G1 graphics (perhaps) crapped out on me :( conspiracy thoeries?

My G1 had JUST crapped out on me last night while I was playing CSS. The 2 yr warranty has sadly also JUST expired a month and 18 days ago...

Basically, while in the middle of the game, suddenly these pink blobs were flashing around for 5-6 secs, then there were these green lines and the computer froze. I had to force-swith off by holding the power button, and when I rebooted it wouldn't load xp normally.

While booting, there was the corner of this unusally large xp logo on the bottom right hand corner (so it's as if the laptop thinks it has a 30' screen instead of a 15'... The color was as like 16 bit too), and after a while it just shows some green lines and squares and basically stops loading.

I then tried booting into safe mode, the DOS-prompt commands were in font size 30 and I couldn't read the whole instructions, luckily I remember safe mode is the first choice so I just kept on pressing the up arrow and hit enter. Once in safe mode (which took 10 mins to load) everything was still outta whack. The my computer logo was as big ad my fist, and I couldn't change the display settings cuz I couldn't see what I was selecting (80% of the menu was out of range), and rebooting 'properly' using windows didn't help.

Can't go into BIOS neither... and still wouldn't load into normal xp mode...

Any ideas as to what happened? And it HAD to just crash outta the blue right after warranty expired... And can't play CS for a few days

Does it sound like it's a graphics driver issue? Or does it sound like I need to reinstall? If I have all my programs installed on c drive while all my work and vids and music in d partition, will I lose those too if Asus were to go down the reinstallation route?

Will appreciate any input.

 

Sounds about right. Just as a precaution, you may want to try booting up with a Linux Live CD and see if that will work. Your best option would be to pull the hard drive and plug it into an external case or desktop to pull the information. If you call Asus and they grant you an RMA, which they might do on the house, then they will more than likely wipe your system. I would suggest live cd, external case to backup info, then RMA. Good luck

 

I've already posted about this here so I won't repeat myself... but it sounds like you're suffering from the infamous NVIDIA 8-series problem. Hopefully ASUS will replace your GPU and possibly motherboard at no expense, since it's a very very well known engineering defect in the entire line of GPUs. Good luck, please let us know what happens.

 

i sent mine in 3 times in the past 3 months and its always coming back with the same ol 8600m, which runs scotching hot

it should be back by monday, lets see what happens.

i'd just call them asap and send it in.

 

Why don't you tell them replace with the G1Sn motherboard+GPU?

 

they insisted that it was "fixed"

as soon as it comes back with the G1Sn motherboard, off to ebay we go

 

thanks for all the responses thus far, sorry couldn't reply earlier as obviously i don't have a comp O.O

I brought it to Asus (I live in HK and they have a service centre just 15 mins away from where i live) and they basically said the graphics card got "fried" for no reason and need to replace it with the motherboard for a cost of USD$320!

The thing is, should I go after Asus or NVIDIA? Any suggestions as to who I should go after for the 8-series problem? They didn't offer to replace the card for me and I thought Asus has top nodge service...

Any suggestions as how I should approach them to get them to fix it for free even when the G1 is nearly 2 months out of warranty?

Thanks in advance again!

 

If they refuse outright you can't do much. Gently notify them that the problem seems widespread, possibly mention having read up on it and whether some sort of deal can be reached.

Also could try contacting the official asus service instead of the asus shop down the road and see what they offer..

 

There's not a lot you can do but try and get ASUS to acknowledge that it's the same problem that all of the other G1 models have had... there was a class action lawsuit here in the USA against NVIDIA, but it applied only to desktop cards. I am surprised at their response, this is a terribly widespread problem, and it isn't just ASUS that is affected. If I were in your situation I would try contacting them again and explaining explicitly that you think your card has failed from the engineering defect in the 8 series GPUs. I'm not sure how far it'll get you, but if you can get them to admit that this is most likely the problem, you should be able to negotiate with them. Best of luck.

 

Doesn't sound promising

Alright then, I'll do more research tonight regarding the issues Nvidia has had and will hopefully be able to sweet talk my way through... though as you guys said, it's unlikely that anything in my favour will happen... what makes it even more complicated is that Asus actually doesn't do the repairing themselves here in HK, they have actually sourced an "authorised dealer" kinda deal and this AD is supposed to handle everything on behalf of Asus... which then slims up the chances even more

I think I will also ask them to find out for me which graphics card will be used on the new motherboard (it's unlikely that it's going to be another 7700 Go, right?)? Is there a list somewhere where I know if the quoted card is considered "defective" or not? Thanks again in advance!

 

Yeah, technically they don't have to honor anything past the warranty period, but from what I've heard they are making exceptions for this problem in some cases (as are other manufacturers -- it's a nightmare for their reputation and brand image). It might be best to go directly to ASUS support online/by telephone if possible since they will be better informed. Ideally, it should be replaced by a G1Sn motherboard and 9500M GS, which is almost identical to the 8600M GT. They may be running low on these parts, since I've seen a number of posts claiming that their G1s are not the new rev after receiving service. The 9500M hasn't failed in huge numbers like the 8 series (it hasn't been out long enough), but it's susceptible to the same problems AFAIK.

 

Alright. Thanks so much for your replies.

Just to make sure - 7700 go is part of the "problematic" cards, right? Will a G1Sn MB fit a G1 (mine is the FIRST iteration of the G1)?

TIA

EDIT: hmm... dunno if this is right, but googling the 7700 go tells me that it's a G73 card instead of G84? Does that mean I'm having a "different" problem?

 

Wait... 7700? No, that's not one of the affected cards. I thought u had a G1S which has the 8600, which is affected. If it's the 7700 you don't have much of a leg to stand on.

Since the G1 uses the same chassis, it will fit, but I didn't notice you had an original G1, your card has probably fried for another reason.

 

O.O great, back to square one...

Then any ideas for what reason? I constantly monitor the temperatures when I game and neither the CPU and GPU go over 90C at any given point... I also use a Zalman NC1000 cooler which works wonder and the G1 is always really cool...

 

I don't have any idea, GPUs die all the time. It does sound like hardware failure. You should have explicitly stated in your first post that you had the 7700... *sigh*... good luck anyway. You've got a bad situation on your hands.

 

Thanks

Sorry I thought stating G1 was enough, should've been a lot more explicit.

Anyways, anyone else?

 

Well it's me again, but if you're looking at replacing the hardware out of pocket, you'll want to totally rule out software being the problem. Since you can't boot windows normally, you can either try starting in safe mode by hitting F8 after you boot, or try a live CD like ubuntu or knoppix to see if your graphics card is really fried. If you can do either of those, the easiest would be trying safe mode, you're in good shape and probably just need to reinstall the graphics drivers... if not, it's hardware failure, and the only solution to that is to pay to have it replaced

 

Thanks for coming back

Have tried doing that, but unfortunately I couldn't do anything other than backing up my files in safe mode because the resolution was all out of whack (slightly more detailed description in my first post). Basically I could only see the top 2 bars of the windows and everything was outta the screen :S

So I guess it does seem like it's a real hardware problem... so outta the blue, too But I wonder what caused it... couldn't just be "age", could it? I thought things nowadays are supposed to last quite a while... and the computer didn't act weird at all for the whole of past 2 years...

 

Hm, you might want to try a live CD to totally rule out software. It'll be worth your time to know.

If it's hardware, as to why... that's really hard to tell. It could be something to do with your LCD panel, like the inverter (these go bad sometimes). That'd be a cheap thing to replace compared to the GPU. If it's the actual GPU, it could be anything really. They are extremely sensitive, even if it hasn't been overheated, and as they get older they are much more likely to fail.

Edit: Try an external monitor to rule out the inverter...

 

Hi thx again for the reply

I have always hooked up my G1 to an external LCD and it still didn't work. Haven't tried live cd yet so will tell the guys who has my laptop to try them.

Thx for the suggestions.

 

Hi gang,

A bit of an update here - I've contacted Asus citing problems with Nvidia (there's actually an article in Engadget that suggested the 7700 Go might also be affected) and they came back to me a few days later saying they couldn't validate what I've claimed after they've contacted Nvidia. However, they wouldn't rule out the possibility that it was indeed a factory defect (even though it's 2+ years old) so gave me a 10% discount for my motherboard+GUI card (around US$300) and would extend the after-service warranty from 1 month to 6 months.

Needless to say, I took the offer, and got the laptop back 5 days after the conversation I had with Asus. I'm really happy with the result, and would like to reinforce how great Asus's customer service really is