify this bios as 211 with a July date. I can guarantee you it is a new bios because it has worked some voodoo magic on my PS/2 bus.

 

I just installed the bios on my system and it seems to be working really well. The keyboard seems to respond very well and the spacebar is clicking when i hit it. I am gonna mess with it on a few games to see if it does anything weird.

 

Typed out a bit of junk in notepad. I missed 2 keystrokes for sure, but not entirely sure if that was a result of me typing poorly or dropping strokes. Regardless, not having to worry about my spacebar right now makes me a bit happier. Of course, this is only a small sample size, but this feels better than the other two test releases. Time will tell, but it feels better.

 

First and second beta didn't work for me, but this third beta seem to have really nailed the problem. No problem with the keyboard so far today.

Thanks for your ongoing support Gary Key, as well as the rest of the community, it really is appreciated.

 

Does this mean you have to do it from the BIOS? How can you do it with WinFlash?