Laptop doing funny things.

[Fresh8]

Hopefully there's some tech gurus in the house. My laptop is doing funny things.

It's brand new from March this year. After 4 weeks, it decided to not boot. It's an ASUS and it was stuck on this ASUS screen and wouldn't go any further. So I'm guessing that means the BIOS wasn't starting up. (Sorry - I'm not very good with this kind of stuff!) I did some research on the net and found out that if you press F8, you can get it into safe mode/last known good configuration. It didn't work for me so I put in my recovery disks and reverted the laptop back to its factory settings and started afresh.

2 weeks later, it stopped booting again. This time, I tried F8 and it just boots up normally. Everytime I start up my laptop, I need to press F8. It's not too much of a pain to do this but I was thinking working laptops don't require this. Does anyone have a solution? It's a brand new ASUS and is running on Windows 7... are there any settings that make it a requirement to press the F8 key to start the BIOS?

My last solution after this would be to ring up ASUS but wanted to see if anyone has any idea about a possible solution/explanation.

[rise]

Weird. I think you should call/e-mail the service people.

[shadowgrin]

You still have warranty Sit? Give it to them and ask what's wrong with your laptop. Let them worry about it. When you find out what's causing that then you'll be prepared when your warranty does run out.

[benji]

You aren't pressing F8 to start the BIOS, you're pressing it to stop the normal Windows boot process. It sounds like there's something wrong with the BIOS though.

Try using a CD that auto boots like a Ubuntu Live Disc and see if that works right. Something might be screwing up the Windows boot process.

[NovU]

I remember having a similar problem with brand new Toshiba laptop about year ago. The store exchanged with an exact same model, but still experienced the same problem, so I finally went with HP. That HP died about a week ago. I am going for Dell/Samsung next time as my buddies recommend them.

[Andrew]

It wouldn't be surprised if it was a common fault with your particular laptop. A friend of mine has an Acer One laptop and he often has to use a recovery USB to get it to boot properly (then it's fine until the next time it wants to be difficult). As far as I know, that's Acer's permanent solution to the problem: create that recovery USB and just use it as necessary. So I'd get in touch with ASUS about it before you do anything else.

[el badman]

I would first double check with programs like Malwarebytes and Spybot that you don't have any spyware or adware, even though they would usually not cause such an issue, we never know...In the msconfig utility, make sure that there's no strange program that starts up with Windows, disable everything but the necessary. Otherwise, I would check if there's a newer version of your BIOS and flash it.
If all else fails, I guess the warranty will be the last resort.

[dare]

I think in the recovery disk there is a repair function right? have you tried that? I'm still searching for answers, I'll pm you if I have some infos.

[J@3]

Just had a mental image of a laptop doing stand-up.

[Andrew]

Just had a mental image of a laptop doing stand-up.

"And what's the deal with Bluetooth?"

[Fresh8]

I remember having a similar problem with brand new Toshiba laptop about year ago. The store exchanged with an exact same model, but still experienced the same problem, so I finally went with HP. That HP died about a week ago. I am going for Dell/Samsung next time as my buddies recommend them.

HP really sucks, I know that. Weird how your Toshiba died though. Asus is really reliable so I'm surprised this has happened... probably got a lemon

Thanks for the replies, I will take it into ASUS and come back with the solution for everyone.

[benji]

Asus is really reliable so I'm surprised this has happened...

Until you get three of their motherboards, every single one D.O.A.

[Fresh8]

Asus is really reliable so I'm surprised this has happened...

Until you get three of their motherboards, every single one D.O.A.

Damn, that's bad!

I was actually thinking of going with a mac pro but was put off by the price. I'm gonna have a whinge to ASUS and try and get a new one.

[benji]

One POSTed once and never again, another would POST then immediately restart and POST and immediately restart and...

Last one never POSTed at all. Gave up and got a Gigabyte motherboard that was better, cheaper and has been pretty great so far. ASUS wouldn't refund either, something about retailer blah blah blah.

The Dell recommendation above is not bad, I got a cheap one for the purposes of basically just internet and it's a pretty great build quality for less than $400. I'm a desktop for everything, laptop supplementary guy though. (Which fits into the price of a Mac Pro. And leaves plenty of cash left over for STEAM SALES!) I don't really know much about computer manufacturers anymore as I go the self-build route, I got the Dell because it was on sale and they let you get it without a bunch of crap installed (or it was easy enough to remove) even though Ubuntu is primary on it.

[shadowgrin]

Get a Panasonic Toughbook Sit.

[Fresh8]

Benji, know what you mean. My desktops have all been assembled from scratch with the help of friends... the laptop was bought out because I needed something compact to take to uni. Annoying that it's dodgy out of the box.

Shadowgrin, my laptop is 3 months old and I got 24 months warranty. Don't think I need a toughbook anytime soon.

[shadowgrin]

A Toughbook will never do stand-up comedy Sit, you wuss.

[Fresh8]

Do you have a toughbook?

[shadowgrin]

No.

But I intend to if I have ever have the cash and when my HP laptop gives out on me, again.

[NovU]

I don't really know much about computer manufacturers anymore as I go the self-build route,

For the first, I custom built my computer and couldn't have been happier doing so. It wasn't that hard but it was rather fun picking out the parts you want one by one. As for the motherboard or any other parts, I guess I will try to stay away from Asus. I don't like how they refused to refund, not to mention exchanging it with something equivalent or better.

For laptops, Dell seems to be pretty affordable while carrying good rep in stability.

Toughbook? That's for pigs...

[shadowgrin]

If you have the know how or have a coherent manual of the parts, self-build is always the way to go.

Pigs?

[NovU]

Oink

[puttincomputers]

lenovo is reportedly very good. they have some amazing deals quite often

[Fresh8]

I found out what the problem was. I had my wireless mouse reciever in my usb and that's why my laptop wasn't booting. I will go into BIOS and play around with the settings. Thanks for listening everyone.

[Andrew]

That's a little inconvenient. Hopefully it's just a matter of tweaking the USB settings, if there's a "legacy mode" setting maybe give that a try.