C90S common problems and fixes.

I am. Right now I believe I'm having RAM incompatibility issues:

"Q: My C90 wont run from battery power at all?
A: Ram incompatibility, when there is no AC power present the C90 defaults into power save mode, this is causing issues with some untested ram and will hopefully be fixed in a newer bios sometime soon. The fix for now is to get ram that is known to work with the C90. Contact your dealer for more info and to possibly purchase ram that works 100% If you insist on buying the ram yourself or want to be safe get 2x1gb ram"

Unless does anyone know of a BIOS update or a fix for this? Is there a way to disable a stick of RAM so that there isn't a compatibility issue?

Ram specs:
# CORSAIR, 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-4200 DDR2 533MHz SDRAM SODIMM, Non-ECC
# CORSAIR, 1GB PC2-4200 DDR2 533MHz SDRAM SODIMM, Non-ECC

 

I also tried to use corsair but the 2gb wont let me boot from battery power. Only a few sticks of 2gbx1pc ram are working with the c90. Tried to update my BIOS to 704, still doesnt work. Just try to use 1gb sticks for now.... ( 2pcs x 1gb ). Most people do not report problems with this config.

 

I think I actually found the problem with my unit. On the metal plate on the graphics card, 2 of the 3 spring-screw holes for the FAN were too big, so the screws didn't fit and touched the card, guess what happened when I tried to screw them?

Still, it was due a problem on the card itself, so it's not my fault

I'm wondering if I should RMA the laptop itself too, because if the problem isn't the card, 2x shipping QC-Richmond will be very expensive. It's $30 only for the card, and $33 for both =/

 

Hello all!

I literally just joined 2 minutes ago to post on this thread. Seeing that it's hard to find everthing in the forums, I'm having a bit of trouble myself, I'm not sure if I have any overheating problems, since I haven't tried to start gaming mode yet, but I have some smaller problems that someone can hopefully help me with. (or at least point me to the thread where I can find the information) I'm not real tech savvy, but the more I read these threads, the more I comprehend it seems. I put the specs of my C90S as my signature, if you need to see them.

1) Those 4 buttons in the top-right hand corner? The TurboGear and E-mail buttons don't work. They worked when I had Vista installed, but I downgraded.

2) Everytime I logon, the TurboGear folder comes up. how do I get rid of that?

3) When I was looking for the driver and utility for my Wireless component, I ran my computer through some driver checking application (from driveragent.com), and it said that 41% of my drivers were bad. I scanned it again since then and now 37% of my drivers are bad. Where can I find the "good" drivers from? (I added a picture, so you can see which ones were bad.)



4) are there any other things I should update (like my BIOS) or anything else I should do to prevent any other problems from popping up?

 

How do you disable the other sticks of RAM?

 

take it out.

Flip over your C90, and with a filips head screwdriver, unscrew all of the screws. Slide the cover off, locate the 2GB stick of ram, and take it. Slide the cover back on, put the screws back in, turn on C90, see if that fixes your issue.

 

Okay, and do I run the risk of seriously breaking my computer, or am I voiding the warranty, or both? I'm going to wait to hear from avadirect.com or ASUS before proceeding. Hopefully they'll have something to throw at the problem. This type of $#!* just shouldn't happen.

 

Has anyone had the movies in DVD stall between 12:30 to 13:30 but if I skip over that part it plays fine its with every player the ASUS PowerDVD or the Windows Media Player

 

No. You wont risk breaking anything on your computer as long as you have thumbs and a brain.

As for the warranty..... The warranty on this laptop is sketchy in my opinion. I'm not sure what the warranty specifications are for avadirect; but as far ASUS goes, it is to my understanding that they warranty the parts and pieces that they put into the laptop themselves. If you put something into the laptop, and that part breaks, they wont replace it. Now if you put something they sold you into the laptop, I have no idea, I have heard that they will and that they wont. Now if they sold you the system as "pre-built", it is to my understanding that if you take anything out, that part loses the warranty; but I have also heard that the entire laptop loses the warranty.

That is why I say it is sketchy at best. I like the warranty on my car, I take something off, that part loses warranty, I put something in, and it breaks, nothing to worry about, I just lost that money because I did it wrong. I pay them to put something in, they warranty it and pay for it if it breaks, even if it's not something they sold me. I love it.

No, are your drivers updated? You might also want to instal VLC media player and try that. Though it may be a motor problem with the drive itself as well, in which case you will have to RMA the laptop so they can replace the drive.

 

On Asus barebone, each part is warrantied by itself. The CPU goes with intel's warranty ( 3years for retail, Only 7 days-DOA for OEM, 1 year with your resseller I guess).

RAMS are usually lifetime. HDD is either 3 or 5 years

The VGA and laptop have 1 year

 

Hi all,

First time poster here. First off, I just wanted to say that I'm a C90S user, built it myself, and it's running Vista x64 Ultimate perfectly: I've yet to see a single BSOD for several weeks. So for those planning to run it stock like myself, it seems plenty stable.

Anyhoo, I just have two issues. First, the RAM thing. I've sat and pondered the explanation that's been given for limiting the RAM bus to 266mhz; I've stroked my beard and ruminated and really tried to understand the reasoning, but... I just don't buy it. I've been builing desktops for years and have been running the CPU and RAM asynchronously for as long as I can remember. A 1/1 divider is optimal, in that increasing your RAM bus out of sync with the CPU bus won't yield a linear increase in speed, but that doesn't follow that you should limit your RAM just so it syncs 1:1 with your CPU. In other words, if you have DDR667 RAM, then you should run it at 667mhz, because... well... why not? Furthermore, the overclocking thing doesn't make sense to me. If you have DDR533 RAM, then your RAM divider should be at 1/4x, and a 20% overclock on the FSB would yield a 20% overclock on the RAM bus. If you have DDR667 RAM, then your RAM divider should be at 5/16x, and a 20% overclock on the FSB would yield a... 20% overclock on the RAM bus. It's the same difference, and the same amount of possible instability, in both situations. What I'm guessing is the mobo ASUS is using doesn't have any dividers capable of asyncing the memory to 333mhz, or at least it doesn't have any in the released BIOSes, but that's a lame excuse worthy of a cheap motherboard, if true. Even if I am completely missing something and there is a legitimate reason to limit the memory bus, then ASUS and its resellers really need to make that known on their product pages. I, personally, feel like a complete chump for buying DDR667 RAM, considering that I have no plans to overclock.

The only other issue is that video isn't displayed over the HDMI connection until Windows has booted and the video driver has initialized. Not a big deal: I use the C90S as a desktop replacement / media center, and it's kind of inaccessible, so having to take it out and flip it open to access the BIOS or the boot menu is mildly annoying. Anyone know if this could be fixed with a firmware update, or if it's actually a problem with the HDMI spec?

 

Updated with a new problem and fix on the front page.

 

Thanks Vicious! I fixed that problem, now on to the fact those 2 buttons won't work... and for some reason I can only go up to Gaming mode, not overclock mode. Is it supposed to be that way?

 

Yeah because of your cpu, a e6700 can not go into overclock mode because it would be higher than the 2.93ghz limit on the c90.

game mode already puts you at the max with a 10% overclock.

infact just added that to the FAQ, a e6700 will not have overclock mode, a e6800 will not have game or overclock modes.

I am abit upset that the e6600 doesnt get a full 20% overclock like it should in overclock mode, but the performance is still great, infact I never leave normal mode with it.

 

oh, ok ^_^ that would make sense to me.

now i was reading in a thread froma while back, RangerXML also had a problem with the TurboGear and e-amil buttons. Did he manage to get them fixed?

 

If you install all the utillities the buttons will work, there are a few things to install. Its not just one program.

 

Well I installed all the utilities on the Asus CD, still they won't work.

Should I try re-installing them?

 

Yeah thats a logical step.

 

I got the ATK hotkey and Turbo Gear Utilities from the Asus support site and they worked after I upgraded my bios to 601. But I don't use Outlook so the email button is useless unless I can get it to use the system email default like the browser uses the default browser (firefox in my case).

 

People have gotten it to work with the default items, I know for a fact with the browser, for the mail program It may have been a g1s user and not a c90 but I think it works too. not sure what has to be done to get it to work.

I may play with it some later since I use fire fox the most, but its faster for me to click my icon in my quick launch bar than the button on the notebook.

 

hmm... still doesn't seem to work for me... I'll try again later, but now I found another problem.

Apperently my webcam opens up and it seems to work... then comes up "this graph cannot preview" since I'm re-installing utilities, might as well re-install tat driver and see what happens.

 

did you already upgrade your BIOS to at least 601? After that and the new Turbo Gear and ATK everything seemed to work. Still waiting on responses to 801 before trying this BIOS.

 

yea, I already have Bios 601 on my laptop.

and I've tried to re-install the webcam's driver, but that didn't help. I read an earlier thread that maybe turbogear was the problem?

 

only problem I discovered now is, when I overclock the gpu memory it sometimes sets back to "stock" settings and sometimes not. looks like the drivers I have on my C90 prohibit me from overclocking and are already set to run at overclocked settings since it runs on 500/450 by default. when I force it to run at 500/500 it sometimes freeze, maybe because the drivers dont let me to do it.

 

That would totally depend on your forceware drivers, the stock ones that come with the machine let you overclock but if you update to some of the newer ones they dont have the option, however they offer generally better performance at the same clock speed and less compatability issues. Its give and take.

I use the newer 163.44's that came out for bioshock, they work great for me but have no overclocking offically. You could be "hardcore" and still overclock the card manually with modifying the bios to the card but I see little or no reason to do that on a notebook.

 

I use the drivers that came with my C90.

btw I cant wait for the day a "bigger" card come out for mxm II (hopefully because I dont want buy the 8600GT with gddr3 because its waste of money in my eyes, I think I will wait for something better)

 

Its possible that you still have newer drivers tho, I was one of the orignal c90 owners. Just go into your advanced dispaly options and look to see what forceware version you have. Then you can know easily if thats the problem. I cant remember the exact number off my head but I think its 158.xx that started to block overclocking.

Also what program are you using to do it with? I personally use ntune.

 

well that could be a possibility, why it doesnt let me overclock.

I tried both ntune and rivatuner. ntune worked better for me cause I am the lazy guy and I like simple UIs

arent the normal settings for the 8600 gt 475/400 because my runs at 500/450 by default?

 

@sleepydeath :

yes. the stock settings for the 8600GT is 475/400. BUt if you installed turbogear enhanced VGA driver, it will overclock to 500/450 by default. And i think this driver would lock it at this setting... ( tried to go 500/500 ) but it doesnt work.

 

I let most things like they were, only tweaked a bit in the services and deinstalled unneeded stuff. good to know that this is preinstalled
can I delete it seperately? is the turbogear enhanced VGA driver a part of turbo gear or do I have to install other drivers for the card?

 

turbogear enhanced VGA driver is separately installed, it came on the c90's driver cd. ( Its different from turbogear ) Check it. If you uninstall enhanced VGA drivers in your programs, your card would go back to 475/400.

 

thx!
my bad, somehow I overlooked it. If I had seen it before (damn human eyes/brain XD), I would already ask myself what it is.

time for some benchmarking

 

Alright so here's an update!

Stayed up till about 4 this morning trying to work the kinks out of my C90, I got the e-mail button to work again (and change the default to thunderbird), and now I get the little turbogear icon on my system tray (which I didn't get before) but for some reason, the turbogear button still doesn't work. To they have be installed in some sort of order? (ie- turbogear, then hotkeys, or hotkeys then turbogear?)

since I was trying stuff out, I found that my gaming mode doesn't work either. I would switch to gaming mode, and it would look stable, but as soon as I click on anything, the system reboots. darn...

and after re-installing my webcam countless times, it still doesn't work. sometimes I get the error message, other times it just shows a black screen and the webcam light just flashes. I was plaznning to use the webcam , but at this rate, it looks to be the "appendix" of this computer.

 

In Windows XP the Turbo Gear hot key does not work. I am interested in to know how you got the email hot key to work with thunderbird.

 

Well the e-mail button works with firefox when I changed the default, and I disabled outlook when I switched to thunderbird. so I guess the button had no other option than to work with thunderbird, did it?

so the turbogear button just refuses to work in XP? bummer. I guess it's just one of those things I have to live with, like the fact that I can only go up to gaming mode. Still if anyone has been able to make their turogear button work in XP, let me know. alright, now I'll stop worrying about those buttons, and find out why my webcam's acting messed up. any else have a problem with their webcam?

 

thats my C90 setup:
E6600
2048 mb ram (2x1gb no name sticks)
8600 GT 512 ddr2
viste home premium
160 GB 5400rpm

everything works fine, running on battery without crashes.

I tested overclockability a bit with ntunes.

first I tested some settings on real gaming @gaming mode from turbo gear (notebook on a wooden table) playing some games (ET Quake Wars Demo most of the time). Using 500 gpu/500 memory clock gave me crashes after some time, probably from overheating (maybe I could add some thermal paste or anything else). at the end I got 500/475 as a stable setting that I can run all day long gaming.

I runned 3dmark06 and got a score of 3348 @gaming mode with 500/475. seems to be not bad. dont see its worth for me to upgrade to 8600GT gddr3 unless there wont be something better.

 

Is your setup 1 2gb sodimm and one open slot, or 2 1gb sodimm's taking up both slots? If its just a single 2gb one I think thats the reason for you turbo gear stability issues.

 

2 x 1GB is what I ordered, and that's what I got. gaming mode isn't that much of a pain, since I don't think I'll use it that much.

What I'm really interested in fixing the webcam, since I'm using it to talk to family in Venezuela, and I don't have a webcam on my desktop. so far, Ken sent me the updated driver, but I still get a black screen. The LED indicator lights up when it's not previewing, buts starts flashing when I start previewing. I e-mailed ken, and he said it might be that the registry is corrupted, or maybe it's related to the Video Card driver.

I just hope that I can get it working soon.

 

Hi guys, Got my asus c90 from gentech.. all was going great and then all of sudden whenever i try and use the webcam the windows (vista ultimate 64 bt edition) crash and blue screen appears saying a leak in physical memory. I gues it has to do some thing with the driver. So i reinstalled the driver for the webcam(AMCap) it came in the driver cd of the asus. and also whenever i start the laptop it asks me to install the software for blue tooth peripheral device. i have alreadt installed the blue tooth software and it still asks for it.. no idea what to do as still getting the hang of the things....bios version is American Megatrends Inc. 0601, 7/3/2007
Any please advise what to do.. it will be greatly appreciated..

 

welcome adey,

I would re-check to see if your bluetooth driver is fully installed, if it keeps asking you, just run the CD when windows asks recognizes the device. Something that might help is if you put the specs of your pc as your signature. I know you have some problems, just tackle them one at a time. oh, and pray that more problems don't appear.

as for your webcam, I'm not so sure as I'm having trouble too. also, I forgot to mention when I un-install the driver for the webcam and re-boot windows recognizes the webcam anyhow.

 

thanks for reply....

i have already done what u mentioned above.. re installed the bluetooth driver. smae issue.. un install the webcam driver.. same issue...

asked few other people.. no one has any idea... hope someone figures out whats happening.. are u having the memory dump issue when u use webcam?


regards,adey..

 

How do I change the overclock settings for my laptop? Its not in the BIOS menu, and I think it might be causing the BSOD crashes and freezes for me

 

@ adey:

well like I said, re-check, because my bluetooth driver was installed, but not "installed", I still had to open the application and finish installing it. I'm not having that memory dump problem, check my other posts to see what problem I'm having, I'm too lazy to type... -_-'

@Loadcraft:

please post your computer's specs.

 

MEMORY: 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 DDR2-667 SODIMM Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
CPU: (Sckt775)Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo E6600 CPU @ 2.4GHz 1066FSB 2x2MB L2 Cache EM64T
VIDEO: Built-in NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600M GT 512MB Shared Supports up to about 1.2GB Turbo Cache Video
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium (64-bit Edition
MOTHERBOARD: Mobile Intel(R) 945G & ICH7M Chipset Mainboard
HDD: 120GB 7200RPM SATA150 HARD DRIVE

Whenever I get the BSOD (which is quite often), the error message I see on startup is overclocking failed, so I wanted to turn it down. I don't know if thats the issue thats been causing th BSOD or not, but I need the problem fixed because sometimes the laptop wont even start after the BSOD and I have to wait for a couple hours which could be bad if I have a paper due -_-

 

Maybe overclocking. Probably overheating.

I remember on my desktop, when Ocing my cpu, I'd BSOD and would need to wait a couple of hours before my NF4 chipet ( Lan + Audio) would work again

 

I think you should return it. Someone had the same issue. He returned the unit and no longer had the problem.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=154160&highlight=overclocking+failed

 

hi...

i have one big problem with my 8600m gt .... i know its maybe a driver problem but i diddnt find the right driver yet which will fix this ...

everytime i play coh my game will stop for some seconds - then blackscreen - then again gamescreen ... its the "famous" nvlddmkm-error ....

can u give me some driver hints which are the best one for this notebook ?!

i have the c90s
e6600
2gb
8600m gt
160gb WD
vista ultimate x64
nvidia driver from laptop2go : 156.65

thx 4 the help

 

laptopvideo2go.com

get the lastest one (163.xx)

 

i have now the newest driver ... but almost the same problem ... -.-

 

Okay still on my first testing day but It's really looking good. I figured out that if you disable turbo gear help you loose the physical hot key option, so check out if you disabled the "help service" for TG in msconfig.