Laptop Not booting, failed component most likely from over-heating

sharf

Estimable
Nov 17, 2014
4
0
4,510
I had an Asus G51JX-A1 that I had given to my brother. Recently, it died on him while it was in screensaver. His screensaver was just a slideshow and he noticed the picture hadn't changed in a while. He went over to it to wake it up and it was frozen. He killed the power and tried rebooting. The lights on the back of the monitor, and the HDD and other power lights illuminate, but no fan starts up and no video shows up.

He had taken it to a computer repair store and they said it was a bad motherboard, and possibly a bad graphics card. It would cost about $500 to fix it. Instead, he bought a new motherboard and I replaced it for him (I've fixed/built countless laptops and desktops so I'm confident I didn't damage anything new). The trick is, the computer behaves the exact same way. Lights come on, no display, no fan. After running for a bit, the heatsync is warm from the CPU, so I know it's doing something.

I also noticed it does not POST, no beep codes, nothing like that (even when I remove the RAM in an attempt to force them). If it was just a bad graphics card at this point I would expect the fan to turn on and there to be more activity from the computer. In my experience, this is not how a bad GPU behaves.

I'm worried the problem might be a bad CPU, or perhaps the motherboard he ordered was DOA.

Does anyone have any ideas? The goal is to fix this thing without spending too much money. For $500 he could get a new laptop. So I'm not looking to have a store repair it or to spend a bunch of money on random parts.

I appreciate any help I can get!
 
Solution
I would try and take the hard drive out, and run it in an external enclosure, and make sure it is still functioning. Also, make sure the CPU is seated properly, and has the correct amount of thermal paste. If it has more than one stick of RAM, try booting it with one of the sticks removed, and then the other to see if that makes any difference.

digitaldoc

Distinguished
Herald
I would try and take the hard drive out, and run it in an external enclosure, and make sure it is still functioning. Also, make sure the CPU is seated properly, and has the correct amount of thermal paste. If it has more than one stick of RAM, try booting it with one of the sticks removed, and then the other to see if that makes any difference.
 
Solution

sharf

Estimable
Nov 17, 2014
4
0
4,510
CPU is seated properly, and thermal paste is good. It has 3 sticks of RAM and 4 DIMMs, I've tried them all in each DIMM, nothing. Also the HDD works fine in another computer, already backed it up.
 

digitaldoc

Distinguished
Herald
It sounds like a bad motherboard with the additional information. I do not believe it is a power supply issue as you should not have any lights then.

I had a notebook die like this after 2 short years, and unfortunately I had to toss it as it was not worth spending hundreds on it with no guarantee it was going to work after that.

I believe you are in a similar situation.
 

sharf

Estimable
Nov 17, 2014
4
0
4,510
Apparently in my past troubleshooting I missed something. I tried reseating the GPU (a ridiculous undertaking), which didn't fix the problem, and rotated all the RAM sticks in the DIMMS and found a bad DIMM. Since there are only 3 sticks that's fine. Though it doesn't bode well for this replacement board. Now, unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting windows to boot.