Windows 8.1 on Asus Ultrabook broken after coming out of sleep
2014-04
soccerdad
I'm on my second Asus Ultrabook UX301LA-DH71T because I can't get a stable Windows 8.1 installation. I want to love this laptop - there's nothing quite equivalent in the market right now. But I need to not have to be restoring to a working state.
The common activity that leads to the symptoms seems to be that when I open the laptop after it's been asleep, a number of aspects of the installation are changed or corrupt / broken. It's possible that another precipitating factor (besides being put to sleep) is unplugging the A/C adapter while it's asleep, but that's not as clear at this point.
The thing that seems to always change when coming out of sleep is the DPI magnification (not the resolution). All windows and fonts are significantly smaller, across the board, when I come out of sleep. A reboot seems to fix that. Obviously, that shouldn't happen nor should a reboot be required.
The really bad problems are the aspects of Windows 8.1 that seem corrupted. The effect isn't always the same, but it's some combination of: Windows Update doesn't work (checking for updates hangs, as one example); Windows Store doesn't work, or App Updates doesn't (hangs); the group policy client pops up a tool tray window (gpsvc isn't running - and no, all the articles and videos on how to fix that don't work - the system already has the requisite registry settings, etc.); other services have errors in the event viewer (BITS is a common one, ShellHWDetection, Multimedia Class Scheduler - dumps hundreds of event log entries in the space of just a few seconds, some Distributed COM errors); etc.
I have an Acronis TrueImage backup of just after 8.1 is fully installed, all updates applied, and some other basic settings configured. No 3rd party software installed. My installation was extremely methodical, including installing all Asus driver updates for 8.1, etc. I can restore to that backup, and things behave perfectly well - until I close the lid and let it sleep. If it matters, a lot of informational event log entries are generated while it's asleep - more than when it's open/awake but sitting doing nothing.
I guess two related questions, then:
1) Is this a known issue with Windows 8.1 generally? If so, is there something that can be done to actually fix it so that it never recurs (versus work around it somehow)? There don't seem to be enough of this particular laptop model in the wild to find if this is a systemic issue with it, though it happening on the second one I've received doesn't bode well.
2) Failing that, any general guidelines on making the decision to just give up on this model? As I said, I love the unit. But for almost $2K, it really ought to work.
Thanks much, and sorry for the lengthy post.
Donnie
June
(Solved... I guess? See 3rd edit)
(edit: followed instructions here http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/449401/constantly-restarts-before-login-screen/ to disable rebooting on system failure. I was able to see the blue screen, which says "system service exception" there's no codes or numbers. Wish I had my Linux CD so I could get a more meaningful error message!)
(edit: I started the computer again and instead of BSODing right before the welcome screen, this time it actually showed the welcome screen, but the blue circle wasn't moving. There was no disk activity. And the keyboard had NumLock on,which is weird, I always have it off. Well, after some time, I powered off the computer since it was stuck on the welcome screen)
(Edit)
Well... I'm not sure if this was "the solution", but I'll write it here anyway in case it helps someone else.
I don't have anyone who can make me a linux CD until next month, and I didn't feel like re-installing windows to see if that would help.
I decided to unplug the laptop and forget about it until next month.
But before going to bed I decided to try "a silly trick" I usually try when I have no clue what to do (LOL). Without the battery and with the computer unplugged, I "drained power" by pressing Fn and the power button for a few seconds. I plugged the computer again, and booted up into safe mode. No problems! Then booted up into normal windows... it's working fine now... the only thing that's odd is that the hard drive LED is on and flashing even though nothing's going on as far as I can tell.
I have no idea what could have been the problem.
Vista 64 bit asus g71gx laptop.
Last night I was playing a game. When I was done for the night, I put my computer to sleep as I usually do (Fn + F1 keys)
This afternoon I pressed space to wake up the computer. I pressed enter on the login screen to login to my username (I don't use password). It logged me in to the desktop, and showed me the programs that were open before I went to bed: chrome, windows explorer, nvidia config (I always have it ope-wen so I can switch gamma, when reading online I make the gamma dark, when playing a game I make it light.)
But right after that, I noticed my mouse wasn't working. I unplugged it, plugged it again, still didn't work. I tried the keyboard, and I didn't work either, even though I used it to wake up the computer and login!
I press and held the power button to shut down the computer.
Turned it on again, and selected to boot normally, but when the login screen is supposed to show, it was only blank (black), and after a while it rebooted without a blue screen.
I got some BIOS beeps, but I freaked out and turned off the laptop (long story short, I kind of have PTSD about hardware issues because of my family)
When I booted again, there was no beeps anymore, but it still reboots where the login screen is supposed to show, without giving a blue screen.
I booted to install disk, from there I opened a command prompt with shift F10. A checkdisk came out clean. I also did a SFC /scannow but after two hours I didn't go past "Beginning system scan, this process will take some time", so I cancelled it.
Can't boot with safe mode.
I have Linux installed on the same drive, but I can't access it. I thought I had a liveUSB it I don't :-( Don't have any live CDs.
Just have the vista install disk.