Strange TouchPad malfunction affecting PC stability - periodical freezes

[Narez]

Hello everyone,

I considered to write on this forum about my ROG's strange malfunction.
At the beggining - below is my ROG's specc:
- G751-JY (T7012H),
- upgraded with additional SSD - Samsung 850 EVO,
- running pre-installed Win 8.1 x64
- BIOS v. 211

3 days ago I have noticed that after night (long shutdown) I have issue with system performance.
After booting to logon screen when I wanted to type password, I noticed that some of the letters are not coming up.
I found that PC has lack of performance and works like that:
Normally for 3-5 seconds - "pick" freeze for less than 1s - Normally for 3-5 seconds - "pick" freeze ... etc. etc.
I started checking numerous things:
- drivers - OK, no problems found,
- uninstalled lately installed programs and performed system cleaning - registry, undeleted files etc. - OK,
- full scan of SSD and HDD for system file errors, surface scan, deep scans for health status - OK, no errors found.
- stability test CPU+GPU+FPU+RAM+SSD+HDD on full load for longer time passed without problems.
None of them helped so next steps were:
- reroll Win 8.1 to last saved restore point - no change,
- launched "clean" WIndows 8.1 (originally preinstalled from HDD) - problem persist,
- reseted BIOS settings - no change,

I noticed that this problem persists ONLY for 5-10 minutes after booting, then it's magicaly GONE until I do a longer (minimum about 30min. shutdown), then it is back again. At one of the bootings I noticed that TouchPad was not working at all (TP buttons also) - after few restarts and time it starts working again.
I found that turning on/off the TouchPad in Windows, using "fn+F9" forces a "freeze" to the system. I turned off TouchPad in BIOS and PC was cured (no problems, even after long shutdown). When I turn TouchPad in BIOS and make a longer shutdown, problem gets back.

It is very strange issue, because malfunction is present only for few minutes after booting and then everything is back to normal.
In my opinion this is not a software problem (even BIOS) because I was running this configuration (software, BIOS version, no recent / crucial changes in Windows) for long time.
I supose that for 99% it will be unfortunately hardware problem. I'm just considering if this is TouchPad that is damaged or some controller for TouchPad on Motherboard.
I would disassembly my ROG to check all conections and the TouchPad from inside but it will violate the warranty (1,5 year to go).
If someone had similiar issue or has any idea that is worth trying - please write, I'll be grateful :).
If not, I think it will be necessary to call Asus At-Site service to fix it :(.

[Gps3dx]

A. look inside windows's "event viewer" for a clue for the root cause.
B. look at the startup items, if you said it only happens after reboot - it might be a new startup item, a program or driver's app etc...
C. run "malwarebytes Anti Malware" scan to check for malwares, that typically does NOT picked up by typical antiviruses.
D. if you think this is a HW problem - load up portable OS like ubuntu or mini-windows etc... see if that issue persist there also.
E. check for any "bad sector" on your storage devices, or whether any of them got "reallocated sector", which points out that they're dying and should be replaced.
F. Don't boot/work with any DVD/CD inside the DVD-bay, as this is the bottleneck of most PCs.
G. are you on auto "windows updates" ? may be the latest update caused this.
H. last resort - format and install windows from scratch ( NOT from the Asus OEM restore partition aka Backtracker).

please report back if something I wrote helped you out.
good luck.

[Narez]

Thanks for reply and sugesstions, I refered to Your points below.

"A" and "B" - I was checking on "virgin" OS that I left on old HDD (after getin ROG I bought SSD, so this system was up less than 1h).
"C" - forgot to write this, checked with Malwarebytes and Eset NOD - clear.
"D" - doesn't work on "virgin" Win 8.1 and miniXP (HBCD).
"E" - As I said in #1 post - no damage on drives, I diagnosed them both.
"F" - For 99% of time I'm not using it at all.
"G" - Rerolling to saved point with no change, "virgin WIn8.1" same behaviour prooves that is not update fault.
"H" - I think that any portable OS that suffers same problems like on original config (with Win8.1 that I'm running) will not make any sense at this point BUT I'll check it.

[Gps3dx]

Narez wrote:
Thanks for reply and sugesstions, I refered to Your points below.

"D" - doesn't work on "virgin" Win 8.1 and miniXP (HBCD).
"H" - I think that any portable OS that suffers same problems like on original config (with Win8.1 that I'm running) will not make any sense at this point BUT I'll check it.

if the issue reappears on portable OS ( best check on same version OS or newer, i.e try to check with portable win8 ) - that means that this is HW configuration issue ( bad bios configuration, MBR/UEFI configs etc.. ) or HW problem ( i.e bad sectors etc... ).

also, you wrote you have the 850 EVO which is from samsung.
try to update these drivers.
check to see if your OS play nice with RAPID MODE been enabled.

[Narez]

Gps3dx wrote:
if the issue reappears on portable OS ( best check on same version OS or newer, i.e try to check with portable win8 ) - that means that this is HW configuration issue ( bad bios configuration, MBR/UEFI configs etc.. ) or HW problem ( i.e bad sectors etc... ).

also, you wrote you have the 850 EVO which is from samsung.
try to update these drivers.
check to see if your OS play nice with RAPID MODE been enabled.

I made fresh Win8.1 x64 installation - no positive results. BIOS config is proper. All drivers, caunting also firmware like for SSD is up to date. Rapid Mode doesn't change anything - freezes come from Motherboard. Only change that replies positively to system stability is "Interior Pointing Device" (TouchPad) - "disabled" - no problems at all, but it's not a fix because malfunction persists.
At this point, I'm 99% convinced that something unfortunately died in my laptop, so there will be no other option than call the service.
It's pretty bad that for so high price we get things where the reliability is not good - personally I would expect better results as a person that takes care about handling my stuff etc..

Anyway, thanks for interest and discussion 🙂