2022 Asus Zephyrus G15 Keyboard Issue Resolved? (Nope.)

My Zephyrus laptop has been having keyboard issues for quite some time. The “E” key has been intermittent at best and it doesn’t appear to be a hardware issue, but a software one.

The “E” key won’t type by itself at all, it will only register if it’s immediately follows another keystroke. So, for example, if you just type “e” nothing happens, but if you type “Pre” and hit “r” and “e” fast enough, you get “Pre”. (Sometimes it’ll do “Per” though, so it’ll even register the order wrong.) This appears to be related to ghost key detection, or sticky keys (even though I have it disabled in Windows 11) or rollover key detection. What’s weird and frustrating about this situation is that it doesn’t happen all the time. Sometimes, the “e” won’t work at all.

The other oddity is that if I do a clean install of Windows 11, the keyboard works perfectly fine… for a while. Sometimes it’s a day, sometimes it’s a couple hours before it starts acting up again. This led me to believe it must be a software, or more specifically, a driver issue. Either Windows 11 is installing an update that breaks the keyboard driver, or the MyAsus utility is installing something that’s broken.

To test this, I reinstalled Windows 11, and I disabled Windows 11’s ability to include manufacturer updates. Like always the keyboard worked fine for a couple of hours, and then the “E” key started acting up again. So it’s not Windows Update that’s the issue. It MAY be MyAsus installing something that Windows 11 doesn’t like.

At this point I gave up, and decided to go with the nuclear option, and installed PopOS (Linux) on the laptop. Guess what? The keyboard is working fine now without issue. So, it’s definitely a software problem, not a hardware problem, and I guess I’ll just have to keep Linux on the machine from now on. (The laptop isn’t under warranty and I’m not paying $90 to Asus to have them take it in for repair because they wrote a crappy driver.)

Strike that. The keyboard had to be replaced at a local repair shop, with mixed results. No more Asus laptops in my future.

My First Electric Guitar

In 1991 my parents bought me my first electric guitar and electric guitar amp for Christmas. The guitar was a brand new Squier II HSS Stratocaster in red, and the amp was a Peavey Rage 108 solid state practice amp. I loved that thing, and I learned on it for years but it eventually became my experimental project guitar. It was on that guitar that I taught myself how to replace pickups and knobs, and as you can see in the 3rd photo I even tried my hand (unsuccessfully) at painting. Eventually, I moved on from that guitar to others, an Aspen Les Paul copy, a Washburn (also seen in photo 3), and some other off-brand emerald green S-type that wasn’t work its weight in wood. Unfortunately in the end, I modified the Squier into oblivion. Its mangled body resided at a friend’s house for years, while its neck lived the rest of its life in my storage shed. The bridge and electronics live in a ziplock bag in my tool box. While my original Squier II won’t be played again, I may have found its brother online, and it may have to come live with me soon…

Linking a Local Folder with Microsoft’s One Drive

You may want to sync a folder on your computer with OneDrive that isn’t one of the Windows standard C: drive folders like “Documents”, “Pictures” etc. If that’s the case, here’s the command line for you to use to link any folder with OneDrive.

mklink /j “<path to configured OneDrive location>” “<path to directory you want synced>“

So, if I had a folder called “photos” on the D: drive that I wanted uploaded and synced with my OneDrive, and my OneDrive was configured to exist at c:\onedrive (the default is C:\users\<username>\onedrive) I’d do the following command in a Command Prompt window:

mklink /j “c:\onedrive” “d:\photos”

You’ll see the “photos” folder appear in your OneDrive, and the OneDrive app should start syncing the files from your local storage to the remote cloud-based storage.

All 3 Ultimate Comics Locations Burglarized

http://ultimatecomics.com/2018/06/crime-wave-hits-ultimate-comics/

Fender Fret Wire, and My Preference

From Fender:

The main fret wire maker, California-based Dunlop Manufacturing Inc., produces five main fret sizes. Listed by part number, name (where applicable), crown width and crown height, they are, from smallest to largest:

6230: The smallest fret wire found on older Fender necks (.078? x .043?).
6150: Vintage jumbo. Much wider but not as tall as 6230 (.102? x .042?).
6105: Modern narrow and tall; currently very popular (.090? x .055?).
6100: Jumbo. The largest fret wire available (.110? x .055?).
6130: Medium jumbo (.106? x .036?).

Which size you like is purely a matter of preference, although it can affect your playing style. If you like your fingers to actually touch the fingerboard when fretting the strings, frets that aren’t very tall like the 6130, 6150 or 6230 are for you. On the other hand, jumbo 6100 fret wire can provide easier playability with better sustain, tone and bending because you don’t have to press as hard to fret the strings, but your fingers probably won’t even touch the fingerboard, which could take some getting used to if you’re accustomed to smaller frets.

The main guitars I play are my Made-In-Japan EVH Wolfgang Specials. One of the primary reasons I love these guitars so is because they (and the MIC models) are the only EVH Wolfgang Specials to have “Vintage” frets on their fret boards. When production moved to Mexico in 2014, jumbo frets were used on the Specials, and they have been that way ever since. Now, only the USA made EVH Wolfgangs come with “vintage” 6230 sixed frets.

Peavey and EVH Wolfgang Pickups Are the Same Says Jim DeCola

“I worked at Peavey. Yes, I designed them and they were all the same across the range of models. The bobbins changed early on, but they were always wound with the same specs on both neck and bridge pickups. The current Fender made pickups have the same exact specs.
The initial bobbins were supplied by a domestic supplier, then later tooled overseas. By early 2000, we were told to have the winding and assembly outsourced. I had approved the samples, but left before they were actually put into production. That would have been after spring 2000. All of the parts (bobbins, magnets, base plates, magnet wire, cables and wax dipping process were all the same so you really can’t distinguish the domestic from the outsourced pickups. It took a long time to approve them, but they did such a good job that there really was no difference. EVH was sent samples and he approved them as well.
I worked at Fender (Nashville) for 11 years after Peavey. They wanted me to move to Corona, but they couldn’t come through on their promises, so I turned down moving there. I did commute between there and Nashville for a little over a year and a half.They picked my brain a little before I realized they were trying to lure EVH away. I already discussed what I did with the pickups casually to coworkers. After the guitar was released, I got copies of the pickup specs and blueprints. They are the same specs. They made up a story (as he did with Peavey) about trying to please him and having to make dozens of pickups…but they are the same specs. When I had to go through it, I had to make dozens and heard “No, this is too weak, this too warm, this not warm enough, etc. I finally sent him the first set of pickups, and that was it. smile emoticon I did use the EBMM for reference, but couldn’t do exactly as they had done, so I had to do my own thing.”  ~Jim DeCola