Asus G1s Rma

Hey guys. I bought my ASUS G1S back in 2007 and have already RMA'd it once because the GPU died. They replaced the motherboard for me. This was last year.

During my 4th semester of college, whenever I was using the eSATA port with my external hard drive, I kept getting the following error message in Vista x64 event viewer:

"The driver for device \Device\Scsi\JRAID1 detected a port timeout due to prolonged inactivity. All associated busses were reset in an effort to clear the condition."

Whenever this happened, all the usb ports and eSATA port would stop responding for a couple seconds. This would happen consistently every minute as long as the eSATA was in use.

I've tried all new Jmicron drivers and have even replaced the eSATA cable and external hard drive. The problem still persisted. I emailed Jmicron support and they told me that other people had similar issues and that for most it was a hardware problem.

Also, the GPU was still getting quite hot. On a regular basis it would hit 95C and occasionally go to 100C. I did buy a Zalman cooler and even with the cooler this was still the case. (I don't want to drill holes or remove the tape since the laptop has another year of warranty left.)

I have recently sent the notebook to ASUS for its 2nd RMA. This is my 4th RMA with them since I have sent a motherboard in for RMA twice.

I talked to a technical support rep and they told me that their technician was unable to reproduce the eSATA error and did find the GPU temps to be slightly above normal so they replaced the thermal compound. (Only slightly high??? I don't think they even stressed it!) They don't have any replacement motherboards so either they can send me the notebook now or have me wait 10 weeks for a replacement motherboard.

I have college again in less than 10 weeks. I have already confirmed that my external hard drive and cable are fine since they work perfectly with my desktop running Vista x64 that has an eSATA port.

At this point, I am really angry with ASUS. I shipped them my laptop last Monday and they received it last Wednesday morning. I would have sent them the laptop much sooner, but unfortunately without a laptop in the college I go to, getting my work done would have been impossible.

I really don't know what to do now. The ASUS G1S has given me a lot of problems. I have been a loyal ASUS customer, but this loyalty isn't worth the pain anymore.

What's the next thing I should do?

Thank you.

 

Update on this:

I spoke with ASUS Tech Support again. It seems that Tech Support cannot pull up the repair reports. So, I got transfered to Customer Service and actually spoke to the same person I spoke with this morning. I was told that one of the technicians was told to call me within the next 24 hours so that I could help them duplicate the problem.

I'll see what happens.

Edit: I should have edited the previous post and added the update.

 

The G1 was a problem from what I have read, where not talking about the occasional rma, talking about the majority of owners having sent theirs in for 2 to 4 rma's. Never had one but i rarely read someone not having sent theirs in.

Part of the issue with one of the models was that 8 series and thats really nvidia not asus.

I wouldnt give up on asus, you will run into problems with any company unless your lucky. The particular product line along with one of the parts used from another manufacturer just created a problem for everyone including ASUS.

Understandable that you need the notebook, as well as understandable that they have to wait for parts for a no longer manufactured machine that constantly drains their parts supply. I believe there is a wait for motherboards on some of the defective HP DV6000 series that were about as bad as the G1.

 

I can understand their position, but I feel ripped off now after I paid over $2000 when the G1S came out. I wanted a laptop that would last at least 3 years.

Anyway, someone from ASUS got back to me and told me that they didn't find any problems and that they replaced the entire cooling unit. I asked him how they tested the eSATA issue and he didn't know. I explained to him that they need to try writing/reading through eSATA to start the error. He said he would find out and have them test it again.

He told he that they only tested with the default drivers and OS that the laptop ships with. I told him that if they used the default driver for the eSATA controller, then they should see the eSATA drive disappear from explorer/device manager after about an hour of no reading/writing.

 

Well, I spoke with a different representative. I gave her my RMA number and she said something along the lines of my laptop not booting up or booting into a blank screen. I was really confused and explained my problem all over again.

I don't know what happened now. The customer service representatives are good people and actually take the time to help you, but this time I heard something different to what I sent the laptop in for.

Again, I was able to confirm that the time for a replacement motherboard is 10 weeks. I don't have 10 weeks. I need to go back to college and I need a laptop to use (it's also a requirement for all students) for my work.

I am really losing hope here. I am really losing faith in ASUS.

 

As far as getting different info from different representatives it depends on how the read what little info is on the ticket. Unless the support your calling is local to the repair center its at its not like getting info on whats wrong with your car. They read whats on the ticket, interpret it one way or the other or not at all.

As for getting it back, outside of its current condition no one can do anything for the current notebook until a part becomes availiable. ALL i can say is lose faith all you want, acer or hp (can point a specific hp model or 15) would be giving you the same basic situation. In rare cases people in all company's have gotten a replacment of some sort (Acer Ferrari was sent in for 17 warranty repairs a brand new basket case was sent to the owner...). Someone with the past month maybe two got their G1 replaced with a G50Vt-x1, though in the same category someone who was authorized to get his best buy model replaced was later told he was denied because it was a best buy model and not covered.

Your in a bad situation, you might go with another company next time and have the same good luck you would have had with your next ASUS that you didnt buy. I am personally never buying another HP laptop (will buy desktops from them), and definitely forever staying away from Acer.

 

Well, here is some bittersweet news. They happened to have ONE G1S motherboard available. It is a REFURBISHED motherboard. According to them, the GPU temps on this refurbished board are 15C cooler than my original board. Also, they claim that the eSATA issue has been fixed.

When I receive the notebook, I will do my own testing. Good thing is, I still have 1 year of warranty left on the notebook.

ASUS support is not the best and by far not the worst. The people I spoke with returned my calls when I asked them to and because of that, I may still buy ASUS products. Anyway, I'm not sure who'd I'd buy from in the future, but ASUS is no longer #1 on my list.

 

If you were a G50 owner with an issue you might have a different view. As just about anything that can go wrong with the G50 is typically fixed very fast. As i said before your model laptop was just the suck of the world (apparently).

Long time HP customer myself along with family, but several flaws on several current models, attached to my compaq suffering some of the issues that the Dv6000 series had and HP saying because my compaq is the cheapo they arent covering it under the same extentions they gave to dv6000 owners just turned me away.

I didnt catch where you were at, motherboard aside I hear the UK service is the worst and Canada is probably the best (any company in canada as far as i heard). Havent had to deal with them yet, hope I have luck when I do.

Great to hear the news though, keep pushing if you have to sometimes you will get somewhere. Though note the person on the other end of the phone is just like you, you dont want to deal with them they dont want to deal with you and your both trying to get somewhere with that lol.

 

I don't have 10 weeks either, as I'm going to need mine for school as well...I'm really hoping that they get a shipment of some replacements in or something (and no order them on a 1 by 1 need basis) so mine doesn't take 10 weeks. What are they going to tell me when I tell them I can't wait 10 weeks?

 

They'll tell that that's all they can do. You could try asking for a replacement.

 

Well, I got my G1S back from RMA. They replaced the motherboard with a refurbished one. The eSATA issue has been reduced. The error only occurs occassionally now instead of every minute while eSATA is in use.

They also replaced the bottom chassis and top plate. I am currently testing out the latest drivers from Jmicron to see if the problem goes away entirely.

I will report back. So far, I give ASUS a 3 out of 5 because their Customer Service Reps were very helpful and their technicians actually wrote detailed reports on what they did (Customer Service Reps summarized them for me).

 

Good to hear that much has been resolved. Sucks about the eSATA though, only used myne a short while still waiting for a cable to use my drive directly since the enclosure is bust.