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ROGBot
I'm posting this to help the community.
I fixed the backlight on a G74SX I have had since March (will post the story tomorrow). Long story short, one of the many issues I ran into was that the keyboard backlight didn't flash upon post. I researched this for about 3 or 4 hours and finally stumbled upon a post back in 2013 that had a bad link because the webpage had been deleted. I used the wayback machine to view the post and edited the link to find that the rom file was still available on a microsoft onedrive account.
I am recreating the original post here with my links.
Keep in mind I didn't create this fix but I have tested this method and can confirm that it works.
Here is the original page recreated
Before you download the file go here.
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?11080-BrodyBoy-simple-but-effective-pdf-guide-on-quot-Upda...
After reading the tutorial on how to flash your bios using easyflash you can proceed to download the file below.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/24qrjtz13i64o0y/G74SX_Fix_KB_Lights.zip?dl=0
I fixed the backlight on a G74SX I have had since March (will post the story tomorrow). Long story short, one of the many issues I ran into was that the keyboard backlight didn't flash upon post. I researched this for about 3 or 4 hours and finally stumbled upon a post back in 2013 that had a bad link because the webpage had been deleted. I used the wayback machine to view the post and edited the link to find that the rom file was still available on a microsoft onedrive account.
I am recreating the original post here with my links.
Keep in mind I didn't create this fix but I have tested this method and can confirm that it works.
Here is the original page recreated
Posted on July 4, 2013
Whilst looking at a number of different Asus G74SX gaming laptops, a common issue became very apparent. I noticed that the backlit keyboard wasn’t illuminating / working at all. I stripped the machine down, and reconnected the backlight cable, after cleaning the contacts with IPA. This had no effect. I also tested a known working keyboard, which produced the same result.
On a working G74SX during POST, the keyboard backlight flashes on then off. This wasn’t happening on this particular machine. The FN + F3/F4 keys didn’t function also under Windows.
As the keyboard wasn’t flashing during POST, I came across two possible causes:
1. The BIOS isn’t functioning correctly, and not producing any output to the keyboard backlight
2. The motherboard has become defective
I started at point 1, and immediately began to flash the BIOS. The BIOS was at the latest version, 203, so flashing under Windows wasn’t an option, as this would produce an error.
I used the AMI AFUDOS tool from DOS with option /x (to surpass compatibility checking) to flash the BIOS, using command: AFUDOS G74SX.ROM /x
The flash was successful, however the backlit keyboard was still not functioning.
I decided to save the BIOS of a known working G74SX. This was done using the /o option.
I then proceeded to use the Asus EasyFlash that is intregrated into the BIOS Setup, to flash with the newly created ROM.
After the flash was complete, I restarted the laptop. The keyboard backlight was now fully functional, and the FN + F3/F4 keys were now functioning fine.
I have uploaded the ROM file here.
Before you download the file go here.
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?11080-BrodyBoy-simple-but-effective-pdf-guide-on-quot-Upda...
After reading the tutorial on how to flash your bios using easyflash you can proceed to download the file below.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/24qrjtz13i64o0y/G74SX_Fix_KB_Lights.zip?dl=0
