Asus G750J only boots to bios/setup utility

[schlitch]

I have an ASUS G750JH purchased spring of this year and upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1 windows at that time. All has been running fine with it. Nothing has been installed on it recently. The laptop was on last night and this morning it is at the bios/setup screen. Esc and exit without save does nothing. Exit with Save simply restarts it an boots it back into the bios. No bios updates or any hardware upgrades have been performed. The SATA configuration still lists the SSD, the HD, and the cd/dvd drive. In other systems I've always been able to select a boot order, but that doesn't appear to be enabled or an ability. The only thing I attempted was setting the bios options to default with F9, but as I had never changed them, that didn't appear update anything.

I've searched for posts, but it seems they are all talking about problems after updating the bios, or attempting to install a new O/S. Nothing has been done to my system like this at all.

I suspected the SSD drive, but usually if a drive goes bad they don't show up in the bios. However, since it is an SSD, I'm sure it behaves somewhat differently.

Has anyone seen this problem reported and have solutions on where to start before I attempt warranty support?
Thanks

...so I opened the system and the ssd drives are not drives at all, but appear to be some proprietary mSATA type chips that I have no way of mounting into my external sata connector for testing (horrible idea ASUS). There were 2 of these marked 128GB and since only one SSD is appearing in the SATA configuration, I must assume that one of them is bad. Pretty sad, as this laptop has only been lightly used over a short period of time.

I'm just more confused it appears the 2 128GB SSDs are treated as one 256GB drive, so it is being recognized by the bios as being there. Wonder if I try F9 at bootup if that will wipe everything and let me start with a new win8 installation.

[hmscott]

schlitch wrote:
Laptop has arrived back...ASUS RMA page was very UNINFORMATIVE. I had to email them to request information and when I received the shipping information it showed the laptop was arriving the same day. Updating to windows 8.1 and re-installation of all my software coming over the next few days, then creating the backup using the ASUS utility. Testing the system as I update as well. The sheet included stated that they replaced both internal 128 GB SSD chips and that's it.

From the sheet:

Repair Detail:
1 Symptom: Can't Detect HDD when Boot Up/Detected Wrong Model Name of HD
Repair: Replace SSD 128G X110 M.2 2260/X231201

2 Symptom: HDD Bad Track
Repair: Replace SSD 128G X110 M.2 2260/X231201
----
So I'm not worried about how reliable this proprietary SSD chip setup is going to be in this system.

schlitch, their description is vague as to whether they replaced one or both of the SSD's, but I would assume both for now.

I don't recall if you tried to rebuild the RAID0 before RMA'ing... that would have been another thing to try - but it was good to send it in failing so Asus would replace the hardware.

The only thing that comes to mind is that it might also be a RAID chip glitch, so it might happen again.

Make sure you have an Asus Backtracker USB 3.0 recovery flash drive created this time, and at the ready to recreate the RAID0/install. And, keep your important non-OS stuff backed up.

The 128's are too small to use individually or in a RAID1, so that isn't really an option, unless you got a single 2.5" SSD installed in the 2nd Bay and booted from that.

I still have faith in RAID0 these days, many years without a failure, but your experience shows it can still happen today.

Good luck, and let us know how it works out down the road.

[schlitch]

So the windows 8 installation on the new chips is different than what I had previously, perhaps updated, but its still 8 not 8.1 So just like the first time I selected to install all the windows updates for 8.0 prior to doing the 8.1 update. It installed, rebooted, and then...

Failure configuring Windows features
Reverting changes
Do not turn off your computer

...didn't get this the first time. It's been at this screen for an hour or so. From what I've found doing net searches, reset to factory and restarting or returning appear to be only options. WTH? I powered it on connected to the net and selected windows updates, that's it. Something wrong with ASUS image, as I mentioned it is different than previously as some ASUS specific apps are missing, did they screw up and put the wrong thing on here to cause the updates to fail?

Why didn't they install all the updates before sending it or while testing it? Much frustration at the moment.

[hmscott]

schlitch wrote:
So the windows 8 installation on the new chips is different than what I had previously, perhaps updated, but its still 8 not 8.1 So just like the first time I selected to install all the windows updates for 8.0 prior to doing the 8.1 update. It installed, rebooted, and then...

Failure configuring Windows features
Reverting changes
Do not turn off your computer

...didn't get this the first time. It's been at this screen for an hour or so. From what I've found doing net searches, reset to factory and restarting or returning appear to be only options. WTH? I powered it on connected to the net and selected windows updates, that's it. Something wrong with ASUS image, as I mentioned it is different than previously as some ASUS specific apps are missing, did they screw up and put the wrong thing on here to cause the updates to fail?

Why didn't they install all the updates before sending it or while testing it? Much frustration at the moment.

schlitch, the OS image doesn't change for each model, it is a fixed point, so you should have gotten back the same installation as you had out of the box. If you didn't you should complain to Asus.

Did you create an Asus Backtracker 16GB USB 3.0 Flash recovery drive? That is your safety net should anything go wrong again. You can boot on that and restore back to the out of the box configuration.

You can then start the updates again. Maybe don't select them all, and do smaller groups initially. Most of us have installed them as they came out, and I haven't reinstalled for months, so I would also do small groupings of updates if I needed to reinstall and update from Windows 8.0 again.

Also, Microsoft messed up some recent patches, which need to be backed out - for Windows 8/8.1 which can cause black screen and bsod's:

There are a number of such problematic patches, and you can go to each page to read the details, this is one that lists the others:

MS14-045: Description of the security update for kernel-mode drivers: August 12, 2014
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2982791/en-us

"Microsoft is investigating behavior in which systems may crash with a 0x50 Stop error message (bugcheck) after any of the following updates are installed:
2982791 MS14-045: Description of the security update for kernel-mode drivers: August 12, 2014
2970228 Update to support the new currency symbol for the Russian ruble in Windows
2975719 August 2014 update rollup for Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2
2975331 August 2014 update rollup for Windows RT, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2012"

The problem still exists on August 27:

MS14-045: Description of the security update for kernel-mode drivers: August 27, 2014
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2993651

You might update Windows 8.0 as far as it takes to get Windows 8.1 to show up in the Store - patches through October 2013 at least, but in either case, only update through July 2014 patches, and hold off on the newer patches - specifically the ones causing problems - for now.

[schlitch]

It finally came back after about 2 hours and I installed all 'like' patches so about 6 batches in all and it worked. Its now updating to windows 8.1 and then I'll be making the backup. I only updated what was needed to get the 8.1 going anyway.

[hmscott]

schlitch wrote:
It finally came back after about 2 hours and I installed all 'like' patches so about 6 batches in all and it worked. Its now updating to windows 8.1 and then I'll be making the backup. I only updated what was needed to get the 8.1 going anyway.

schlitch, that's great news. There are timeouts, and cleanup that kick in if you are patient and wait it out - saves the trouble of doing it yourself manually.

If you avoid the listed problematic patches for Windows 8.1, you should be fine - disable auto-update as well - at least until Microsoft issues the new patches that everyone agrees are working. It happens every once in a while that Microsoft passes through a bad one, so I don't have auto-update on myself, and lag patches by a week or two - sometimes it takes a while for problems to get correctly reported - a two week lag seems to be enough.

These patches haven't affected everyone negatively, but it is best to wait for the replacements before updating again.

[schlitch]

I never use auto update either. I do have a question about the Asus Backtracker, particularly where to find it, as it isn't listed as a download option for my model laptop. I'm wondering if it is somewhere else, or if someone has a link. My searching is returning invalid URLs.

I may just see if Macrium will image it.

Finally found a link for the ASUS backtracker.

[hmscott]

schlitch wrote:
I never use auto update either. I do have a question about the Asus Backtracker, particularly where to find it, as it isn't listed as a download option for my model laptop. I'm wondering if it is somewhere else, or if someone has a link. My searching is returning invalid URLs.

I may just see if Macrium will image it.

schlitch, it is best to do both types of back up.

You want to have a bootable Asus Backtracker backup of the recovery partition, so you can recover back to the original install, if all else fails.

googling is good, but for forum topics, you might as well search here first.

Here is the list of places I look for updates for my G750JH; the best way to get a stable fully functioning G750/G751 is to update all the drivers / apps to the latest Windows 8.1 release.

The G750JW/JX/JH/JM/JS/JZ download areas haven't had new updates for a while, BIOS updates still happen in your model's support area, so check there from time to time.

The G750/G751/551/500/etc share the same basic hardware components; check support download areas for new hardware for newer drivers.

Asus maintains central support areas for hardware component features common to all products, those areas usually have the latest drivers after new hardware releases, sometimes there is a lag before the newer drivers show up there, so still to new product releases support downloads for the latest drivers.

Asus G751 Support / Download areas - Asus hasn't updated all the versions of these support areas, this link discusses the 3 locations were started independantly and not sync'd/updated through to the latest driver releases - check them all to be sure.
http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?55572-Asus-G751-Support-Download-areas&p=461698&viewfull=1#...

This G751JM/JT/JY/JL download area has the latest drivers of all the G750/G751 support download areas:

G751 Support / Download Areas - Newest - has all 4 G751 models
http://www.asus.com/Search/?SearchKey=g751

G750 Support / Download Areas - Newest - has the G750JY/JZ/JS/JM/JH models
http://www.asus.com/Search/?SearchKey=g750

G750JX - new support location, updates?
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ROG_G750JX/

G750JW - new support location, updates?
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ROG_G750JW/

Here are the latest Asus posted VGA drivers currently 347.25 ; it's better to get the latest from Nvidia - 347.88

Asus doesn't modify the drivers, they release the identical driver packages as Nvidia releases.
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=VGA&p=3&s=111

Notebook Audio drivers - Realtek 7443 - current confirmed to work on G751/G750, some G750 users say 7335 works best for them, if you find a newer release version that works, please let us all know which version and G750/G751 model it works on.
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Audio&os=30

Notebook Card Reader (realtek) G750 / G751(?)
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Card+reader&os=30

Notebook Bluetooth drivers
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Bluetooth&p=3&ft=27&os=30

Notebook WLAN drivers (no Intel)
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=WLAN&os=3

Notebook LAN drivers
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&s=589&m=LAN&os=&hashedid=n%2fa

KBFilter driver
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&m=KBFilter&hashedid=n%2fa

Asus Backtracker for Windows 8.1 download
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&m=Backtracker&hashedid=n%2fa

Asus Backtracker FAQ
http://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1008640/

Asus SmartGesture
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&m=ASUS+Smart+Gesture&hashedid=n%2fa

Asus Touchpad
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=Touchpad&os=30

Asus ATK Package
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&m=ATK%20Package&hashedid=n/a

Asus GPU Tweak for Graphics Cards, currently at release 2.7.9.0 for the G750JW/JX/JH and G751JT/JY
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=9&m=ASUS%20GPU%20Tweak%20for%20Graphics%20cards...

Asus GPU Tweak for Laptops, currently at release v1.0.9 for the G750JS/JM/JZ and other new ROG laptops with Optimus
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&m=ASUS+GPU+Tweak+for+Laptops&hashedid=n%2fa

Here are the Asus posted VGA drivers, it's better to get the latest from Nvidia - currently 347.88
http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=VGA&p=3&s=111

Nvidia Drivers direct from Nvidia
http://www.geforce.com/drivers

Asus stopped updating their Intel INFUpdate support area, so go directly to Intel to get the latest chipset INF - currently 10.0.26
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/20775/Intel-Chipset-Device-Software-INF-Update-Utility-

For the G750JH/JZ RAID and G751JY PCIE SSD, or if you have implemented RAID, the latest SetupRST.exe is currently 13.6.0.1002
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&keyword=Intel+Rapid+Storage+Technology+%...

[schlitch]

Thanks I'll review those tomorrow when I'm back at work!

[schlitch]

Got a nice 16GB USB 3.0 drive in and have the 3.0.7 version running currently. It appears to have ran fine. It says Image creation is completed and the USB flash drive only has about 1.5GB left on it.

There is also an option to backup ASUS drivers/app. Too bad it requires at least 3GB of space, so that it would fit on the same device. I would suggest to anyone else to go ahead and get a 32BG one, as prices continue to come down.

[hmscott]

schlitch wrote:
Got a nice 16GB USB 3.0 drive in and have the 3.0.7 version running currently. It appears to have ran fine. It says Image creation is completed and the USB flash drive only has about 1.5GB left on it.

There is also an option to backup ASUS drivers/app. Too bad it requires at least 3GB of space, so that it would fit on the same device. I would suggest to anyone else to go ahead and get a 32BG one, as prices continue to come down.

schlitch, I used a 64GB then a 32GB the first time, it only formats 20GB, and wastes the rest. I got it all on 1 16GB flash drive 🙂

You can do it!