Asus A8JM hardware problems...

I need some help on what to do. I bought this laptop in the summer of '06. A few days ago when I went to start up the computer, I got a blue screen that said that a hardware or software failure occurred. I took it to the local computer repair technition and he said it is most likely a hardware failure that will cost $125...this is rediculous. How could a hardware failure occur after having it for just a year and a half.

What else could be the problem?

 

A blue screen doesn't necessarily mean "hardware" failure at any level, it could be driver level failure or software level that could cause this issue.

How long have you not reinstalled Windows? Have you done any virus scanning lately? Have you cleaned out the cooling system lately?

You need to properly diagnose the problem before determining the issue. When and how did the BSOD happen?

 

And most importantly, what did the BSOD screen say.. if you wrote it down.

What component did the technician blame? he must've been pretty sure what it was if he quoted an exact price.

 

ugh, I highly doubt that. I think the technician was more attracted to the $$$ symbols he saw in jlaz's reaction...

jlaz, i suggest you might want to run some tests first:

1) Virus Scan - Spyware scan
2) Registry Cleaner/Scanner
3) Notebook cleaning, CPU and GPU heatsink maintenance
4) Load tests with CPU ie; Stress Prime Orthos, Prime 95 and as well as 3D Mark 06 with several loops.

If all these have been performed and the tests have passed. I would assume that your hardware has no problems, infact the only problem may be your operating system and system drivers and all you may need to do is Reinstall Windows.

 

D3X, normally I would try all of those things out when the BSOD occurs, but this time I couldn't get passed it. Normally, if I couldn't get passed the BSOD, I would wipe out windows and fresh install it, but when I put in my friend's Windows XP CD (provided by Dell..which could be the reason why the computer didn't read it), at bootup, it didn't read the CD. Should I call the technician and tell him not to do work on it? I would doubt that my hardware would fail within a year and a half...that is such a short period of time.

I haven't reinstalled Windows in a while...I was actually planning on doing that, but then the BSOD happened.

How do you clean out the cooling system because lately my computer has been getting EXTREMELY hot and that could be a cause of it.

The technician said that if its a hard drive failure, the replacement hard drive (80 gb) would cost $125. Thats all he said regarding the service...he didn't tell me any other quotes.

I would really appreciate it if you guys could tell me some steps I could take to fix it on my own because I don't want to spend $125 on a new hard drive if I don't need 1.

The reason why I brought it into the technician is because the screen came off the hinge preventing me from shutting my monitor...it like split in half. He hasn't started working on it so I could call him up and tell him to just fix the screen and don't worry about the BSOD.

Thanks

*EDIT* I just called the guy and told him to not do any work on the system besides the screen. He told me that he would have to replace the hard drive costing $129. I think it may be a cooling problem...I'm going to try to fix it myself by opening it up and cleaning the cooling fans and checking the ram chips / moving them around.

Could a dusty cooling system cause the BSOD? He was telling me some jibberish about the hard drive not being able to read A, the first part of boot so its a hard drive issue. Not buying it.

BTW...he said the BSOD was caused by an "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME". Whats the solution to that?

 

I wouldn't assume it to be a hard drive failure without running some diagnostics. I'm inclined to think the technician knows the BSOD can be fixed by a reinstall of Windows and he's taking advantage of the situation to sell you a hard drive which would require a reinstall of Windows anyways. I'd tell him to hold off on the BSOD fix until you can verify things for yourself. Then again, if my suspicions about the technician's tactics are correct, would you reallly want someone like that fixing anything on your laptop? You can try seeing if the hard drive is on working order by downloading hard drive diagnostic software from the hard drive manufacturer's website.

And as others have already stated, the exact BSOD error message would help in narrowing down the possibilities.

 

Thanks for the advice..thats what I did and the BSOD error says UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME I think

 

Well, if it is a hard disk problem. That is the easiest fix, and it doesn't take a technician to replace. Do you have the recovery DVD that came with your A8J? If you don't, you should call ASUS and get one.

What you need to do is to run out and get a replacement notebook hard drive, yank out your existing hard drive and place that into an external USB enclosure and run tests on there. It could be as simple as a corrupted MBR or FAT and would require a rebuild. Of course, given the opportuinity I would suggest getting a higher performance drive like a Hitachi 7200rpm or a WD Scorpio 320GB 5400RPM drive to replace your slow, old and possibly broken 80GB drive.

Once you've done that, run the recovery DVD and you'll have your A8J running better than it was before, and ontop of that there is a possibility that your information would be recoverable from your problematic 80GB by running an hard drive utility, I would suggest download Hiren's Boot CD and running HDD Regenerator on your 80GB which would be utilizing the USB enclosure. IF not there are tons of hard disk utilities out there that runs on Windows and give those a run.


Even still, don't blame ASUS for this issue and blame the hard disk manufacturer. Infact, hard drives crash all the time and I've had issues with pretty much all the manufacturers; WD, Seagate, Maxtor, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Samsung. The technology isn't fullproof and depending on how much you use your notebook/desktop, hard drives will fail.

 

I blame ASUS for the ****ass design and build quality of the notebook of the A8J series.

I've never seen a notebook that costs $2000 have the paint transfer from the palm rest to the lcd border just by having it closed and in my backpack (in a neoprene sleeve). I've also never seen a notebook at ANY price have such a bad hinge design. I went into Asus Canada repair centre in April (my machine was purchased in August 06) to repair the insanely loose and broken hinges (the support at the Asus Canada repair centre was great). Here we are not even a year later and the hinges are broken again and have split the LCD casing in half(where the hinges broke).

I am going back to the Asus repair centre next week and they better address the issue. Even though my warranty technically ended in August 07, the notebook was repaired to 100% in April and it's even worse than it was back then. It would be disappointing for Asus to lose a customer because I have always held their products in high regard when building PCs.

The design and build quality of the A8J series may not be representative of the entire Asus notebook line but the disappointment of wasting an extra $1000 for quality I could have received on an HP notebook leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

I don't really see how the opening a closing of a notebook would break the LCD casing that it's holding together. The broken hinges (from normal wear and tear of moving class to class in university) and broken LCD casing where the hinges are...don't leave a great impression, especially since the addition of the 3 year warranty coverage and 1 year accidental warranty coverage of new Asus notebooks, leaves me with my hands in my pockets pondering how Asus shafted me?

 

Hi, to the OP:

If not wanting to spend money on a new HDD unless absolutely necessary, I would suggest a clean install accompanied by a complete rebuild of the partitions. If the same errors happen afterwards it probably is a bad HDD.

Otherwise, yeah, just get a new HDD put the old one in an enclosure, and don't keep important data on it.

About the heat, if it gets very hot and you never cleaned the heatsink and fan you should. Here is your starting point:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=122632
Read first: ASUS Info Booth - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion

ProfessorChaos, I'm not sure this is the correct thread to express your disappointment... (we are aware of the issues of the A8s though)

 

Right, and you have the right to be dissappointed. However, this thread was talking about an individual case where his A8Jm has suffered either a bad hard disk or a corrupted operating system, which has little to do with the build quality of the notebook itself.

 

well I also have an issue with the build quality considering I have the same problem as Professor Chaos considering my LCD screen split in half at the bottom where it attaches to the hinge. The laptop looks nice, but isn't very durable...I'm always worried that its going to break that I can't even bring it to class.

 

yep, hinge problem is well-known especially on older models like A8Jm.