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Juiceboxxhero · ‎11-27-2012

Hello all,

First, some info on my laptop. It's a G53sw that i purchased somewhere around September 2011. It is out of warranty, and i really screwed myself with the extended warranty that i got.

As for the problem: Essentially, it powers on (fans move, cd drive moves, possibly hard drive(?)) but the monitor doesn't power on. (I'll elaborate further down)

I've searched using google and forum tools but there are a few differences from other posts that led me to believe it's something else.

Why it may be different:
Every post i've seen that talks about the magnet sensor going bad says that the laptop won't power up. They don't specify that anything turns on. Mine will turn on, but won't boot or have any power to the screen at all (No post sound, no windows sounds. It may actually be booting and the sound device isn't working? But to my knowledge, it's not booting). Whether this meets the same criteria and is the same issue has me stumped. I've tried a small magnet and had no obvious results.

It's not hardware... maybe. The reason i say this is because it works... sometimes. This problem dates back really far, but i was an idiot and ignored it. It happened maybe once or twice when it was under warranty, but was immediately fixed by opening/closing the laptop once or twice. That alone was dumb, but i made it worse when i told the company that i had a 2 year extended warranty that because now they won't fix it as it's a preexisting condition... cool. That was $90 well spent. I can get it to turn on within a few tries by turning off the power and unplugging everything followed by opening the screen at the "sweet spot" angle which i'd have to find by trial and error. As of recently though, it's becoming harder and harder to turn on . Surely if it was bad hardware, it just wouldn't work at all? When it's on, i have no problems whatsoever. I'll play WoW/League/Counterstrike GO with no hiccups.

What could be wrong? Is it just a loose connection somewhere? I was hesitant to take it apart in the fear of bricking it in the process, but it seems like that may be the only route. Any suggestions?

tl;dr: Laptop powers on, but doesn't boot if the screen is moved (open/closed). Magnet didn't help, and when i can get it to power on it works flawlessly.

Also, I'll try to have a video showing the problem as soon as i'm home.

cl-scott · ‎11-27-2012

That honestly sounds like a bad LVDS cable, but if you can connect an external monitor to it, that would be helpful. You should get some kind of output on the external display if things are working, even if the laptop's display is not on. We need to figure out whether or not the unit is actually powering on and you're just not getting any display, or if it is actually failing somewhere pre-POST. You can also watch the laptop's display very carefully. If you're just suffering from a lack of backlight, you can see a slight change in the display when it turns on, even without backlighting. You can also see things on the display if you look very carefully and in the right light, assuming the unit is actually booting.

Juiceboxxhero · ‎11-27-2012

cl-scott wrote:
That honestly sounds like a bad LVDS cable, but if you can connect an external monitor to it, that would be helpful. You should get some kind of output on the external display if things are working, even if the laptop's display is not on. We need to figure out whether or not the unit is actually powering on and you're just not getting any display, or if it is actually failing somewhere pre-POST. You can also watch the laptop's display very carefully. If you're just suffering from a lack of backlight, you can see a slight change in the display when it turns on, even without backlighting. You can also see things on the display if you look very carefully and in the right light, assuming the unit is actually booting.

I'll try to hook up another monitor to it tonight as well as looking for a failed blacklight. I believe it's a pre-post problem though considering i don't hear the asus post noise when the problem occurs, but i'm willing to try any suggestions of course!

cl-scott · ‎11-27-2012

Juiceboxxhero wrote:
I'll try to hook up another monitor to it tonight as well as looking for a failed blacklight. I believe it's a pre-post problem though considering i don't hear the asus post noise when the problem occurs, but i'm willing to try any suggestions of course!

One thing I learned in three or so years working as a computer repair tech, is that it's always a good idea to run tests like this. Especially when the time/effort/expense is essentially zero, even if it's little more than a snowball's chance that this is the issue, it's worth checking. Sooner or later such hubris will catch up to you, so better to remain humble.

Juiceboxxhero · ‎11-27-2012

cl-scott wrote:
One thing I learned in three or so years working as a computer repair tech, is that it's always a good idea to run tests like this. Especially when the time/effort/expense is essentially zero, even if it's little more than a snowball's chance that this is the issue, it's worth checking. Sooner or later such hubris will catch up to you, so better to remain humble.

Absoultely. I'm here for suggestions so i'm not writing anything off without trying it

If it helps at all though, I did this with an HDMI cord to a tv with no avail. Will use VGA to an actual monitor to see if there is any change.

Juiceboxxhero · ‎11-27-2012

So i got home to troubleshoot and make a video and it worked the first try...and the second... and the third. I probably opened and closed it about 5-6 separate times.

I usually run the laptop without the battery. When i went to turn it on, i unplugged EVERYTHING except the battery. Could this be causing the problem?

I've always heard the whole "charging a full battery causes the loss of battery life" and i never really questioned it because the battery was so easy to take out. Does this affect the system? I've ran it without the battery for most of it's life.

Because of the success that i'm having, it makes me think it's because i always had the battery out? But why would that cause the laptop not to boot?

The second i start having these issues i'll record it and update the thread...

cl-scott · ‎11-27-2012

Juiceboxxhero wrote:
So i got home to troubleshoot and make a video and it worked the first try...and the second... and the third. I probably opened and closed it about 5-6 separate times.

I usually run the laptop without the battery. When i went to turn it on, i unplugged EVERYTHING except the battery. Could this be causing the problem?

I've always heard the whole "charging a full battery causes the loss of battery life" and i never really questioned it because the battery was so easy to take out. Does this affect the system? I've ran it without the battery for most of it's life.

Because of the success that i'm having, it makes me think it's because i always had the battery out? But why would that cause the laptop not to boot?

The second i start having these issues i'll record it and update the thread...

It's not out of the question, but let's be thorough just to be sure. Connect all your peripheral devices one at a time, and make sure to turn the unit on and off again several times before adding the next one. If you run into the problem at any point, then set that device aside and move on to another. Then you can go back and retest any devices you set aside to see if they seem to reliably trigger the problem. If everything seems to work great with the battery in, then I might suspect that your AC adapter is starting to give out. Probably a bit of a reach on this one, but if you have a multimeter, you can test the output of the device against what is on the label.

Zygomorphic · ‎11-27-2012

cl-scott wrote:
It's not out of the question, but let's be thorough just to be sure. Connect all your peripheral devices one at a time, and make sure to turn the unit on and off again several times before adding the next one. If you run into the problem at any point, then set that device aside and move on to another. Then you can go back and retest any devices you set aside to see if they seem to reliably trigger the problem. If everything seems to work great with the battery in, then I might suspect that your AC adapter is starting to give out. Probably a bit of a reach on this one, but if you have a multimeter, you can test the output of the device against what is on the label.

That would do it. The battery will provide a source of back-up power to run the system. Easiest way to test for this is to game on the laptop for a while and feel - carefully! - the charger and see if it is really hot. Also, check to see if the battery has been depleted some. If the laptop battery discharges, then we know that the system is pulling more power than the charger can supply, and thus it is dipping into the battery's reserve to run.

I am disturbed because I cannot break my system...found out there were others trying to cope! We have a support group on here, if your system will not break, please join!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=16
We now have 178 people whose systems will not break! Yippee! 🙂
LINUX Users, we have a group!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=23

Juiceboxxhero · ‎11-28-2012

cl-scott wrote:
It's not out of the question, but let's be thorough just to be sure. Connect all your peripheral devices one at a time, and make sure to turn the unit on and off again several times before adding the next one. If you run into the problem at any point, then set that device aside and move on to another. Then you can go back and retest any devices you set aside to see if they seem to reliably trigger the problem. If everything seems to work great with the battery in, then I might suspect that your AC adapter is starting to give out. Probably a bit of a reach on this one, but if you have a multimeter, you can test the output of the device against what is on the label.

Everything seems to have worked in terms of what i have plugged in. I powered on and off multiple times yesterday and had no problems with it while the battery is in. I'll test out the AC adapter when i'm home today. Hopefully that's the problem because not only are they (reasonably) inexpensive, but it would let me know that it's not a hardware issue in the laptop itself.

I should note that i did take out the battery and tried opening/closing the laptop with only the AC connection and it did in fact work, so maybe the issue is caused by leaving it plugged in like that for extended peroids of time? I didn't want to gamble with it, so i put the battery right back in as that's the only lead i have right now.

Zygomorphic wrote:
That would do it. The battery will provide a source of back-up power to run the system. Easiest way to test for this is to game on the laptop for a while and feel - carefully! - the charger and see if it is really hot. Also, check to see if the battery has been depleted some. If the laptop battery discharges, then we know that the system is pulling more power than the charger can supply, and thus it is dipping into the battery's reserve to run.

The charger is relatively warm, but can get very hot when playing games. Not to any dangerous level that i can tell... I remember it being hot from the day i got the laptop.

This is all from memory as i'm not at home right now, but from what i can remember, the battery hasn't been at a full 100% in a long time. It's almost always at 99%, but figured that was the degredation that i was afraid of happening in the first place, which is why i removed it. I'll check what the battery is at immediately after being powered on.

cl-scott · ‎11-28-2012

Juiceboxxhero wrote:
Everything seems to have worked in terms of what i have plugged in. I powered on and off multiple times yesterday and had no problems with it while the battery is in. I'll test out the AC adapter when i'm home today. Hopefully that's the problem because not only are they (reasonably) inexpensive, but it would let me know that it's not a hardware issue in the laptop itself.

I should note that i did take out the battery and tried opening/closing the laptop with only the AC connection and it did in fact work, so maybe the issue is caused by leaving it plugged in like that for extended peroids of time? I didn't want to gamble with it, so i put the battery right back in as that's the only lead i have right now.

It could just be that the AC adapter isn't able to reliably energize the capacitors needed to boot fully, so once the charge level is allowed to drop a little, it might take a lot longer than it should to get the proper charge level built up. The battery would be able to kick in the extra charge needed however. Normally I'd consider that sort of thing a bit of a reach, but it does seem to fit nicely in this particular situation. If you took the battery out, shut the unit off, and then held the power button for a few seconds to rapidly drain the capacitors, that would be a quick way to test. If this line of reasoning is correct, then as long as the battery has a good charge level, it should be enough to allow the unit to boot.

However, I would have to agree. A $90 AC adapter (http://us.estore.asus.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=720) is a far better outcome than almost any kind of RMA.

G53sw boot problems.