Clean Installation for Asus G74Sx-BBK8

[LeeEang]

I use Linux 24/7 on my G74 (the Debian testing distro) and have gotten most of the G74's functions (keyboard backlight, volume, screen brightness, etc) to work, but strangely the fn-F keycombos to control these things only work when GDM is loaded and I haven't logged in yet to start X. Once I log in and run a Window Manager it seems, all the key combos stop working. I have learned to set everything up how I like it upon GDM startup so its not a terrible loss.

Also using Linux has somewhat solved the NUMLOCK woes on the G74: strangely the system boots with the NUMLOCK state off (i.e. the numpad behaves like Home/PgUp/PgDown/Insert, Del,End). I can toggle the NUMLOCK on using the CAPSLOCK key (weird, eh?). But it does show that the NUMLOCK problem is completely and easily fixed: we just need ASUS to release a BIOS that remaps the NUMLOCK to the (useless) calculator key.

Anyhow, to get all this functionality I use the pre-compiled Kernel 3.2 from the Debian Testing distro. This kernel has the common ASUS key controls turned on. I also use the NVIDIA Linux drivers version 295.40. You'll need to have the the full kernel source and in particular the kernel headers installed to install the NVIDIA driver, as it compiles using these headers.

I just couldn't get Ubuntu to recognize the video card. I've tried the threads people posted on other website about the issue but it still didn't work out. So if you don't mind, please guide me through the steps. All the function keys worked fine when I had Ubuntu installed. It's just the brightness didn't change; it wouldn't lower the light.

Btw, does G74 last longer on Linux? I had Ubuntu installed on my other laptop and it gives me more battery life, that's why I wonder if it does the same thing on G74.

[LeeEang]

On my grub menu, it was 800x600. So I'm assuming the video card doesn't support by ubuntu. Have you experienced that?

[LeeEang]

So I decided to install Ubuntu for the third times, and still the same things happen again. From the Details, it doesn't show that NVIDIA is the graphic card; it says unknown. Fucntion keys work just fine except the brightness control. Backlight keyboard is on every time i restart (it seems like it doesn't save the changes I made). Grup menu is 800x600.

[fostert]

Btw, does G74 last longer on Linux? I had Ubuntu installed on my other laptop and it gives me more battery life, that's why I wonder if it does the same thing on G74.

Yes it does. I experience noticeably longer battery runtimes in Linux than in Windows (I have both installed in a dual boot congifuration on my G74). Windows just runs so much crap in the background to keep itself alive. The proof? For fun I just rebooted and pared down windows 7 manually by killing all processes in the task mangler except its bare processes (i even killed svchost processes, which are your windows features like network access, etc): it still takes 1.3GB of RAM just to keep a barebones Windows 7 running. I can do the same in Linux, and guess what? It only takes 230MB of RAM to keep X windows running. I can further kill X and run Linux happily from a command line terminal alone: it only takes 160MB of RAM to do this!

So, which do you think it going to make the battery last longer?

[fostert]

So I decided to install Ubuntu for the third times, and still the same things happen again. From the Details, it doesn't show that NVIDIA is the graphic card; it says unknown. Fucntion keys work just fine except the brightness control. Backlight keyboard is on every time i restart (it seems like it doesn't save the changes I made). Grup menu is 800x600.

What version of Ubuntu are you using? Is it older than the 560M in the G74? Try downloading the latest version of Ubuntu. Also, I know that Debian has some pre-packaged versions of NVIDIA drivers that you can install (saves you the headache of downloading them from NVIDIA and compiling them). Does Ubuntu have similar NVIDIA driver packages you could install? Run the synaptic package manager (or whatever package manager comes with Ubuntu) and search for NVIDIA.

Not too surprised you're having Nvidia troubles with Linux...they have been the single worst company for supporting the Linux community by releasing their hardware protocols for people to write drivers with. Check out Linus Torvalds' message to them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=IVpOyKCNZYw

[LeeEang]

Yes it does. I experience noticeably longer battery runtimes in Linux than in Windows (I have both installed in a dual boot congifuration on my G74). Windows just runs so much crap in the background to keep itself alive. The proof? For fun I just rebooted and pared down windows 7 manually by killing all processes in the task mangler except its bare processes (i even killed svchost processes, which are your windows features like network access, etc): it still takes 1.3GB of RAM just to keep a barebones Windows 7 running. I can do the same in Linux, and guess what? It only takes 230MB of RAM to keep X windows running. I can further kill X and run Linux happily from a command line terminal alone: it only takes 160MB of RAM to do this!

So, which do you think it going to make the battery last longer?

It makes a lot of sense. Windows has a lot of craps running at the background while Linux runs only the things needed to operate an OS.

[LeeEang]

What version of Ubuntu are you using? Is it older than the 560M in the G74? Try downloading the latest version of Ubuntu. Also, I know that Debian has some pre-packaged versions of NVIDIA drivers that you can install (saves you the headache of downloading them from NVIDIA and compiling them). Does Ubuntu have similar NVIDIA driver packages you could install? Run the synaptic package manager (or whatever package manager comes with Ubuntu) and search for NVIDIA.

Not too surprised you're having Nvidia troubles with Linux...they have been the single worst company for supporting the Linux community by releasing their hardware protocols for people to write drivers with. Check out Linus Torvalds' message to them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=IVpOyKCNZYw

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 LT and it does have the driver packages for NVIDIA but those packages are out of dated. So I manually installed them on my own (which I finally figured out by today) but it didn't and still doesn't recognize by Ubuntu. Everything is still the same; grup and booting logo are in 800x600 resolution; brightness doesn't work until the laptop suspends; and all changes aren't saved. I already posted this problem in Askubuntu.com but no one seems to know how to fix it. Btw, the video is cool.

Anyway, I heard new update for Ubuntu is coming up this October, so I hope it would work with G74 better.

[Bundy_Drop_Bear]

hey i did a clean install tonight had to make a backup of me WIn7 Ultimate DVD and remove that ie.cfg file so when i ran the Backup I could choose the HP install of the disc and not Ultimate.

[LeeEang]

hey i did a clean install tonight had to make a backup of me WIn7 Ultimate DVD and remove that ie.cfg file so when i ran the Backup I could choose the HP install of the disc and not Ultimate.

So, do I just basically delete ie.cfg file to allow the Windows to let me choose which edition i want to?

[mellow]

i have the exact same model. your laptop comes with a raid0 setup. if you wipe ur recovery partition and use the recovery discs, it will not recreate the raid setup. in case you dont know what raid is, its using more than one drive to either increase performance or stability through redundancy. raid0 is 2 or more drives acting as one drive, so everything loads twice as fast, or 3 or 4 depending on how many drives you have striped.

i read somewhere that it doesnt come like that factory, maybe having something to do with your model being a best buy exclusive deal.

im dealing with this right now myself, but cant seem to figure out if its a hardware or software raid option. my project tonight is reading through all the crap advice in hopes of finding something in here that will help.

if you have the best buy warranty, this is considered a mail in fix. its to complicated for most of their employees, but ive noticed they most try to keep at least one person around that actually knows what theyre doing. if you take it in, youll probably get the immediate 'we can send it in to real techs' response. if there is someone there that knows more, you have to actually ask for them to check.

as to the other responses, if its tweaking your computer, then it would have ran just as slow before you reinstalled everything. maybe there is a driver that was updated during the reinstall that wasnt available before the wipe, but i dunno.

here's to learning everything on your own to fix simple problems because of cheap tech support.

anywho, let me know if you find anything else out, like i said, ive got the same issue.

o yea... if you look at your file tree, it will normally say you have 2 hard drives, one named C: . if you have one named C:, but it still lists 2 more hard drives, then you probably have a raid0. If not, then your laptop is no longer partitioned the way you got it, and it will take twice as long to boot up.

let me know here and ill keep posting whatever i find out if you want.