G1s - nothing but problems

Hi folks,
Spent a lot of time flipping through this forum when my HP crapped out on me, and finally decided to get the G1s-B2 at a pretty good price. Well, it has actually ended up being worse than my slow as molasses Pavillion. Am I the only one with non-stop performance issues? I've had this thing for a month, and have spent about 30-40% of that time trying to fix the stupid problems that keep popping up. RE: right now, my cd drive is invisible, so among other things, I can't do a clean recovery. If anyone knows how to remedy this, I'd be grateful.
Also, for the last 3 days, every time I boot up, it starts at 800x600 resolution (???) and I have to manually change it. And the best was that I got a free copy of Bioshock when I bought it, and of course the game does not work with the (I assume) 8600M GT, so it's a coaster.
And finally, the Asus website is a joke. The drivers are all almost a year old, and it's a nightmare to actually figure out which ones to download.
Sorry for sounding whiny, but I really would love this thing if it weren't such a p.o.s. It runs fast, has a great screen, and would be great... if it was any good.

 

You should post your problems and we might be able to helps you...

Personally I have had great experience with the G1S and I would gladly buy one if its was thinner and lighter.

 

uh, call asus support, tell them of your problems and they'll RMA it for u. They'll pay for postage see if they can fix ur laptop and if not, a new one will be yours with hopefully no problems. I myself have had no problems so that may have just been a lemon laptop. Bioshock should work well with the G1S, just check the settings, should be able to be at least med. settings.

 

Sounds like your drivers all are screwy... I'd do a Vista ReInstall using the OEM CD they gave you.

 

Yes, I don't suggest RMA-ing the thing just yet.

I suggest a clean install, WITHOUT the bloatware. Then install decent drivers (you can use stock for everything except he GPU probably).

What do you mean the CD is invisible? If it's just invisible to Windows, but it's visible to the BIOS then you can still do a recovery. Does it appear in BIOS under boot devices? If not, then you need to address that problem first.

 

In windows, all I can access is the hard drive, the cd just doesn't show up. Yes, it is listed in the BIOS, but when I go to device manager I get this message:
"Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)"

Not surprisingly, there don't seem to be any cd drivers on the Asus website. I'm pretty sure a recovery would fix the registry, but that's a moot discussion, because I'm never going to get the recovery cd to function. I may try to get them to take it back, but I guarantee, Asus will never get another penny out of me for one of their products. I've been d*cking around with computers for over 15 years now, and have never had to do so much work to make a computer function at a basic level.
BTW, does anybody know-- if I sent it back, would the hard disk be wiped?

 

Asus G1s-A1 here. Absolutely no problems. DVD drive doesn't need a driver, Vista recognizes it natively. Sounds like you may need to get the DVD drive replaced.

 

Wait wait wait. Forget Windows, you don't need Windows to boot off the recovery CD. Did you try booting from it? Insert it, reboot computer, press ESC at ASUS splashscreen, select CD/DVD drive. That should start the recovery.

Another option to recover (if you didn't remove your recovery partition) is to press F9 at the ASUS splashscreen.

In both cases make sure any data on your Windows partition is backed up, and make sure you select Recovery to 1st partition only. Otherwise you will lose your data.

If you do send it in, backup your data, ASUS does not guarantee you will get it back. What if the problem is caused by the HDD and they need to change it? (a wild example, but illustrates the point)

Before sending it in, please, try my suggestions to recover. If I'm right, it's just a software problem and the recovery will solve it.

 

OK, E.B.E., I'm going to try to recover, but there really isn't much I can back up without a burner (or are you saying I can have folders saved to a special partition, then put them back during the recovery?). I'll transfer what I can on my mp3 player, then if I manage to get the laptop working, I will begin the long process of finding and installing the stuff I have now.
I don't believe it's a hardware problem, because I was using Daemon tools, and my virtual drives are also not recognized. I'm pretty sure that something in the registry got changed or corrupted. So the first thing I'm actually going to do is run a virus scan (sometimes longshots pay off).
Thanks for the help.

 

Never mind that last question. I forgot about the back-up utility (have honestly never used it). Just had a complete freeze-up while trying to transfer files via usb, so I'm pretty fu..., I mean in trouble if this recovery doesn't work.
So I'm going to run the back up and then the restore cd (it does seem to work). Will let you know if I get a chance to use this computer ever again.

 

Have just finished the first stage of the recovery process, and the good news is --after something like 8 or 9 hours of backing up, virus scanning, recovering and getting firefox up and running-- my brand new 1800 dollar laptop can boot up and knows that there is a dvd drive inside it.
The bad news is that when I go to recover my back up files, it tells me that "backup has not been set up on this computer. An administrator must create a backup".
Well, I am the administrator, and I did create a backup. It's sitting right there on the D drive. So what now? Those backup files look like zip files to me. Can I just unzip them to the C drive?
Maybe none of my problems were caused by Asus' incompetence. Maybe it all stems from the fact that Vista is another untested, unstable, unfriendly, unusable piece of garbage that Microsoft is forcing down our throats. I'll try to use this laptop this weekend and see what else goes wrong. The real test will be installing the software for my USB HDTV tuner. That was one of the programs that just wasn't working before.

 

I'm glad you were able to resolve your issues. As a person who purchased the G1S-B1 and owned it for about six months, and who prior to my current job was a computer tech that was certified by Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, and IBM. And often worked on Acer, Dell, Apple, and the occasional out of warranty sony laptops, most your issues sounded like software.

There is a registry patch called 'cdgone' which would have fixed your cd/dvd issue. It is a known vista/xp issue which can be caused by putting a bad or poor quality cd into your drive, what happens is when the os get's a string of errors which would cause the computer to stall for a while it will sometimes assume the drive is bad and deactivate it. I have successfully used hundreds of times on vista even though it says xp only.

As for the other problems, yeah the best thing you can do to any laptop is immediately wipe it then reinstall. Consumers often complain about all the junk software that's loaded on there computer however the majority of people will choose to save a hundred dollars or so rather than get something junk free. Ex: Symantec and most those other companies pay to have there products preloaded which brings down the price of the unit. This has been a long established trend so in essence the only people who we can really blame is ourselves as consumers for the massive amounts of bloat ware. We voted this trouble on ourselves with our dollar and that's what we got. On the plus side you save yourself some money if you don't mind working a bit once you get it.

In essence however the G1S-B1 is by far the nicest laptop I have ever owned or worked with. Infact I now recommend asus laptops to all my friends for there exceptional value and warrenty.

Have fun with your purchase, you made the right one,
--Jem

Some other tips:
1. On the asus recovery cd you can have it not touch the second partition hence making backup's easy, just copy to what is by default partition 'd:'.
2. When it ask's for the driver disk don't stick it in and let it set for a few minutes before doing a forced restart. You will get just a blank vista install without the bloatware and can then load all your drivers.
3. Current video drivers are an issue for all manufacturers. Most don't ever update them once the notebook is released. Current best place for video drivers: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

 

Good tips these 3. The first is actually what I meant, sorry for not being clear enough and causing some unnecessary difficulties.

What I meant was: copy all your personal data files from C: to D: then recover to 1st partition only. I didn't mean fancy backup utilities of Windows or whatever 3rd party software; just copy. That's how I do my backups and it works fine... Costs 0 dollars as well

About the USB HDTV. If it messes up your system again, I would tend to say it's an incompatibility between it and some other hardware/software you use... Let's hope it works though...