[UNSOLVED] Asus Taichi back screen (lid) not working AGAIN after windows 8.1 update 1

I got today the first acknowledgement of the commitment to solve the problem.  They advise that Asus is working to solve it and suggest doing nothing and wait for an update.

Dave, not sure I understand why what I said doesn't hold water because some retailers in Europe are price gouging. Given I paid about US$1200 for my i7 Taichi21, and from that the retailer made say 20-25%, there's tax of 10%, the shippers made some! along with all the clearance costs, etc. I'd be surprised if Asus take much more than $5-600 out of these things, which in comparison to many laptops here is still good money. But given that has to cover R&D, software, infrastructure, and so on, after sales support and warranties, I don't think there's much profit in each unit. Dave, I import products from China and we closely watch our suppliers costs and margins to ensure goods are competitive and believe me it's a competitive business I'm in. I've seen their accounts. Most Chinese companies are doing well if they net 3-4% on sales, and 1-2% is not uncommon. So I stick by my low margin comment.

Nonetheless, I entirely agree with you that this whole matter is not being handled well no matter who is to blame. But if you go up to the index of this thread, you'll see there are stacks of failed installs of this KB2919355 update. Lots of different errors happening in all kinds of machines. I actually did a backup and tried this update out for myself and the install went flawlessly and the only consequence was the blank lid issue. And like others have said, if you boot to the tablet screen it works. It just won't toggle between them. Since the previous example was fixed by a Bios patch and driver update, I would be surprised if this one won't be either. But it is taking TOO long to get done.

On the different explanations we are getting in different countries, I'd suggest this is nothing more than lack of training, knowledge, people talking bulldust or what ever. I'd be totally surprised if a Asus is so sophisticated to have a different answer for each region. In Australia where I am, our support comes from Taiwan as I understand it, and I think these folks would be closer to the truth than a Spanish speaking support officer in Europe. And heavens knows how much gets lost in translation from Mandarin to one of the European languages because it's probably being translated from Chinese to English to Spanish/French etc. 

I clearly have too much time on my hands to debate this, because all I want is the same as everyone else and that's a fixed lid screen. But I've had some fantastic notebooks from Asus over the past 10 or 12 years and they've been reliable and well supported. The Taichi is a terrific idea and frankly given every graphics adapter for the past 2 decades has supported multiple screen outputs, I fail to see what's so complicated about this. Could I suggest, that same thought probably crossed the marketing department at Asus when some bright spark came up with the Taichi. Even so, I am annoyed about the issue but still willing to give Asus some slack to get a driver update to me. If they don't, I will join in the chorus of disgruntled owners wanting compensation.

PS... I missed the wholesale distributors 15%. 

My 2 cents...

John

I'm afraid your explanation does not hold water. The Taichi 31 cx018h retails in Europe for up to $3,000. That must be a really nice, and not very small margin.

Somebody made it clear, here, when this problem started when Windows 8 was first released that this was an orphan product in which Asus had little interest. One suspects because it had no place in their cheap range and was too complicated technically. Unfortunately times have changed and Asus are introducing higher priced devices to maintain market share, but none of them seem as intrinsically complicated as the Tai chi 31.

From the model numbers in the field it would seem there are 3 model numbers for the taichi31 cx018h alone, which only adds to the complexities. Amazon were offering two of them at different prices (one from Belgium and one from Germany). The Spanish and Portugese versions (if you can find anybody with stock) are perhaps, different again.

In my view this is a marketing shambles in which the technical side has little say, and the marketing people are holding up the funds necessary to bring the product up to scratch whilst offering their customer base everything from direct lies to misleading twaddle. From comments here it would seem that the accuracy of the info depends on the country Asus think you're in. Asus tell me I have a hardware fault and they want the machine back. Everybody else with the same model reports the same problems. Hardware fault my eye! Even my wife, who hasn't taken a direct interest in this saga thinks it would be stupid to hand the machine over to Asus.

AFAICS MS are by no means blameless in this, their marketing simply adding to the issue by failing to keep Asus abreast of changes to the operating system. What a way to run a multi-billion dollar industry The only way forward IMV is to give the device and the brand such negative publicity that even Taiwan will feel the pain - and rebut the smokescreen from Asus Marketing at every opportunity.