Extra (off topic) info from a fellow owner:
The Asus s500c is a solid/ cheap notebook designed to give supreme audio output… mine is the basic i3 chip and I put it under loads that are way beyond what it was designed to do.
I upgraded the 500g hdd to a 1t seagate sshd (
a solid state/ sata hybrid) and 8g ram… recently increased this to 12g of ram for my vmware use. I have windows 8 and windows 8.1.1 both installed on this as a dual boot and it performs well on either side.
I recommend that you do grab the Microsoft updates for it regardless of if you stay with windows 8 or eventually decide to take the free up-grade to 8.1.1.
Windows 8 side;
1. The graphics drivers from Microsoft are disappointing and should be replaced… even if you don't play games.
2. The power drivers are ok but Asus has power4gear drivers and they don't play nice together so if you go with Microsoft then be aware of that and i.e. go all Microsoft or all power4gear but don't try to mix them.
3. Your factory reset is for windows 8 and upgrading to 8.1.1 will cause issues if you want to have a reliable backup of your data then get back up software that can boot from the images it makes… I personally use Acronis but others report some of the free software works as well…
Warning; the backup software that comes with windows 8 and windows 8.1.1 is complete shit and should be avoided!
Windows 8.1.1 side;
· The graphics drivers from Microsoft aren't that bad… I play games so still like the intel drivers for their performance features but the Microsoft ones are solid if gaming (
beyond the odd solitaire) isn't an issue.
· The Microsoft power drivers are just as good… I in fact use them now because I like the touch-pad responsiveness but be aware that this disables the built in [f9] key which would normally toggle the touch-pad on and off and of course the vivo key [<>] will be disabled. If you are into putting your notebook to sleep a lot then be aware that the touch screen will be disabled when closing the lid…
even if you set it not too… this is because the toggle for it is controlled in the bios and overrides Windows but you can just close and open the lid again as a work around so it isn't a major problem once you are aware of it.
p.s. if you do decide to upgrade one day then boot into your laptops bios first by pressing the [esc] key and temp disable the secure boot lock before clicking download as (
from personal experience) that allows a much smoother install.
Also the up-grade is only to 8.1 and is very unstable… if you go down this path then you MUST get at least the 8.1.1 patch which is available from the Microsoft updates as a normal part of the patching process.