C90: A Year Later

Next week I'll be celebrating one year with my C90. It hasn't necessarily been my primary computer, but it fulfills the Aaron Rodgers role. Of course, like Aaron Rodgers, I left my main PC (desktop) at home to solely use my C90 here at school. (Last year, I brought both...foolish idea.)

Generally speaking, I'm quite pleased with its performance over this year. But, I still have some issues that are unresolved:

1. When using my webcam through a another program, such as an IM, I always receive the BSoD. I searched around here and Google and found nothing. The cam works just find using its regular software, but not through other programs. Please help!
2. Random BSoDing at Start Up. I don't even know what to say about this one. I'll start 'er up, and she'll flip me off. Please help!
3. SLOW! My desktop running AM2 with Vista x32 and 2 gigs is much faster at start up and more processes that my C90, yet my C90 is supposed to be a Core 2 Duo! I doubt it's SpyWare, because of a) the only time I've connected through the internet on it is at school, which has a Fortress of a Firewall, include my own Norton Business Edition, and b) I simply haven't used it enough, nor do I download much on it. Please help!

That's about it. Thank you all for the help you've given me in the past with my C90 and my other computers in the past!

 

I believe Problem 1 is due to bad camera drivers. The ones that came with the laptop work fine for me and don't give me any BSOD's. For Problem 2, what is the driver causing the crashes? For Problem 3, Im guessing that vista has just become bloated over time. My C90 is faster than my desktop starting up, and my desktop is no slouch. Make sure you don't have random useless programs loading at startup, and use a good defragger.

 

Problem 2, incompatible RAM? See Info Booth, C90 Memory Success Report. C90 can BSOD a lot with the wrong RAM.

And 3, a well-configured C90 with a good amount of RAM should fly... So I really think it's due to bloatware / lack of good system maintenance and optimization.

 

Alright, thanks. Where would be a good place to look for optimization?

Also, another issue that I have is a "blank box" in the upper left corner, which makes anything unclickable - this is obviously frustrating for when I want to launch My Computer, use the File/Edit menus of the Backwards/Forwards buttons.

 

The Blank box is due to turbogear. Switch profiles and it should go away.

And how long has it been since you either clean installed or formatted?

 

A little under a year. I guess it's time for a tune-up.

Thanks!

 

The box can also be due to the ATK utilities malfunctioning (some of them display an icon in the corner of the screen when changing profiles, brightness etc).

To optimize the OS, you can look at my XP and Vista guides. Vista guide will be useful even for XP, namely the section that lists the ASUS bloatware that could be removed.

If you do have the time, it may be best to start with a clean install though, and then apply the tweaks/optimization steps.

 

I should probably run a clean install. What do I need to do that? If you think I should just browse to find the info, just link me if you can.

Never done a clean install/format.

 

Love Vista and my C90S, but I just decided to go with XP and all my problems went away. This is by mo means a real solution since I want Vista running on my C90S without problems.

The BSOD only happen when I have too much stuff plugged in me USB ports (HD, mouse, etc.) and/or my 3G modem in my express slot on boot.

 

If you wish to reinstall with ASUS recovery DVD/CDs: Info Booth in my signature, thenFAQ question #14.

If you have the retail XP/Vista disk, just insert it, boot from it, and take it from there. I'm not sure what else there is to say.

If you want to install XP: I suppose the C90S has a SATA HDD, if so you will need to put it in compatibility mode from the BIOS, or slipstream the SATA drivers on the XP CD. Plenty of guides available for that, google should help.

In my signature also guides for optimizing Vista and XP, depending which of the two you install.

 

Though I can adress to any of your problems, I thought I'd put up my 2 problems instead of making a new thread.

A) going from AC to battery mode, it seems that my system tray crashes and my wireless card can't connect to any wireless signal, though it still seems to be enabled.

B) Because of my processor, Turbo Gear only goes up to Gaming mode. Unfortulately whenever I try to activate Gaming mode, BSoD.

I've posted these problems back when the C90s first came out with no luck, I'm hoping that after a year, the problems have been resolved.

 

I am not pleased with my C90 at all. The video card is dying (probably nVidia's fault), there are no upgrades to any of the components Asus said there would be, very few driver updates, can't use turbo mode at all, etc. I was excited to have a notebook I could upgrade once a year instead of replacing, but this isn't going to happen with this one. I wanted a portable gaming rig but may have to go back to desktops...

 

These problems have been discussed numerous times. In short...

A: This is a well known problem with a few Intel 4965 cards, which I assume is what you are using. Basically you can buy another 4965 card or you can buy an Atheros wireless N card. This should fix this issue.

B: Basically, you need to RMA your motherboard. I had this exact same problem and it happened under every bios version I tried. It seems there were a faulty batch of motherboards made that would not overclock and I ended up with one.

You can try upgrading your bios to the newest version, if your not already using it, and see if that fixes it.

Do a search and you will find a bunch of threads detailing these problems. I know I had a lengthy thread discussing problem B posted awhile ago.

Good luck.

 

My video card is dead too Silentheero! im in the process of trying to RMA now. It went out about 2 weeks ago. Ive been slaving over it since and have only been able to get the video to work 4 times no matter what I do....It doesnt even seem like its fried....its definately more like defective considering there is no method of consistency as to the 4 times i got it to work. Its completely random....I have a feeling more people will be popping up now with this problem so I hope I get my RMA before Asus/Nvidia decides to start refusing service!

 

All of my files disappear if I boot from the retail Vista disk? Or do I need to do a back-up of important files?

 

One should *ALWAYS* back up important data before doing any reinstall of OS. If your data resides in the same partition you run the substantial risk that it will be overwritten (and thus lost forever) by the OS install, among other things.

The only time one does not need to back up data is if the data resides on a completely separate partition/mapped drive on the HDD, thereby keeping the OS reinstall physically away from the data.

 

Yep, the OS partition will be completely wiped. That's why I always recommend a separate partition for the user data

One should always back up important data, full stop.