ASUS Zephyrus S19

[yogi]

I've mentioned elsewhere that I very reluctantly purchased a new laptop to replace the one with a broken "l" key. It is broken in a very strange way because the upper case "L" works fine and uses the same physical key as the lower case. The down arrow key has the same issue. Both seem to be working about half the time; otherwise the rest pf the computer works very well for a laptop. But not as well as the ASUS Zephyrus that replaced it.

I bought the now broken MSI laptop on Amazon and this ASUS model came from there too. The hefty price tag was pretty consistent across the board, but the one for sale on Amazon was the only one I found with Windows 10 PRO installed instead of the standard Windows Home edition. That was an important consideration for me because of the beta testing I do on Windows 11 PRO. I will be getting the upgrade from Win 10 to Win 11 on the ASUS whenever Microsoft gets around to it and I did not want the Home edition for beta testing. Plus, I'd have to pay for an upgrade.

The model is GX701LWS and is a fairly standard configuration no matter where they sell these machines. It's classified as a gaming notebook with the nVidia RTX2070 video card installed. Some very similar systems come with the RTX2060 instead. One of the selling points for this video card is that it has a refresh rate capability of 300Hz. That's no advantage when you are looking at photographs on Brainformation, but when you are playing an animated game with a lot of detailed graphics, the smoothness at that refresh rate is absolutely startling. Non gamers can get that same FPS when looking at high resolution streaming off YouTube and other places. It's truly remarkable what that video card can do. And, of course, it has the regular Intel graphics adapter built into the motherboard. You may recall me complaining about Linux not being able to keep up with the Optimus software that switches between these two graphics engines. Some distros fixed that, but there are laggards. My observation is that a lot of today's gaming machines have two adapters and use only the one required for the software being run.

ASUS has a magnificent cooling scheme that no doubt is needed when running that high refresh rate at overclocked speeds. The system can automatically adjust the fan speed, but there is an ASUS control panel wherein you can fine tune just about every component.

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The area between the keyboard and the monitor is huge; larger than the keyboard footprint. It's a meshed metal above the nVidia card and system fans. You would expect something like that from a hot board, but the ventilation does not end there.

Laptop venting system

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You might have to look close to see what is going on in this side view. The bottom housing cover is resting on the desktop, but the computer chasis is elevated up by that hinged cam. Thus when the monitor panel is upright an open air gap is created underneath the graphics card. Lower the monitor to the shut position and the gap closes. This genius design was never described in the literature, but then I was a bit hasty when I did the search. In any case I never saw a notebook with this kind of cooling system. We have some high end gaming potential here, obviously.

Having said all the above, I must also report that all is not good in River City, or O'Fallon.

You might think it's a grand idea for the touch pad to be off to the side as it is. And, it is a great idea. Unlike many laptops, typing is a lot easier given the keys are at the edge of the top where they should be. That touch pad can be converted into a number pad by pressing one of those buttons along it's top. I REALLY like the idea that the number pad has multiple functions.

The I/O ports are as follows:

• HDMI
  USB 3.2 Gen 2 port
  USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C®/DisplayPort combo port
  Headphone/Headset/Microphone jack
  USB 3.2 Gen 1 port
  USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C®/Thunderbolt 3/DisplayPort/Power Delivery combo port
  and, the usual DC input port

An RJ45 (Ethernet) connector is not supplied nor are there any familiar USB C connections. That means there is no way for me to connect my CAT 6 Ethernet cable, nor can I insert all those Linux On A Stick flash memory sticks into the chassis. Thus, at the moment, I have no way to use a mouse with this notebook. All of that is being remedied by the purchase of the appropriate Thunderbolt hub, an assortment of adapters, and some memory sticks with USB 3.2 connectors already built in. All the connectors that are supplied operate in the gigabyte range. I never heard of a DisplayPort for video, but apparently it replaces the traditional HDMI. If you want to string 3 monitors together, that's how you do it, or you can also use Thunderbold if the monitors are capable. I also discovered there are such things as Thunderbolt to RJ45 converter cables. So, in lieu of buying all new memory and other peripherals, I bought a bunch of adapters, which will be delivered "free" over the next week or two.

Also missing is an optical drive. That is just as well give that USB flash drivers have more or less replaced them.

This is obviously a high performance machine that came to be the norm over the last five years since I built my last computer. I doubt that I will do much gaming on it, but I will be beta testing Windows 11 at max speed, whenever they give it to me. As spiffy as this machine is, it's truly mid tier compared to what else is available. I consider myself lucky to be able to buy this netbook at the MSRP. Just about all the shops I looked into have them on back order. Apparently there is a boatload of them in San Francisco Bay, but nobody knows when those boats will be unloaded.

Oh, and by the way, the silly mind numbing games that caused me to buy this machine in the first place ... work very well. Thank you.

[ocelotl]

It really looks like a mean machine... By now they got used to call "Gaming computers" the ones with specs above average, that in the past would be termed for "Power users" or as "Graphic design 'puters"... New toys are always enjoyable, and being able to afford them is the icing on the cake. good for you on your new toy. Please enjoy it.

Most of the issue with optical drives is that they have been widely superseded by USB units. A CD-ROM can hold 650-700 MB, a single layer DVD 4.7 GB, Blu-Ray disks 25 GB... But even when the last were launched and are still available, somehow the fad to get them died really quickly with the increased availability of streaming services. And since getting an external HD is cheaper than buying a Blu Ray unit, it is easier to go that route and download whatever you want to it, and reproducing it on any device that can read from it.

[yogi]

Since I've been doing some serious investigation lately, it quickly became obvious that today's computers can be classified in one of three ways: Performance, Quality, and Balanced. What is called a gaming computer is designed for performance, i.e., speed. The notebook I now own definitely is aimed in that direction. The quality design is aimed at maximum throughput. That's where the video editing and 3-D modeling machines with Threadripper 64 core (yes, 64) processors can be found. The Balanced class is what we knew as workstations back in the old days, and probably what most people are using this century. Each of those classes has tiers; my new toy is actually in the middle tier. If I were intensely interested in the gaming aspects of computing, I would be looking at the high tier performance computers. And, it would be a desktop, not a laptop.

[Kellemora]

Awesome Yogi - and quite an explanation of all of the features.
You are one lucky dude to find that machine.
Love the cooling system, but hope something doesn't crawl in there while it is open.
Nice, nice, nice.
I do like the touchpad to the right too!
Every laptop I've had, I turned off the touchpad because it was in the way and messing me up constantly.

ENJOY!

[yogi]

ASUS put a lot of thought into the design of this computer. The video board is heavy duty compared to what I have in the tower and the other laptop. I've read a few comments about how things really get heated up when you are playing some graphics intensive games, but being located where it is and vented the way it is there doesn't seem to be any reports of heat damage ... yet. To accommodate the large air flow they had to do something with the touchpad to take it out of the way. I've been using it for a couple days now and still intend to replace it with a mouse when the special USB adapters arrive. They do a great job of explaining the gestures to make that pad work, and I have to say I'm warming up to it. The only issue is the same one I have with the smartphone. The touchpad is too sensitive. I frequently start something not intended because I brush against it. Then, too, there are the times when I want it to do something (drag and drop e.g.) and the damned thing just won't do what it is supposed to. So far that's the only downside. Once I get the extra hardware and the Windows 11 upgrade I am going into the power user mode. Who knows? If this firecracker can also run Linux, I might not need a new tower. LOL

[Kellemora]

My hands are ice cold after two heart attacks, so touch-pads rarely worked right for me anyhow.
I did buy a drawing pad back when I was still doing some personal drafting work. It had it's own mouse and scribe pen, so one could use it as a drawing pad too. I really liked it, but it wouldn't work on any of the newer computers, since it used a Parallel Port as it's primary connection. Plus it had it's own separate power supply too. I actually lucked out and sold it to a guy who said he wanted one for his older computer. I didn't get all that much for it, but at least it found a home.

I never got into the types of games that take a powerful computer to play. Most of the games I do play on Debi's computer are more like Mystery games, where you have to find the clues. Some are hard, some are simple, and some you can't get through without getting a few cheats to figure out what to do.
Some games now that we are playing are a combination of several different games, time killers, but still have some clues, but nothing so hard you have to work them out.

[yogi]

My new laptop definitely was targeted at hard core gamers. My long history of computer using does not include a lot of experience with those kind of games. My first real exposure to a high performance kind of game was just a few years ago when I got that Witcher 3 game free with a video card purchase. That was the game of the year and got all kinds of awards, but it did not test the graphic limits of hardware available in those days. My purchase of that nVidia card was to boost performance of all the other things I attempt to do. It really made a difference even five years ago. Today the CPU's have Intel graphics that rival nVidia and surpass it in some ways. Thus the need for two video engines is diminishing. GPU's probably would vanish altogether if it were not for their ability to be used independently for such games as mining for crypto currency. At one time the demand for video cards created a shortage much like what we see today regarding CPU's. Eventually I would have replaced my MSI gaming laptop, but this keyboard failure gave me an incentive to upgrade sooner than I planned. I don't see a lot of improvement in my old games, which is what I expected. This machine is made for games I don't even own or subscribe to.

Amazon delivered my USB hub this afternoon and I'll be testing it out shortly. The first test will be to see if I can get my wireless mouse to play via the hub. The hub also has an RJ45 connector so that I'll see if I can get Ethernet going at the gigabyte speed my router is designed to handle. If all that goes well I may install Steam to see if some of the games I have there perform any better. I have three simulation games up there, which seem to be my preferred type of game these days, and there are a ton of free downloads I can try if I REALLY want to test the graphics. All that will actually be a learning experience in preparation for the day when Windows 11 comes down the pipe. Then it's back to the hacker state for the new computer. LOL

[Kellemora]

More power than I would ever need for anything I do.

I have my wireless mouse plugged into my front USB socket on the KVM so it moves to whichever computer I'm using through the KVM switch. It has PS2 ports on the back, and I have the adapters, but the new meeces do not have PS2 in them anymore.

I hope everything works out as you planned with your new laptop!

[yogi]

I got the USB hub and did the tests. Nothing startling happened but it sure is convenient not being forced to use the touchpad. The hub plugs into the Thunderbolt connector, which is something I have no experience with. It's something Apple Computer invented and most other companies avoided until recently. Aside from being hyper fast, Thunderbolt can handle just about anything you can plug into it. The wireless mouse works well enough as does the Ethernet. This hub can also read memory cards and has HDMI as well as VGA video ports. All those things go into the hub and come out via its Thunderbolt connector. From there the computer seems to know by magic what kind of signal is coming down the pipes and directs it to the proper system inside the computer. The concept is truly amazing.

While setting things up the first time I had Ethernet, the wireless mouse receiver, and Linux on a stick all working at the same time via the hub which in turn was connected to the computer via a single Thunderbolt cable. The mouse was lagging a bit and I figured that was due to the hub being overloaded. Then again, that should not happen. The hub should be able to handle all those ports simultaneously, which is what a hub is for - usually. In my case I am using it more as an adapter for my old USB devices to connect to the new USB ports on the laptop. In any case, as of today nothing is amiss. The lag is gone, which is probably due to the fact that I turned off the touch pad in the computer settings. There are a couple other ports besides the two Thunderbolt ones and when the proper adapters arrive I will test them out too.

The hub is not a KVM, but it does seem to have a lot of flexibility. If I had more than one computer that needed a free standing keyboard, mouse, and monitor I might consider a KVM switch assuming I could get one with all the right USB connectors. As it is I only use two PC's at a time and the laptop has all the I/O built in.

[Kellemora]

I had one computer, one that was short lived too by the way, that had some interesting features built-in so you didn't have to buy external devices for it. It had a built-in 4-port Ethernet switch, not counting the main Ethernet port, A VGA and HDMI port and both could be used to drive two monitors either separately or mirrored. It had some ports I didn't know what they were for exactly, they looked like USB ports, but a different size. But it had enough USB ports to choke a horse. Like 4 on the back panel, 4 on the front, and two up inside the top which I couldn't get to because a monitor sat on top.
I really liked that computer, but it only had like 2 gigs of RAM in it, and used only IDE drives. It did have a CD/DVD recorder, and a front slot that took all the different types of SD cards at the time.
It only worked great for about a year, then lost it's sound, and about two months after that lost its video. I had already bought the IMicro's with Asus MoBo's and 4 gig memory in each to replace it, one for me and one for the frau. So I wasn't at a loss when it died completely.

Sounds like you got one heck of a machine there, and it amazes me they can do so much with a laptop now.

[yogi]

I think perhaps reading the spcs, and my comments, make the ASUS laptop sound like more than it is. The Silver Yogi, for example, has a faster CPU in it, as does my tower. Looking at the tier structure for the sales models it turns out this laptop is in the middle tending toward the low tier. It is indeed powerful, but the ones above this level are even more so. To me this laptop turned out to be 85% never seen before technology. The I/O ports have been around for many years, but I never owned a computer with the ports this one has. In fact none of the ports from any of the other computers I have can plug in directly without an adapter of some sort. Even the old reliable Ethernet jack isn't what it used to be. They simply don't put RJ45 jacks into laptops anymore because the Thunderbold connection is very much thinner and faster and more versatile. But all that means is that it combines a bunch of things I already have as separate items. The 300 Hz video refresh is a fairly recent development, but even smartphones now come standard with 120 Hz refresh rate. So, there is a lot of familiar technology jammed into a smaller package, and I guess that in itself is pretty cool.

Today I decided I missed working with the Windows 11 beta software that is resident on the old laptop. This new ASUS came with Windows 10 Pro. To be honest about it Windows 11 is 90% Windows 10 and 10% Windows 11. In other words aside from the new look, not a lot has changed. I read some benchmark work that confirms there is very little if any difference under test conditions between Windows 10 and 11. Having said that, however, Windows 11 is a lot smoother and more responsive in many instances. Microsoft did some things that are simple but amazing to me. For example the NAS and the HP printer needed no setup whatsoever. After the fresh install Windows 11 not only found my HP printer, but also installed the correct drivers AND the HP interface software. That last item was a shock because it's not a standard print package item. It's an HP special front end just for this printer. Likewise the NAS generally required me to diddle with Samba and Windows file sharing before it ever started to function. Then I had to manually type in the name of the server before it showed up in my network connections. Windows 11 didn't have a problem. When I opened the network the NAS was there waiting for me to log in. Now that I did log in, I will not need to in the future. I told it to remember me and so far it has not disappointed.

Response time is quicker than that previous laptop and the big shock there was the move to Windows 11 used something less than ten minutes to accomplish. All those beta systems I tinker with take close to a half hour to update itself. I was truly shocked and awed at how well the switch from 10 to 11 went. In the past I've done similar things and lost everything from the previous system install. That was a nuisance but not unexpected. The thought of needing to rebuild my entire computer environment just to run Windows 11 is what made me very hesitant to do it. But the urge to go back to beta status was very strong. LOL When the install of Windows 11 was complete the desktop had the new look, but all my previous programs, apps, and files were in tact. I did not lose anything in spite of my trepidation. After giving it some thought, I think I know what actually took place. I did not download the iso version but instead installed from the Microsoft website. Doing that did not perform a fresh install, but did instead an upgrade. This is what will happen to all the other qualified machines over the next six months. They too will be upgraded. I have my fears about upgrades, and it has yet to be proven that it works as well as a fresh install. Only time will tell. For the moment I have returned back to where I was a couple weeks ago. The only thing left for me now is to turn off the beta testing on the old laptop and turn it on for the new one. But, as you might have guessed, that won't be the end of it. I will not truly be back to where I was until I can multiboot into Linux. LOL

[Kellemora]

Interesting bits of info there Yogi. I'm glad you are pleased with your new laptop and with the upgrade.

Maybe you should just leave your new laptop as windows 11 and perhaps, once you have everything set up exactly the way you want on the new laptop, then use the old laptop with the iffy keys for Linux.

[yogi]

You have a good suggestion there about dedicating the old machine to Linux. However, one reason why I was motivated to get a replacement had to do with my constant use of the "l" key: ls -l /boot. The workaround is to use a capital letter "L" but that won't cut it in Linux or any command line app for that matter. So, it's likely I'll be trying to find somebody who is willing to take a limping laptop off my hands.

This morning I switched over to the beta channel for Windows 11 on the new computer. That's not the "dev" channel I've been using on the old laptop. The Beta versions are actually more stable than the developer versions. Plus the developer software may have things in it that are not in the regular OS. That was the main attraction for me. I'm pretty sure after a few weeks I'll switch back over to the developer release channel because beta is pretty boring by comparison.

In the mean time I will be populating the new ASUS with all the goodies I had on the old MSI, or at least as many things as I think I need for the time being. I don't want to shelf the MSI just yet because there may be something in there that I want to migrate over. Once I am confident I have everything from that computer that I need, I will delete Windows altogether. I will also delete the Mageia and the Ubuntu installed alongside. This will remove any evidence of my existence and activities which is exactly what I'd like for the next owner to have. Nothing. LOL I will, however install Linux MInt (probably) and offer the system with Linux pre-installed. We'll see how popular that idea is, but I suspect there would be very few takers. Therefore I also made a USB flash memory of the Windows 11 installation software. On that same memory stick will be all the MSI specific utilities so that whoever ends up with the laptop can clone the original gamer environment. There is a recovery partition on the laptop which I tested out this morning by resetting the existing Windows 11. I did that to prove that this machine is hardware compatible as well as to initialize Windows. None of my saved files were deleted, which is what they promise with a reset. A reinstall is also possible and that would reformat the whole hard drive.

The new ASUS laptop is destined to run Linux alongside Windows, but not right now. I don't want to mess up the EFI boot just yet. The super high speed I/O ports built into the ASUS should make those Linux On A Stick software run as well as if it were installed alongside on the native hard drive. In fact if the stick versions of Linux work out well enough, I may not multi-boot the new laptop at all. I'll save that for the new tower. I keep reading how the free upgrade to Windows 10 for us Windows 7 diehards is still available. It's very tempting. Not sure what I'll do there.

So, all I need to do now is customize the new laptop and prep the old one for a new owner. Should nobody be interested, I guess my wife will benefit from it. Her Windows laptop is rarely used and older than dirt. And, besides, she doesn't use the "l" key all that often.

[Kellemora]

Maybe with a clean install, the "l" key might start working again?

A number of years ago, I installed a program to read mobi books, on my WinXP computer, and after I did, the up and down arrows no longer worked with any program, nor did Num Lock work anymore. Even after I removed the mobi reader they still didn't work.
The only way I got everything working right again was to do a long boring clean install of Windows XP again.
But once I did that, everything was back to working normally again.

I don't see how it would be the keyboard being the problem, since it's the same key, and since it works for a capital "L".

I'm glad you have time to play with your new computer. I have many things I need to be doing and can't seem to get to them anymore. Sorta makes me mad in a way, not depressed, just mad, hi hi.

[yogi]

It's OK to be mad because that is an incentive to keep trying. Depression leads to giving up, and well, us positive thinkers are not prone to such thoughts.

I'm fairly convinced that the "l" key problem on the MSI is not hardware related. While I can't do a thorough test in BIOS, all the keys seem to work fine trying to set up UEFI and whatnot. As far as I know the problem only occurs after an OS, either Windows or Linux, is loaded and running. The fact that it's not stable is what is bothersome. Sometimes in the middle of a task the "l" key magically starts working and continues for a long time. Likewise for what seems to be no apparent reason it will fail in the middle of a game I might be playing. It almost always works in a Linux terminal, or if it isn't working I can force it to start up again by using the capital "L" repeatedly. After that the lower case comes back to life. That particular fix does not work in Windows for some odd reason.

When I was reading about this problem in the MSI forums other keys went out for various people. The only solution that seemed to be effective is a replacement of the keyboard by MSI. A replacement involves more than just the keyboard, and that is where I think the problem lies. There is a driver/decoder chip that probably has some firmware behind it, and it is what is failing. Some of the forum gurus thought it was heat related, which is possible in that the GPU is directly under the keyboard. I haven't noticed any difference between a cold keyboard vs one that has been heated up by intensive GPU processing.

In effect I did do a clean install of Windows when I switched from Windows 10 to 11. That truly was an upgrade, but the last time was a system reset. That took out all of Windows and replaced it with the recovery version. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the "l" key.

So, I could send it to MSI for repairs, which I understand cost several hundreds of dollars. Instead of doing that I will try to find a buyer who isn't too fussy about the letter "l" working. The darn thing works really well, given all the exercise I've put it through with al those Linux experiments. It would just break my heart to have to tear it down and recycle it.

The new ASUS is coming along fine and is nearly customized to where the MSI was when I abandoned it. I got my first look at the partitioning scheme in the process of building my OS and was a little disappointed at what I saw. Apparently this version of Windows 11 depends on secure booting. I had to disable that when I was learning about Linux and EFI because Linux wasn't up to speed yet with secure booting. That was a year or two ago and hopefully things have improved by now. The alternative to multi-booting the notebook is booting from Linux on a Stick. I already proved the feasibility of doing that. I have a few USB sticks on order which will have the 5 GB USB connector on them. If Linux runs at speed that way, I may give up on multi-booting the notebook altogether.

My next and possibly concurrent project will be to determine if it's worth upgrading the tower to Windows 10. That seems more possible these days. All I need to do there is to verify that the pool simulation game works in Windows 10 and that I won't have to buy a new license for it.

[Kellemora]

One would think your right ring finger always sitting on the "L" key would ground any static from it.
But I just saw last night a thread on sticking keys, not physically, but electrically.
Some guy tried spraying some anti-static spray using a short soda straw under the keys that were not working, then let it dry for a few hours before plugging it back in.
Said it worked like a charm.
Then a few other about a week later came back with comments that his trick worked for them too.
About 7 folks said the trick worked on their laptops too, but make sure it is turned completely off first, just in case.

Back in the Apple days, I had a couple of keyboard problems, but just blowing it out with an air-gun fixed it.
I still have to clean my computers out with an air-gun, especially the CPU's heat sinks, they get loaded up then overheat.

[yogi]

That story about the anti static spray is interesting. I don't understand why it would work, but a can of spray can't be very expensive compared to a new keyboard. I did what I could to blow away any dust, but again I doubt that it's a mechanical issue because the key does work for the upper case. That says something funky is going on in the decoding of the key closure. I also don't know how it's possible to turn off the laptop completely. In my case the battery is hidden inside the case. I'd have to remove the bottom cover to remove the battery. Then there is the CMOS battery, which may or may not be accessible. I don't want to destroy the machine anymore than it is already. Hopefully I'll be able to find a taker as is.

Today I tried Linux on a Stick and booting them in the ASUS laptop. The results are mixed and I can't draw any conclusions yet. Further testing is necessary. I mentioned earlier that I discovered Windows is set in the secure boot mode which presents a slightly different UEFI front end. In the past I was told to turn off secure boot because Linux won't boot that way. Well, that wasn't entirely true because some distros did boot with Windows in the secure mode. As it happens not all the Linux OS's I've tested will boot on the ASUS lappie. To my utter surprise the one based on Debian did boot from the Windows boot manager. The system I've been working with today has a BTRFS format and refuses to even be recognized by the Windows boot manager. I'm not too too surprised by that given all the emphasis Micorsoft put on security and excluding everything but an encoded Windows to boot. However, UEFI should allow anything to boot. The issue apparently is that I can't bypass the Windows boot manager and boot directly from the UEFI partition. Well, I can't do that yet, and I have yet to decide if it is worth doing at all. I'm pretty sure I can disable the Windows boot manager, but then if I did that I'm not sure Windows would boot anymore. Or, if it did boot I'm certain these beta versions of the OS would object to what I did.

Hopefully the boot issues are confined to only the odd Linux OS that doesn't follow the usual rules. I can forgive Microsoft and ASUS for that. Three out of four Linux distros were not blocked so that's a good sign. Not perfect, but I'll get back to you if I find a fix. LOL

[Kellemora]

When I was in the gold foil stamping business, commonly called gold stamping.
Those Mylar ribbons that carry the metallic dust that gets bonded to the item you are stamping become very clingy as it comes out the waste spool down to the trash bin. Static could pull that ribbon a good foot so it stuck against the side of the cabinet the machine sat on.
I used to spray down the side of the cabinet and the inside of the waste bin with that anti-static spray, and then the ribbon would drop right down into the center of the waste bin and never stick to the sides or get pulled toward the desk.
Ironically, it also prevented the metallic dust that came off from the rollers system from sticking to the side of the desk also.
It was designed for girls silky dresses, so was found in the laundry area of the grocery store.

I only use Debian for my daily work, and have a copy of Linux Mint on that new computer I bought for Debi, but don't actually use it for anything yet. I let it run because Linux Mint let's me know when updates have come out.

[yogi]

I did some (very limited) research for anti-static spray. It's basically designed for fabrics and the main ingredient is fabric softener. That means it's sticky, which is good in some applications. If there is dust and dirt under my "L" key, I don't think I want to spray it with something sticky and guarantee it will never dislodge. I also don't know what's in those keyboard keys and spraying something conductive on them might not be a good idea. I know you read about successful applications in the tech forums, but I need a little more than that to be confident in what I'm doing. If I did spray something into the key switch it would be alcohol or something that does not leave a residue. It's a tricky problem that I've not run into in all my years. Usually when a key is sticky or non-functional it stays that way. It doesn't alternate between working and not working.

I didn't make much progress booting Linux On A Stick from the ASUS laptop. I did discover that Microsoft, in all it's wisdom, hides the EFI boot directory. Using their terminal software and Power Shell doesn't reveal the directory from inside Windows. I have a program that shows me what is in there, which means there is a trick to seeing it manually. I'm fairly certain all this boot information is hidden for good reason, but as is the case with a lot of patches and fixes there are work arounds. I was able to install Grub into that hidden EFI directory, but I did that from a Linux environment. In other words, it's only hidden from Windows users, and that makes sense.

The problem I'm having is that I don't know enough about secure booting in order to defeat it. LOL Well, I'd never be able to get the encrypted keys out of their locker, but that's not what I want to do. I am perfectly happy letting Windows do whatever it wants to do. It's all those Linux boot loaders that are also in that EFI directory that I need to be able to access and manipulate. And, as I mentioned earlier, I'm willing to concede not getting into multi-booting if I can boot from Linux On A Stick. That's what I'm working on at the moment.

[Kellemora]

Interesting. Sorry I don't remember the name of the product bought, but it definitely was not sticky, and did not leave a residue on the side of Mahogany cabinet I used it on. I do remember if I sprayed it on my finger, it disappeared instantly, but did feel like it was slick, sorta like getting silicone on your fingers.

M$ has used all kinds of dirty tricks over the years.
I bought a program for XP early on that would LOG every file that the install of a program would write to.
Nearly every program you bought or tried out, hid hundreds of files in places in the various system directories, in order to hide the ways to overcome reusing trial copies or those with timed usages.
To me, it didn't make sense to allow a 3rd party program to write into the Windows system areas.
Any hacker could install things right into the system files where you couldn't ever find them again.
I had a couple of programs I liked very much, but they would only run if you were in administrative mode.
I knew those particular programs were safe, because I knew their source. But why make them run only in administrative mode?

Like I've said before MIckey$oft want's to be GOD and control YOU!