Asus Customer Service

I had a positive experience with Asus Customer Service last week, and I wanted to mention it here.  I seem to have an obsession with always having things up-to-date on my pc.  If a new version comes out for anything that I have, even if the current version is working fine, I cannot resist the temptation to get the update.  Usually, I have no problems with this.  Until last week.

Every once in a while, I check out the Asus Support site to check if there are any updates for Asus N53SN notebook.  Last week I did this and found a bios update.  Update 208 to be exact, which would replace my 207 quite nicely.  It mentioned in the changelog that it optimizes the lan card.  I liked the sound of that, and I have flashed the bios on this machine and my Asus K50IJ (which my wife now uses) countless times and never had any problems.

Excellent.  I download the bios, place that sucker in the C:\ root directory, reboot and go into the bios setup screen.  From there, I select the bios flasher.  WAIT!  It gives me a warning saying the bios model number is missing or something like that, I can't quite remember.  I think, no big deal, this bios update has been on the website since September and they haven't taken it down...can't be anything wrong with it, right?  Wrong.

When I got that warning, I just said proceed anyway, and the pc did the rest.  It flashed and froze.  No problem, the flash is done, I'll just reboot.  Wrong.

Dead.  Bricked.  Game over.  Good thing I have a warranty...

So I find out that the Asus Service Center for my country is actually only 5 minutes from where I live.  God smiles upon me.  I head on over drop it off, pick it up two days and all my problems are solved.  They had to replace the motherboard, and format the drive, but no big deal.  No charge.  No hassle.  No problem.

Thanks Asus.  Just because of that, I plan to buy the Asus X101H netbook.  After which I will promptly delete Windows and install a fresh copy of Crunchbang Linux :)