C90s + GPU = Dead after 1 yr- Thanks Asus!

So, a week ago I called Asus and reported this problem with my C90s that my video display would not initialize and they issued me an RMA. On that RMA they declared that my Laptop is not under warranty because it is over 1 yr old but to send it in. So, I shipped it Fedex Ground, it arrived there on Wed am and they repaired it (replaced Video Card) and shipped it out 2nd day air on Thurs AM, I received it on Friday around noon time working just fine. No bill (crossing fingers but even if it shows up, AMEX will pay it under my cc agreement). Very happy customer, too bad it died and it seems like others are having the same problem but if others have the problem, just RMA it and hopefully ASUS will repair it like mine and so promptly.

Jim

 

very smart to buy with cc. Goodluck with the repairs. Hope they hold.

 

hmmm... mine has the same problems. I turn the power on, no display, a few blinks of light from the HD activity, then nothing. Considering that a number of c90s experience the same problem, It's like it was programmed to die after a year where warranty expires. This really is my LAST experience with ASUS.

btw, anyone know if the 8600m gt ddr3 is also defective ? I plan to replace my 8600 gt ddr2.

 

I think the DDR3 card was pulled out some time ago because of thermal concerns?

What I personally believe is happening with the C90S GPUs is that the infamous nVidia fault is kicking in at a much higher rate than on other notebooks, because of the more extreme temperature changes the C90S goes through. Even if it's not that particular fault, I believe the high temperatures due to the desktop CPU are strongly related to the problems.

 

Doesn't Asus offer a 2 year international warranty for its laptops?

 

err...yeah, I found out actually since I've been on the phone with Asus as of late that mine is still under warranty. I think its if you register you notebook within the first 30 days, which I had to since my video card died within a week after I got it.

 

It's not unusual for Asus to do something like this, well about Asus products anyways..

I've gotten my W5a repaired 4 months after warranty because the frame was cracked :O Long Live Asus Customer Service!

 

Put me down on the list of dead GPUs in the c90s. Died 13 months after purchase. Too bad ASUS won't issue a recall of some sort... or extend the warranty. I'm not a big fan of ASUS right now.

 

my c90s is over a year old now but its still running strong :]

never gave me a problem

 

So you reckon you only get the 2 year warranty if you register it within 30 days?

 

I heard something about it while I was waiting to talk to someone (ad that run while your on hold, Asus award winning support with something about if you register within 30 days of purchase), a tech did however confirm my warranty was good until September next year sometime.

 

That's pretty interesting. Thank you.
At any rate, I strongly suggest all the users whose laptops are breaking down after their first year to seriously consider contacting Asus to see if they are covered. Doesn't hurt to try, especially since a number of you seem resigned to your warranty being over after a year.

 

I called them. No coverage. They wanted me to ship the laptop to them at my cost for them to look at.

 

Maybe you could call a couple of times? Might as well give that a shot? If you already have, I'm sorry to hear that.

 

If the GPU is dead you might be able to swap it with something else like a hd3650 or a 9600m Gt

 

Difficult... See Nightwalker's neighboring thread on the custom C90 GPU upgrade.

 

the nvidia GPU's on the c90s are really failing at an alarming rate. The problem is, do we have a replacement for it ? If we're going to replace it with the same 8600m gt's, it would die again in a year.

Now, what can we do ? Are the 8600m gt's ddr3 ( that are currently in stock ) a newer batch and not a part of the nvidia problem ?

i saw mxm 2 cards on ebay available but i dont even know if the c90s bios would recognize them.

 

I got a VGA-card problem too, It was a little under a year old. Two weeks or so. I send it back and they send it to portugal (from holland) took 3 weeks. But it is back and working now.

I just now have it back for 2 days.

 

FYI: they do not give any warning signs of dying, they just die. You think it is working fine then BANG, no video. Heck, mine died when in the ON position and I was still browsing to it over the network without the video card working (got a chuckle from Asus when I told him this)

Jim

 

You can buy a new video card for the C90 for about $97 +s/h from Asus, not to hard to switch out. Not sure, but it looks like a 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2. You can also buy C90 mobo and other parts.

http://estore.asus.com/shop/category.asp?catid=568

One thing I really like about SATA HDD, you can just pull them out and they work and fit the same in a desktop as in a notebook. The best part is that most desktops still have on average 2x 2.5" bays.

 

Same here. It was on and i was working on school stuff. And without any warning i got strange stains on my screen. I thought my VGA card driver was crashed because my mouse was still moving so i rebooted and it wont do anything anymore.

Advice when your screen does strange thinks backup your most imported data before switching off, or you feel the need of removing the harddrive to get your data.

 

i felt kinda bad when i told my friend about the c90. Did they ever make it to where the fans were not controlled by the cpu temps only? I remeber his cpu temps would be like 60s and his gpu would be in the 80s 90s

 

I just swapped in a replacement card. I noticed there was a thermal pad between the metal plate (that covers the video card) and the copper heat pipe. This looked like it acted more like a thermal insulator, than a conductor. So I took it off, and covered the copper with arctic silver. Put it back together, and started it up. Seems to be working fine.

I guess the question is, anyone see a problem with what I just did? Did I lengthen, or shorten the life of the video card?

While I'm here, what is the best GPU temp monitor program out there?

 

I had Arctic Silver 5 on my old 8600M GT on both the core and memory chips and it really didn't make a difference. 1-2* Celsius at most, even cutting a giant rectangular hole out of the ACE door right under the GPU was only worth about another 1-2*. The 8600s are just built to run way too hot.

I'd get a new ATI or NVIDIA card. You can pick up an ATI 3650 256mb DDR3 card for $180 on eBay or you can go for the monstrous 9600M GT 512mb DDR3 card after I get it 100% working. It's an awesome card compared to the 8600.

 

I think I might be having a similar issue with my gpu. Occaisionally when hooked up to my external monitor, the screen flickers and my screen stops receiving a signal, and I have to manually switch back to the laptop screen. I've also had a couple cases now where the the screen fails to initialize when I start the computer up and it wont post. I just applied some arctic silver to the gpu heat sink and it seems to be working again, though that's no guarantee that it will stay working. Does this sound like a gpu issue or might it be something else?

 

More than likely... It's the stupid 8600 failing like so many other. Sorry :/

 

If the screen fails to start at POST, then it does seem to be a hardware issue, unfortunately

 

.. and ask how many c90's are being sent back due to defective GPU's.... ( after warranty lapses, they fail one after the other ). Most likely, we all have similar problems. I think Gentech reported 4 c90's just last month for defective GPU....

 

Good thing I got the extended warranty then, I suppose. I'd like to try out the 9600 mod, but I don't think I have time to fiddle around with that since I use to c90 for school work.

 

No bill sent, looks like Asus understands that this problem must be common and cover under warranty, eventhough it was just past. But of course, YMMV but glad that Asus took care of the problem promptly.

 

The ddr3 was pulled for 2 reasons.
1. requires upgrade to 120w ac
2. does not work right with external display

 

Not many. We have got a few in the last few months. 2 of the few both were overclocked. DONT overclock!

 

Mine was not overclocked btw

 

Eddie, are you talking about the Asus's Turbo Gear VGA enhancer or overclocked by other means?

VGA enhancer OCs the video card to 500/1000/450 by default, I run the VGA precision tool to monitor the temps of my video cards and there is maybe a 2-3 degree difference (also confirms the 3D clocks).

The only video card I had crap out on me was my first on, a week after I got my C90s, not OCed, right from the first shipment. I pre-ordered it from BTO-Tech twice, refunded after the first delay and re-ordered it a week before it was suppose to ship, still took about half a month to get state side and I finally received it on, I believe 7/27/07. A week later I was playing at a LAN when the graphics went haywire and the next morning the graphics were dead. Mind you the Vista drivers at that point were horrible (constant BSOD) and XP drivers hardly worked. In XP a bunch of the features on the notebook, like hotkeys, did not work. I had to trouble shoot that darn thing (C90s) until I finally found an order, yes a correct order to install some of the drivers, that would cause them to conflict each other. To this day the C90s is buggy, I got this one running about as good as it gets.

Point being Eddie, don't be so quick to flat out blame the user for a bad product that Asus should take some responsibility for. I have been nothing but nice trying to defend and help people out, but Asus just flat out dropping C90s owners like red headed step children is just flat out wrong. I've been dealing with now off and on for over a year and yes, great service, but when it comes to admitting they did something wrong officially is darn near impossible (every now and again you get the frustrated tech). Asus Advantage my butt, quality, reliability and performance, that maybe true of their mainstream products like the G, M, and V series, but the C90's got the serious shaft.

 

Love to see a MXM2 equivalent of the Ati 4670. Fast and low power... would be perfect for the C90s

 

overclocked only by the ASUS utility turbogear... then suddenly it just wont turn on. sigh.

 

Overclocking shouldn't make a big difference as long as temps stay well within range. I'm running my 9600M GT with a huge overclock (see sig) and the temps are about 2 degrees Celsius higher than stock.

I'm idling at 62* right now, which is pretty impressive for the C90S actually. Although for warranty reasons, you shouldn't expect Asus or a reseller to warranty an overclocked card.

 

Some smarty guy needs to put together a GPU cooling guide for the C90s. For instance, I would like to mod the GPU fan so it runs faster than the 3 three CPU fans. Or finding a better heat conductor to attach to the GPU. Stuff like that.

 

You can do a hard wire mod to run straight 12v to the GPU fan spooling it 100%. Switch on 100% switch off bios controlled.
I did it to mine but I don't use it too often, haven't' been gaming much.

There's a good thread with schematics somewhere around here. It's a good place to start.

 

Sgt. Hollywood is referring to this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=206767&highlight=12v+c90s

I'm in the middle of something similar, except I want to use a thermistor to turn the fans on at a certain temperature and I'd also like to have about two or three different voltage settings for the fans to choose. 12V is just too loud for me.

 

There is an etiquete below the laptop that near the Serial number says 12M or 24M, i have 24M so i have 2 years......

But anyway, count me in to the list of sudden broken video cards. I think the memory modules from the card get corrupted, thus, they cant store reliably in all memory cells.

I have issued a RMA but i am a little worried as asus C90s is a barebone, and they are likely to only replace the GPU if the fault was caused by the 4 rear fans malfunctioning...But i dont know, is the 8600M GT card repair ASUS responsability or NVIDIA responsability? Or the reseller? The reseller did the mounting of the components, somebody has to be hold responsible tough, and i doubt its me or the reseller.....

 

that is the responsibility of the reseller however asus picks up the slack for less fortunate resellers who dont care to abide by their policy and the customers expectations. c90s came with a 1yr warranty not 2. you would have had to purchase a warranty ext for it to be covered

 

The way the thread title was phrased I thought you were being sarcastic

 

I haven't been paying much attention... any good replacement graphics modules been released lately? Just planning ahead for when my 2nd GPU goes belly-up.

 

You're on your second one already and looking for a third! Presently only the 9600M GT is a confirmed upgrade. I personally tried the 9650M GT and it does not work properly. Just make sure your cooling solution is excellent for the 9600M GT as the one I am currently testing hits its 110C threshold very easily and that is with a modified copper heatsink..

 

If anyone wants to buy a new in box C90P (never put together) for parts let me know, came with copper heat solution and 8600M GT DDR3.

 

What is your asking price?

 

Asus C90P 15.4" Barebone (No CPU/RAM/HDD/OS), w/2x batteries, extra year warranty, 8600M GT 265MB DDR3 (copper piping/heatsink) and Intel Wireless Link 4965AGN (all normally extras ontop of notebook price, included). Its about 4 months old, but was only taken out of box to confirm everything was in the box (and to take some pictures in a bit). For all purposes this is new and in box. - $700 free shipping in the US

No parting out.