Asus Laptop unable to boot (black screen, no bios)

[dedekind]

Hi guys,

I have an Asus X45C laptop about 10 months old. Yesterday I finished watching a movie with very little battery left, so I closed the lid, put it away and went to bed. This morning the laptop won't boot. Of course I charged the battery all the way, and tried several combinations of turning the laptop on only on AC adapter, only on battery, on both; I also tried removing battery and adapter, holding ON button for several minutes, then trying to power up again with only adapter, only battery, or both, all the time the result is exactly the same, so these are the symptoms:

- Screen is completely black, no bios, no beeps, no anything.
- Power and battery lights turn on (they work ok, if I remove the battery, the light shows that, etc.)
- Hard disk light comes on for about 1 second, then off forever.
- Caps lock and num lock are constantly on.
- Keyboard doesn't do anything at all.
- The DVD unit is working: when I turn the laptop on, it will make noises, and if a disc is inside, it will make even more noises, the usual noises that I get when reading a disc. The button for opening the unit also works. I tried powering up with the DVD unit open, and no noises at all.
- No fans at all are working.
- Also tried using an external monitor, no luck.

I really don't want to RMA it, I know it could be a hardware failure, but it could also be an easy repair. Maybe the CMOS battery or something related to hibernation. Caps lock and num lock always on is what really strikes me.

Oh and one more thing. A couple of times in the past, I had to force a shutdown on the laptop so I would press the ON/OFF button for 4 or 5 seconds.. when it did shutdown, as far as I recall, that was it. When I do that now, I hear a very slight beep after doing a force shutdown. I'm pretty sure this beep was not present when I did force shutdowns before.

Any comments are widely appreciated, thanks!

Update: the beep may have been there before, nevermind. One more sympton: closing the lid doesn't do anything, the same lights are on.

 

[Dhanushka_Liyanage]

Hi. I have the same problem with an Asus X54HR. Suddenly it stopped working!
It turns on, the lights are on, only the light from hdd stays about 1 sec on after that it turns off, cooler doesn't turn on at all and the screen is black. I don't know what to do anymore, I tried everything: hold the power button, take out the hdd, take out the optical drive, switch the ram, verified all the connectors to mainboard, take out the bios battery, even reflow the gpu. Nothing works! PLEASE I NEED HELP ON THIS... It could be the controller on the mb?

Did you experience any overheating of your laptop? Because reflow solution may work only if you have any overheating issues with GPU. Basically it may weaken solder contacts and with reflow you can fix it.

When you held power button on, did u remove the battery?

 

[Saeed2157]

Hi fellas
My name is Saeed
I had the same problem last night.
This problem is related to RAM units
First you should turn off your device, unplug the charger and remove the battery
Then hold the power button for at least 30 seconds. Then try to turn on the device using only the charger ( do not attach the battery). If it happens to work then it's done. Otherwise, open up the bottom casing of your laptop where you can see Hard drive and RAM units. There is plastic screw somwhere near the RAM slots. There is two signs around it representing "locked" and "unlocked". Make sure it aligns the "locked" sign.
If it didn'n work either, the RAM unit is damaged. Try to replace the RAM with a proper one. If it didn't work either, then it may be the RAM slots causing this problem.

 

[clivea]

I had this problem with an U36SD. This is what I did. I disconnected the hard drive then booted up the laptop. The start screen appeared so I was able to eliminate any problem with the screen itself. I then replaced the HDD and immediately the Windows process started and everything was back to normal. Just be careful when opening the machine up, removing first the tabs by the RAM under the back cover. There are some good demos on how to open these machines on Youtube. Of course in my case it may have just been a faulty connection but whatever it's worth a try.

 

[Richard_1975]

Overheated GPU is the root cause!!

Dhanushka_Liyanage posted the best working solution, but will require technical knowledge/expertise to perform the fix. If you don't have the technical expertise, I suggest you bring your laptop to an expert computer technician.

Kudos to Dhanushka_Liyanage!

reposting Dhanushka_Liyanage solution:

"I had similar problem with Asus K43Jr model. There was only black screen after power on. HDD worked only for few seconds and HDD LED went off. Power LED stays on and fan spun at full speed. No BIOS or Asus logo at least.

My suspicion was about gpu. Because I checked by disconnecting LCD connector and connected external monitor, It didn't work. And also CPU fan worked endlessly giving a hint that motherboard was working.

1. I dismantled the laptop completely and separated motherboard from other components.
2. Removed heat sink and fan assembly.
3. Removed processor.
4. Located GPU (ATI mobility Radeon chip)
5. Isolated this chip by covering other electronic components by using alufoil with capton tapes.
6. Heated GPU using hot air gun by monitoring the temperature.
7. Needed to heat it up to 220deg celcius and maintain it for 1-2min. (Read temp profile for chip for more accurate info)
8. Left it cool down upto room temp.
9. Assembled back all laptop again.

Power up...And got everything running again....

Hope this help someone who need some info."

 

[Tecnomza]

Sorry for my English (google translator).
By God, ¡it is not a hardware problem!, Is UEFI boot Win8 frozen (It has a problem). To solve it have to do what he says "penplez05", but, WITHOUT DISCONNECT NOTHING.
Only need to press the power button for a minute or more. Then keep pressing Fn + F5 simultaneously and hold, press the start button. Recovery Screen appears. Choose "Restart PC" and wait.

It worked for my notebook Asus Q550L, but I suspect all about Asus UEFI boot.

They also have the possibility to enter the BIOS pressing the DEL button repeatedly immediately after starting. In BIOS, to load the default values ​​or go to System Administration and change to Enable LEGACY not to charge the Win8 image (also to add USB boot, watch videos on youtube).

I hope this post is helpful. I beg you not to touch the hardware.

Paul J. Pizarro - Argentina
Regards.

 

[Ronny_]

I had an Asus with black screen and no bios. Took the HD out, tried to start, then put it back and it worked.