Asus horror story...

I had a "black screen" 2 weeks after my G1S went off warranty in August 2009. I called Asus and they advised me to send it in. They sent it back a week later and said they replaced the motherboard.
About 3 months after I got the laptop back I started getting green lines, then red squares, then a black screen again upon boot up. I called Asus again and got a customer service rep that acted like a robot. Every time I tried to explain the problem to her she said "I'm sorry sir, you're past the 90 day repair warranty". I was told that I would have to pay to ship the laptop to Asus at which time they would give me an estimate on the repair cost. I told the customer service rep about the 8600M GT issues, and she again said "I'm sorry sir, you're past the 90 day repair warranty.
I asked to be transferred to a manager, and after waiting 15 minutes I talked to a woman named "Jazz" (she refused to give me her full name). Jazz again reiterated the company policy however she said they would consider my case and call or e-mail me in 2 days. 10+ days later I haven't heard anything, and now I have been out of a computer for a over a month.
I used to be a loyal Dell customer for 10+ years until I purchased the G1S. I was very happy with the G1S until it died shortly after going off warranty. I was especially disappointed in the way Asus treated me considering the known issues with the 8600M GT. I will never buy another Asus again and I recommend that others avoid their products as well.

 

That is unfortunate; however, you must be persistent, albeit respectful, and it will pay off. Call them, repeatedly, until you get a RMA number and after that continue to call and check up on the status when it reaches the repair facility.

It will pay off, they do know about it but it is cheaper to deny rather than offer a replacement or fix it, such is business.
See this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=407457



Edit: I received my new G50 in the mail before I ever got an email with a tracking number; do not rely on emails or them calling you.

 

I tried to rationalize with the customer service rep, explaining that it would cost me $50 to ship to them + the repair costs + return shipping. My guesstimate on repair costs is $300 - $500. The customer service rep said she has never heard of any problems with the GPU on the G1S, and that if I decide I don't want the repair because it's too expensive I would still have to pay for return shipping. So I would pay $100+ for someone to tell me my 8600M GT is dead? It seems like it's not worth paying for a repair even though I paid $2,500 for the G1S in August 2007.

 

Admittedly, it is a gamble but if you send it in they wont have parts for it so more than likely they will offer you the G50; however, if you arent interested in paying for that I wouldnt bother but they give it to you cheaper then list price.

All experiences will vary, but Id just keep calling. I talked to some silly reps initially as well.

Edit: I was not charged return shipping. And realistically the costs to repair would not be 300-500; the laptop they will offer you isnt even that much.

 

Technicly they don't have to/shouldn't replace your system. It *is* out of warranty.

However you may have luck being persistent, as they want your future business. Sometimes all you have to do is get in touch with the right service rep (certainly not ms. robot ).

 

If it was out of warranty, and it was a random problem I can understand that. However when a G1S has a black screen 2 weeks out of warranty, and with the rampant 8600M problems, I just can't understand how a Asus can play dumb and say "I'm sorry sir, you're off warranty".

I had 3 Dell laptops that NEVER died, with each one lasting 4+ years. The only reason I retired my Dells is that they were out of date and the keyboard/touch pads started wearing out because I used them so much.

If that is Asus' attitude, then I'll take my business elsewhere for my next laptop.

 

After having two nvidia laptops die on me for the same reason a few days after warranty (one HP and one Dell) I decided never to buy a laptop with anything NVIDIA in it. They just suck at making laptop video cards.

 

I agree, I'll never buy anything with NVIDIA again on principle.

I almost laughed when my G1S got a black screen 2 weeks after going off warranty, and then again within days of going off the 90 day repair warranty.

It wasn't so funny when I realized my G1S was a $2,500 paper weight.

In the future I'm almost considering buying a cheap laptop w/ a good warranty + a desktop for gaming. Gaming laptops are too expensive, too fragile, can't be upgraded, and can't handle heat like a desktop.

 

You fail to realize the real issue - the fact you DIDN'T buy a warranty in the first place. Just because you spent more money doesn't mean that it will last longer with respect to electronics. It usually means its just faster components. While I do sympathize with you about your problems with the laptop, I do think you should have purchased a warranty in the first place. That's what they are for.

I think it's great that ASUS even offered to look at your laptop let alone fix it out of the warranty in the first place. Then they offer another 90 day warranty after the fix. It's unfortunate you have had bad luck, but I can't really find fault on ASUS in this matter.

Just my opinion...

 

Here is the problem with g1s. This is a problem that can pass some models and not others. The g1s has room for shady workmanship when being worked on. If it is repaired by someone who cares less it will likely fail sooner then later. If repaired properly it would have lasted years not month

 

I did have a 2 year warranty. I agree if there was some unexpected problem that Asus cannot be held accountable. The problem is that the NVIDIA 8600M problems are not unexpected. G1Ss are dropping like flies because of the problem, and Asus is choosing to help some customers while not helping others. To have a customer service rep refuse to give her name, and to repeat like a robot "I'm sorry sir, you're off warranty" does little to build customer loyalty. I'm not giving Asus another $2,500 in hopes that the next laptop will last more than 2 years.

 

i think people need to understand that a repaired notebook where the shell is torn appart is just as unreliable as a refurbished notebook when the shell is torn appart. Generally they are prone to fail with a higher rate then new product. Dont buy refurbished unless you knows its history likewise when you get a notebook repaired sell it or hand it down if the motherboard was replaced. It saddens me but i see it all too often

 

Thanks for the advice. I didn't think my "repaired" G1S would go belly up with the same problem within days of the 90 day repair warranty expiration. I'm probably better off getting a new laptop then trying to fix this sh*t sandwich.

 

i would say sell it for parts. there are probably 5 people in the nation that know how to fix it and prevent failure. youre talking to one of them. the odds of someone at asus working on it that is worth their salt are slim which is why it went belly up so soon

 

How much would it cost to send it to a 3rd party for repair?

What is it worth for parts? Should I sell it on EBay?

 

sell it on ebay
it is worth less then 400 in a working condition.
to replace the mainboard will cost you about the same
sell it on ebay and take the money you make plus the money you saved by not repairing it and invest it into a new non refurbished notebook

 

I remember my father in the late 70's researching a new car for months, and he finally decided on a Plymouth Volare. The car had continual problems, and he ended up selling it for scrap. If I ever heard the Dean Martin "Volare" song I would laugh and think of that lemon of a car.

Decades later I researched a new laptop for months, and I finally decided on the Asus G1S. The laptop had continual GPU problems and I'll probably end up selling it for scrap. Now if I ever hear the Dean Martin "Volare" song I'll cry and think of that lemon of a laptop.

Sung to the tune of "Volare":

Asus, oh oh
Nvidia, oh oh oh oh
Let's fly way up to the clouds
Away from the maddening crowds
We can sing in the glow of a burned out GPU that I know of
Where gamers lose peace of mind
Let us leave the confusion and all disillusion behind
Just like bird of a feather, a rainbow together we'll find...

:cry:

 

it is out of warranty.
go get a dell, maybe they'll repair your laptop when it croaks after the warranty period.

 

Hey theoak1,

I fully understand your situation with G1S because it is similar as mine with C90S. Of course the source of our troubles is the same amazing “NVidia 8600M (G84)”.

For me the real problem is in result of a lack of attitude from Asus to their products which we see clearly in so call “Support Policy”. When you are out of warranty and you have a problem with your system the wise choice is to throw it away.

Another disturbing question is the quality of a repair. Unfortunately Geared2play.com is painfully right about reliability of a repaired system because it’s depending of the knowledge and technician’s attitude.

For me is difficult to understand Asus actions, It’s seem that they have too much customers and they don’t like this fact. Asus is a good example how to lose the trust of a customer as me.

 

I am just amazed they serviced it two weeks out of warranty for you and then gave you a 90 day warranty on the repairs. That's seems pretty generous to me.

As far as ASUS was contractually obligated, they fulfilled their end of things. They promised you the laptop would run for 2-years without defect. It did that, plus two weeks. They still decided to be nice and give you another warranty repair, and their work managed to get it to last another 3-months beyond what they had promised. I'd sell it for parts and move on.

 

Maybe they will build it with quality components. Maybe they will take responsibility when there are large numbers of their products that have known issues with their GPUs.

 

I have NEVER had ANY product that died as soon as it went off warranty. All of my previous laptops lasted 4+ years, and I only stopped using them because they were so out of date. $2,500 is a lot to pay for for a laptop that you only get 2 years use from. Who in their right mind would fork up another $2,500 for another laptop/gpu from the same companies?

What happened to the $200 million that NVIDIA supposedly paid because of the defective GPUs? Did it go to the laptop manufacturers like Asus? If so, they certainly didn't use any of that money to take care of their customers.

I suppose the Toyota customers that are off warranty are lucky that they are being helped? Perhaps Toyota should have told the customers that were off warranty to pound sand? Over the next few years I'll be curious to see how many customers are going to buy another Toyota.

For me there were several learning points from this incident: 1. ALWAYS buy an extended service plan. 2. Don't trust that companies will stand behind their products. 3. It's not worth buying an expensive gaming laptop. A cheap laptop + a decent gaming desktop is a better alternative (it's less expensive, upgradable, repairable, runs cooler, more dependable, has better performance, etc.)

 

The attitude of some people on this thread was an unpleasant surprise for me. The original poster's laptop lasted slightly more than 2 years and 3 months, and that was with it being repaired about 100 days before. And we are talking about a costly laptop.

And remember the fact that not long ago ASUS boasted having some of the most well-made laptops in the market in 2006 (My former laptop, a W3J, being one of them), and that laptop held out for about 3 years and half after I had to replace it because battery/performance issues. I know some people that managed to keep less durable laptops for over 4 years.

Loss of durability and bad support (on my end) were the reasons I went for a Thinkpad instead of my ASUS myself and I really, really liked my W3J...

 

Wonder, How these laptops start showing horrible problems just few days AFTER the warranty ? Seems like the manufacture's research team do a intensive research on 'what should be the period of warranty'

If warranty is finished, then its your bad luck

 

Actually, according to our statistics instructor, manufacturers in general make an estimate on how long the product will - on average - last, and set the warranty date a reasonable amount before that.
Combine it with the fact that some companies (I am not talking about any particular companies here) think that they have scored the "win" as soon as you buy the product (or they have dumped it on you - again, I am not talking about any particular companies here) and you are going to be dealing with nasty surprises...

 

Indeed. Stuff like this TED video is proof of why statistics is important.

 

I don't think it is ASUS' fault. To me it's nvidia's fault and we should file a class action suit against them. The same problems have happened with other manufactures (in my experience HP and Dell), not just Asus.

I agree that Asus should have stood up to nvidia and made them pay to fix all the defective laptops, but legally speaking they are not obliged to do anything since your warranty has expired.

I recently purchased my first ATI laptop. We'll see how it goes. Even if my ATI craps out I will never go back to nvidia graphics or chipsets. I'd rather stick with intel integrated crappy graphics than go back to nvidia.

 

@theoak1
Hey!

I can agree with yours “several learning points from this incident” if they are Asus related.

“ 1. ALWAYS buy an extended service plan.”
Are you will be satisfied if your service plan was 5 years in the context of G1S / “NVidia 8600M (G84)”?

“ 2. Don't trust that companies will stand behind their products.”
That is definitely too strong! Do you know what Apple does for their customers with “NVidia 8600M (G84)”?​

Asus is a correct business partner according to user’s agreement. No doubt about that! I don’t like Asus support policy.

 

Thanks for the support Mujtaba.

I really did like my G1S. I was just hoping it would last another year (2 years would have been awesome). I would have been a loyal repeat customer if they would have taken SOME responsibility for the defective 8600M and had met me halfway on a solution.

I was really patient when I called Asus customer support, and I tried explaining the problem over and over to them, but they played dumb and said they never heard of any problems with the 8600M. The reps that I delt with refused to give me their full names, and a manager promised that they would call or e-mail me in 2 days however I never heard from them. If they had said "send your laptop in and we'll take a look at it...perhaps we can help you", or "we're sorry for the defective 8600M, we'll give you a 5% off coupon for a new Asus" I would have been more than happy.

What's up with the rumor that NVIDIA paid $200 million because of the defective 8600 chips? Where did that money go? I'll be more than mad if Asus got some of that money and didn't help their customers.

As far as service plans go, I think a 3 year would be sufficient, a 4 year would be above and beyond. I would be willing to pay for an extended plan in the future to avoid a $2,500 paper weight.

Search for G1S in this forum and you'll see that most of the complaints about dead/black screen G1Ss are right at the 2+ year mark when they go off warranty. How convienent for Asus.

In regards to customer service, I know Apple is awesome. I once had a battery overheat on an out of warranty IPod. I posted a question about it on an Apple forum, and within several hours an Apple customer service rep PM'ed me and told me to bring the IPod to the nearest Apple store for an exchange. I brought it to the store and got a new one - no questions asked. I would buy a Macbook Pro based on that kind of customer service however I'm stuck with PCs because of software.

 

move on, get a dell.

 

You know, people will still buy Toyota's just like they buy Saturns and KIA's.
As for people paying for $2500 for computers, people do it ALL the time when they DON'T buy an extended warranty. Most companies ONLY provide 1 year out of the BOX. You got 2 just for picking ASUS. Tell me that's not better than other companies policies? Tell me you would have received repairs to your DELL after your 1 year warranty was up. I don't think you would have. I know you didn't have any issues with YOUR Dells, but trust me, there are thousands of people with dells that have NOT purchased warranties and learned the SAME lesson as you. And it looks like you did, so that's great.

 

I am going to buy a 3 year warranty with the XPS 16 that I am thinking of buying.

Again, I think some people are missing the point: This is not some random problem, this is a known issue with the 8600M GPU, for which NVIDIA paid $200 million to the manufacturers.

For Asus to say that they have never heard of the problem is preposterous.

If Asus wants to be an average company that just meets the minimum warranty requirements that fine, but they shouldn't expect customer loyalty.

I would advise anyone looking for top tier performance from a PC:
1. Buy a Macbook Pro
or
2. Buy a high end PC laptop with an extended warranty,
or
3. Buy a cheap PC laptop for $1,000 + a $1,500 desktop.

 

If you bought your laptop by credit card (pretty common considering the $ amount), have you considered getting in touch with the credit card company to see if they have an extended warranty? I've invoked that protection on my Amex for a digicam and a tv that burned out its power supply. They might help offset some or all of the repair costs you incur.

 

I sent my G1S in about 3-4 weeks ago and when they offered to repair the motherboard I turned them down. They said that they would warranty the work for 90 days. I knew the issue and said no, and if they couldn't offer a better solution then escalate me to a supervisor. That is when they offered me the G50VT-X5. I wasn't about to be offered a repair that I knew would break sooner than it should.

Rule of thumb when dealing with any business, there is almost always room for negotiations.

 

When I bought my G71, I bought an extended warranty with it. It cost a lot, but it is always worth it to get one for a computer. More often then not, you will end up using it.

One point that I will agree with is that Asus's customer support is horrible. It's one of the worst I've ever experienced. It should never take longer than two weeks to get a laptop back from being repaired. It took Asus two months to tell me that they couldn't repair mine.

 

I wish I had read a post similar to yours before I sent mine in for a repair. I'm assuming they just put a used motherboard/GPU in my G1S and the same problem occurred after the 90 days expired.

I tried and tried to plead my case to a customer service rep who refused to give her name as well as manager named "Jazz". They both said they never heard of an 8600M problem, and they repeated over and over like a mantra "I'm sorry sir, you're off warranty". Then "Jazz" lied by saying they would call or e-mail me within 2 days.

I'm considering some of the following advice offered on the forum:

1. Try to get an RMA and send it to Asus anyways to see what tech support says. If they refuse to acknowledge the faulty 8600M I could tell them to recycle it and I'll be out my $50.00 for shipping (+ diagnostic costs?)

2. Sell it on EBay for parts: I'm guessing I could get $50.00?

For my next laptop I'm considering the Dell XPS 16 with the 1GB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4670, although I'm reluctant to spend another $2,000+ on a "gaming" laptop again.

 

you would get alot more then 50$ for the parts
the 8600 problem was not a problem that doomed all cards. the problem affected a small tiny minority of cards and even smaller for asus. the problem was made worse by the crappy design with thermal pads instead of direct to copper connection. they fixed that now. they dont use thermal pads on video cards any more. go figure

 

Good luck to you sir in your future laptop endeavors. It is sad that you had to go through with this, but I hope that your future Dells don't give you any trouble either.

 

Have you repaired any G1Ss to that standard (w/o thermal pads)? Or is the only way to repair a G1S they way that Asus has been doing it: put in a used motherboard/GPU?

If you have found a repair solution to the G1S flaw, what is the approximate cost, and life expectancy?

I just want to make sure there is no hope for my G1S before I consign it to the scrap heap. I really did like it...when it worked.

 

I was lucky. I had read about the nVidia problem when it was first discovered and contacted support when I was still well within my warranty. They told me that only some batches were a problem. Between that case and the diagnostic of the tech it was easy to prove it was their problem I'm sure if I fought it more I could have gotten a better deal, but I'm happy with how it was handled.

If you're going to part it out and sell it. The memory, hard drive, and wireless card are prob. going to get you the most. If you sell it as a broken unit you might get 50. However if you part it out you might make a bit more.

 

I read about the GPU issue before my warranty was up however I never really thought my G1S would die a week after going off warranty as all my laptops in the past lasted 4+ years.

I was going sell the G1S as is without the hard drive, although $50.00 seems like more trouble than it's worth.

 

just wonder why there is no class action suit against the crap nvidia yet.

 

nVidia already payed a lot to the OEMs to fix this problem. I'm not sure how that money got distributed but it affected nVidia's financials for a couple of quarters.

 

NVIDIA probably thinks they're not responsible after they compensated manufacturers like Asus, Dell, and HP.

It's terrible that Asus would pocket the money from NVIDIA and turn around and screw their customers by playing dumb on the 8600M issue.

What did other companies like Dell and HP do? Did they also keep the money and play dumb like Asus, or did they help their customers by replacing their GPUs or extending their warranties?

Here's a story I found online:

Report: All Nvidia G8400/8600 series parts to fail
Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:33AM EDT

Got an Nvidia GeForce 8400 or 8600 graphics card? If you trust the Inquirier (and on this issue, I don't see any reason not to), it's probably going to fail sooner or later. Per Charlie Demerjian's scathing report: "All the G84 and G86 parts are bad. Period. No exceptions. All of them, mobile and desktop...."

This is bad news, a follow-up to reports from earlier this month that said certain (but unspecified) "older" Nvidia graphics chips had problems when installed in laptops, with Nvidia setting aside $200 million to deal with repairs and recall issues.

Demerjian says that's not going to be enough as he details the runaround he's received in trying to ferret out exactly what's going on. Nvidia (which isn't talking about the issue to press, he says, and has made no further statements on the matter in four weeks) has told analysts the issue affects only a small batch of parts that were sent to HP. But Demerjian says that all computer vendors must have received the same components, and that there's no chance that the company would have changed its production process at the end of the production cycle, as Nvidia has claimed, to cause the problem for only a small batch of parts. And yet Nvidia has maintained that the problem is confined to HP.

Anecdotal evidence says something quite different: Dell and Asus owners have been loudly complaining of graphics card failures. As Gizmodo also notes, that also "means every MacBook Pro since the Santa Rosa update has the bad cards."

Nvidia still hasn't announced fixes, but the problem can reportedly be ameliorated, at least somewhat, by running your fan more frequently (if you can), and trying to keep your computer at a relatively constant temperature. For laptops, that means less turning on and off, which causes the temperature to rise and fall drastically and will likely cause the graphics card to fail more quickly. If you have one of these chips in your laptop, you might consider not turning it off at night (though the typical recommendation is the opposite in normal-functioning systems) until the problem is repaired.

 

Hey everybody. I just was given this G1S from a friend, and have an experience to share with you, and a possible solution.

My girlfriend came over last night and had set my laptop on my couch. We were in the kitchen cooking and I came out to check on something on my desktop and saw my laptop sitting on the couch. I moved it to my table so it wouldn't suffocate under heat.

Anyway, later that evening my girlfriend then rotated the screen 90 degrees backwards so the keyboard and the screen were parallel with each other and had it propped up against the metal arm of my futon. It seemed fine but then the screen freaked out with visual artifacts everywhere. I got nervous and so I moved it to the desk again. We attempted to watch a Netflix movie, but experienced some problems. I tried to restart the computer and *dun dun* green vertical lines followed by red squares and then green dots everywhere.

Windows wouldn't boot, except in normal safe mode.

Then Windows wouldn't boot at all.

Upset, I called my friend and asked him if he had ever experienced this problem. While on the phone with him I unscrewed the base panels and felt the heat sink on the CPU. It was literally hot enough to fry an egg on. The LAN card was okay. After letting it cool down for a few minutes and blowing the dust out of the heat sink and fan I screwed it back together and turned it back on. Same problems. So, I then had nothing else to do but attempt to reformat.

I put in the Asus Recovery CD and let it recover. The green dots were still there during the recovery process. The recovery process was going very slow so I plugged in the laptop to power and closed the lid. I played a 30 minute game of Supreme Commander with a couple friends. After the game was over I opened the lid and it was at 97% completion still with the visual artifacts everywhere. I closed the lid again and continued reading the internet and posting on forums.

About 10-15 minutes later I opened the lid and to my surprise was a clean screen free of artifacts and the software asking me for the driver disk, which I did not have.

I hurriedly restarted my computer (no driver disk, no way to get one at the mo',) and everything was fixed! I got out my copy of Windows Ultimate and installed it and now it is running just fine.

Everything is fixed and running well so far. My thoughts are that the artifacts may be caused by heat stress or even damage. Intel CPUs can run under sustained heat but with minimal success. You should all make sure that your CPUs have allowed sufficient time to cool down before turning them on again. I hope that perhaps reproducing my steps will fix your laptop, as this had me just worried out of my mind.

Good luck!

 

I have tried everything so far however my G1S still has green lines, red squares, then a black screen.

Let me know how long yours lasts Siigari.