sydn2u wrote:
Hello,
I work for a local computer repair services shop, as well. A customer brought in a G73S gaming laptop with the same issue, black screen. We ordered a new video card and installed it, it did not work. We just ordered the motherboard from China and received it yesterday, I installed it and now it is not even turning on. Needless to say, its a frustrating situation. I am sitting here thinking about what is next, I am going to open it up, again, and make sure all is connected and make sure I did not miss anything but I doubt it, I have taken apart and put back this computer so many times, I could do it in my sleep. I just wanted to give you my experience with this and see if we can try to find the solution together.
Thanks
Shari
This is kinda why we recommend not fixing the computer if it's suspected a motherboard issue at my shop. Sometimes it's not a sure thing and then we have to spend more money figuring it out. Granted, most of the time we get el-cheapo laptops in where spending $200+ on the motherboard plus labor is pretty much what they spent on it new so that rules that option out most of the time anyway. But the guy that had this one didn't bat an eye to buying a new laptop so that made it easy for us.
That being said, I thought for sure this was a motherboard issue with nothing indicating at all that it was doing anything. I did test my current working ASUS laptop without the RAM in it just to see if it would do some sort of indication that it had no RAM, but it had no beep or blink codes of any kind... So that kinda makes it incredibly difficult to actually definitively see what the problem is. At least with desktops they usually have a light, beep, or LCD screen code on it and the parts are easily swappable with parts we have lying around the shop to do some troubleshooting, but with laptops that don't tell you what's wrong you have to order a part, wait for it to ship from China, figure out it's not the problem...
For you, have you tried testing the RAM in a different computer? Have you tried different RAM in that ASUS? There's really not much else to these... The parts that would really be causing it not to POST would be the mobo, RAM, video card, or CPU. My RAM checks out. Tried 1 stick in all 4 slots with the same results on both mobos. Tried it with the bare minimum attached. Basically just the screen, one stick of ram, graphics card, cpu, and power button board. Any other boards, hardware, and non essential stuff for it to POST was left unattached. Still the same symptoms. I don't bother putting it all back together BTW, that takes up a lot of time put put everything together just to test if it will POST. I just get it in there good enough to where it should POST with everything essential connected. Saves a lot of time from having to take it apart and put it together again.
What lights are on when you turn yours on? Is it the same set of symptoms? Mine is that it turns on with the power button when on battery. It turns on automatically when plugged in to the AC power without pressing the power button. Power lights on the button and front turn on as well as the num lock light on front. With the keyboard attached it will not turn off the numlock and caps lock does nothing. Trying to turn off the laptop by holding the power button does nothing. I think I've held it for 30-45 seconds once and it never turned off. No fans turn on that I ever noticed. If I leave it on long enough the outside of the video card heatsink is warm to touch but I don't believe the CPU is. I found nothing specific on my set of symptoms, specifically about the numlock light (which could be the key to a code but there's no documentation I have been able to find...)
If it's not my graphics card it's gotta be the cpu...which is honestly probably more than I'm willing to spend on a hunch for a dead laptop even if it is the last link in the chain. I'm already in this nearly $400 of my own money. If the graphics card works I'm hoping I can resell the refurb motherboard fast-ish for most of what I bought it for to recoup some of that cost, but I don't think I want to put anymore money into it than what I got now.
For now I've got it in a box waiting for the graphics card to ship from China which I probably shouldn't expect to get here until at least the week of the 27th... But since it's sitting around waiting I could do some more testing just to make myself crazier and absolutely make sure nothing I do will make it POST.
😛I will update this thread when I do get the graphics card on whether or not it worked but it just won't be until I get it.