I have been an avid fan of Asus since my first Notebook the G73. Since then I have purchased 2 G73's, 2 G74's, and I am currently running the G75VW. For the first time I am having issues.

I have always run a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate on these systems with absolutely no problem. I have tested the Windows 8 consumer preview on my G74 and G75. Since upgrading to the latest Windows 8 Pre Release copy I have had issue after issue on the G75. I know the standard answer is "You shouldn't be running beta or Windows 8 yet". However my issue goes deeper than that.

Since installing the Windows 8 Pre Release I have had a complete crash which caused me to do a completely new install. Most of the drivers work with the exception of the touchpad driver. I have not been able to get my touchpad to work since reinstalling Windows 8. I have also tried to go back and install Windows 7 however I get a message that the hardware is not compatible. So at the moment I am stuck with running Windows 8. I am reserved to believe that most of my issues are more than likely a result of Windows 8 Pre Release but I wanted to post the issues anyway in hopes that others may be able to take part in the discussion and draw any similarities to the problems.

Windows Freezing

I am having an issue with Windows completely freezing up, the mouse moves but it is a hardware freeze as the numlock and caps lock no longer respond. The Hard drive quits responding as well. I can hit the power button and the hard drive LED will blink once but the system does not respond and will not shut down. I have to hold the power button in order to force it to shut down. I can then turn it back on.

The problem is intermittent and there is not anything in particular that I can do to cause it to lock up or freeze however it usually occurs while using Firefox. In most cases I will be watching a video on Youtube or videos on numerous sites. In most cases Flash is active and in use in the background but I cannot completely chalk it up to Flash as it can on occasion freeze at any point.

I have followed some troubleshooting sites that discuss Windows 8 freezing such as Intel drivers, Video Drivers, etc. I have uninstalled Intel drivers and management utilities. I cannot replace the Nvidia drivers as it is well known that Nvidia has left us in the dark as to any updates. I have also adjusted power management settings to lower CPU settings in case there are issues with the newer architecture.

Another problem is that since it is freezing there are no error messages in Windows to review since they cannot necessarily be reported or logged.

Audio Drivers

I am extremely dissapointed that Intel decided to use a Via chipset in their newest board. I have never been a fan of VIa. Much like Nvidia VIA has been silent in regards to the issues people have had. It is easy to blame Asus however ultimately responsibility falls on the manufacture of the chipsets. I have uninstalled and reinstalled driver numerous times. Currently the Subwoofer is responding to volume control as it should be however audio levels are low even when maxed out. I can either get good audio levels or good volume control response. I cannot get both at the same time The speakers sound great when I am actually able to get the audio loud enough to listen to. I also have issues with audio coming from the subwoofer when heapdhones are plugged in. It doesnt happen all the time but the bugs in these drivers are very annoying.

Video Drivers

It is possible that some of my issues could be a result of the latest Nvidia drivers. I have had good performance in games. I have only had it freeze one time while playing Civ 5 which is strange as more intensive games such as Deus Ex Human Rev, and Crysis 2 have worked just fine. I dont think the freeze was due to Civ 5 but could have been an issue of something else running in the background. It would be nice however if Nvidia would include us in their latest drivers as they have been releasing new ones on a regular basis but excluding the latest mobile chipsets from these drivers.

Touchpad

I get a message that the hardware cannot be found when attempting to install the touchpad driver listed in the downloads section. I also had this problem in the consumer preview however I was able to download the latest driver from the manufacture and it worked. Currently under Windows Pre Release I cannot run the latest driver. My touchpad does not work at all.

ATK works intermittently

ATK works about 40% of the time. Currently I cannot get any functions to work.

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Ultimately if it were an option I would install Windows 7 however as I stated above I cannot get Windows 7 to install on this notebook. I am running Raid 0 (Thank you for finally giving us this raid option) and that could be part of the problem during install however Windows recognizes the drive running under Raid 0 and begins the install. It isnt until the reboot that I get the message that Windows cannot continue. It tells me that Windows cannot run on this hardware and that it may be out of date. Standard Microsoft message, I realize this hardware is not out of date.

Hopefully others might be able to respond if they are having any of these issues. I would be interested in collaborating with anyone to try and resolve these issues.