Keyboard Lag Debugging

I have the impression that the issue is too costly to deal with, thus it will be ignored.

They probably know of a bug in the design they have used for so long, but since it is a marginal issue (ie, it only happens to xx% of units) they figure it is "good enough" for production...

I am waiting to hear if any of you that RMA because of this issue have the same problem once you get it back? If so then even RMA'ing isn't the fix and I do believe a class-action lawsuit would be in order.

A class-action lawsuit could include not only the G73, but previous models that are known to have the issue as well. If it is a systemic issue with Asus and if they ignore the problem with the G73 as they have with the other units, then that may be the only course of action.

If a class-action lawsuit is brought, they would be responsible for not only paying for legal fees, but they could be held liable for lost production, time, hassle, etc for all the units that have the issue. So payback would be full purchase price plus damages. Hell, it may even force a company the size of Asus to buy back ALL the G73s out there.

I know this sounds extreme, but when thousands of users get screwed, whether they know it or not, and Asus won't stand by thier product and provide a software/firmware fix and won't fix it via RMA, there isn't much in the way of options left.

This is quickly turning into not only a situation of a PR nightmare for Asus, but also a major issue for thier ever-expanding laptop sales and the corporations image as a whole.

Hopefully Gary is reading this. If not, then he is incompetent and doesn't know how to do his job. Either way his proverbial butt is on the line with this as well, as since he took the responsibility of reading these forums and it is within his area of responsibility at Asus, I am certain he would be one of the first to blame internally if this situation does blow up into a lawsuit.

If Gary Key IS reading this, take this as notice that your end-users patience is wearing thin, your inability to communicate with the end-user community is going to be your albatross, and if you don't take this seriously, then we can't worry about how you or Asus will fare if we are forced to take this legal. You have a responsibility to your customers to get upper management and engineering involved to get this matter resolved to the satisfaction of those that purchased your products. This is not some $150 motherboard that people will just call a dud and just not buy Asus motherboards anymore. If this has to go legal you can better believe you lost a TON of current and potential customers throughout your entire line of products.

Also, if you don't think that your end-users don't have decision power in regards to corporate purchasing, then you obviously don't take your business seriously.

 

Gary Key emailed me today and said that they have nailed it down to a keyboard buffer overflow issue. They are working on a software fix. I'm not sure who "they" are, but I think it is Synaptics. No ETA on the fix, though.

 

Well, it had better be a BIOS fix, as the Synaptics drivers are not the issue. You can uninstall all the Synaptics software and run the stock MS drivers and it still looses characters and the touchpad still freaks out.

 

I doubt we will get anything. Consider this a lesson to us all - buy American because they fix your problems. I have had numerous problems with Dell laptops in the past but before the next day morning everything was up and working. Asus is just incapable of anything and are just working off of past glories.

TallRed, I really hope you guys do go through with a class action lawsuit because when I have called about this issue, every time the rep slams the phone down instead of offering to help in any way.

 

I don't know about the "buy american" angle, but it is pretty silly that a laptop that has so many amazing features can't function reliably for something as simple as word processing. I am actually glad I moved on to another laptop. Live and learn...

 

Yeah you got lucky...this issue didn't show up until a solid 1.5 months in. I mentioned buy American because if you buy from someone like Dell or HP, they'll find another model that does not have the issues that you found or just refund you complete purchase price.

 

I call bull.
Just my two cents.
If the "software" is actually released within a reasonable amount of time, I will buy nothing but ASUS for the rest of my life, and pass on my habit to my many, many children.

 

Haha we were part of a 45000+ corporation purchasing asus computers because dells were too unreliable but given our feedback, Asus has just lost approximately 100,000 laptop sales a year. Pretty bad mistake for the, I say!

 

I would like to clarify that I don't work for Asus. I'm just a dude who bought one Asus gaming notebook. I think Gary is a good guy. If he told me they found the problem and they are working on a fix, I believe him. I like my laptop and would like a fix for my dropped keystrokes so I can enable my touchpad.

I sent Gary an email about a week or so ago asking for an update. He immediately responded. I asked if it was OK to post back here. He just sent me an email today saying it was cool so I did.

My company buys ThinkPads... cheap ones. The corporation would never buy this much horsepower for laptops that basically run Microsoft Office. We buy a lot more than a hundred thousand, but they all come from Lenovo. My personal preference is a wicked gaming laptop and that means NOT a ThinkPad so I bought this and I'm happy with it except for the intermittent screeching white noise and missed keystrokes.

I probably need to RMA it but I like it too much to give it up for two or three weeks.

 

Hey Jody, and everybody else that is suffering from the “intermittent screeching white noise”. I installed this, found here: Breakaway Audio Enhancer
And I haven’t had the horrid “speakers go daft” thing ever again. It takes a wee bit of setting up but it has been working great for me so………give it a try buddy

Yours digitally

 

Thanks for the tip!!

I will give this a go.

 

I take you are recommending this Breakaway Enhancer as a replacement for the Creative MB software? If that's the case, only thing missing really would be the ALchemy addon/EAX support.

 

No probs Jody. Tell me your experience with it. If it works for you as well then we have another problem of these machines solved I guess.
Give me a shout if you need info about my settings.

@ Chastity
Well I still have Creative AND Realtek installed although Breakaway Enhancer takes over completely (see screen shot).



Creative MB still works for me, kinda. The equalizer works for sure but I am not sure about EAX and crystalizer and the other stuff. I don’t hear much difference if I change settings there. I somehow have the idea now that it is (the intermittent screeching white noise) a directx problem. Breakaway is using “Kernel Streaming” (see screenshot).






But I am still not exactly sure how or why by using Breakaway this problem is solved on my machine.

iemie

 

If you are using a Kernel stream, you are bypassing KMixer (and the DirectX layer) which is where the hooks for the Creative apps generally are.

I wouldn't be surprised if the post-processing features of the Creativity software fail under this setup, since KS is normally exclusive and protected, which is why it's low latency and good for bitperfect streaming.

 

You know a lot more about sound systems than I do and there's no doubt about that. I just tried Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition with all this stuff loaded... Creative, Alchemy has a NWN profile, Realtek, and this new thing called Breakaway. Everything is playing nicely together. The EAX effects seem to be working. I'm no audiophile but it sounds a lot better with the EAX enabled in NWN than it does without it. I think it is still working.

The only negative effect that I'm finding so far is that the volume control on my external keyboard doesn't work. The Fn + F11/F12 works just fine, but the little sound buttons on my Logitech keyboard don't work anymore. I could live with that to get rid of the white noise. It has a thirty day trial so I'll run it for a month and see if my computer starts blasting noise at me again like it always does. It's very intermittent so it'll take a week at least to know for sure. If this works and Gary comes through for us, I'll be set.

 

Ya we buy these for medical imaging and such

 

Hmm still no word on this?

 

Seems like the thread died, but the lag contnus

 

Chastity,
I applied your Keyboard and Trackpad Fix. It works perfectly!
I followed your instructions exactly as posted.
I updated the to latest 213 BIOS.
Removed the existing ATK (which was an earlier version)
Removed the existing Synaptics drivers (which was a later version)
Installed the ATK and Synaptics drivers from your package.
And...
I'm now in laptop heaven. Well, actually, let's call it Purgatory, seeing as I once pounded an old HP laptop into the ground.
I can't begin to tell you how frustrating it was not having a properly working track pad.

I was surely convinced I had a defective unit, or an improperly seated unit.
Either way, it works perfectly now.
(Actually, I have an issue with a repetitive low pitch beeping sound - (it sounds like morse code, LOL)
I want to thank you, and everyone else who has obviously worked very hard to resolve these issues.

Update - Well, I thought the Track Pad issue was fixed, but it's back to where it was originally - meaning it turns into a four-way, and stops responding to input. It really seemed that the fix worked at first, but here's hoping that this is a hardware problem, and not something that can't be resolved.

 

Does it happen when your cell phone rings, or you get an incoming message?

 

The noise is constant. It's actually a sound like nothing I've heard before. It's a small beeping noise that is coming out of the area where the memory DIMMS sit, or close by anyways. I did a YouTube search with the keywords "laptop morse code noise", and there is a video of someone having the identical problem, only it's a Sony laptop. YouTube - Vaio F Series Fan Noise, Whining, High Pitch, Morse Code Fix - VPCF115FM F11 F12 F13