G51Jx-A1 reboot problem... just doesn't reboot!

Hi,

I've been experiencing this problem for a while and this past week-end I had to uninstall/reinstall some drivers and it really got on my nerves.

EVERYTIME I need to reboot the laptop for an install/uninstall/windows update, whatever!, my laptop doesn't reboot.

If I choose to reboot when asked, reboot later or shut down the laptop and start it again, it doesn't matter, same result.

What it does is simple: it does nothing. Llaptop closes, the screen goes black and when I expect to see the Republic of Gamers logo (pre-bios), there is just nothing and the HDD light stops. I even waited for many hours and it didn't boot. At that point, if I hold the power button until it stops and start it again, same thing.

The only trick I found so far to make it boot again is to remove the battery, unplug the power for 1 minute (approx), replug the power and hit the power button.

That's pretty annoying. Am I the only one who is experiencing this problem? I've search on the net and didn't find anything specific like this.

Thanks in advance!

 

Have you tried going into the BIOS setup menu at boot (F2 key) and reset to user defaults?

 

Nope, I didn't. I'll try, but I don't remember changing anything in the bios. Thanks, I'll report later.

 

I made a test without disconnecting the power and it turns out it does boot, but after the same amount of time, so it may not be related to power.

I pressed F9 in the BIOS to get the Optimized Default settings and restarted... and my laptop didn't restart.

I'm starting to think that it looks like a heat threshold. Like if the laptop needs to cool down a little before starting again. But according to EVGA and SpeedFan, my cores idle at ~56Celcius and my GPU ~77Celcius.

Any ideas?

 

Is it hot to the touch when it won't turn on?

 

Well... not more than usual I think. I mean, the air flow going out is hot when Idle in Windows (56Cel for CPUs, 78Cel for GPU). So the laptop is hot.

But I don't see a lot of difference between the moment the laptop won't start and when it starts.

For example:
- Windows at Idle. Decide to reboot.
- Doesn't reboot, so I wait (try unplugging, replugging the power). Doesn't work
- Wait for about 1 minute, then retry.
- It boots, I go in the BIOS, change a thing, save and reboot.
- Won't reboot. So I wait 10 seconds;
- It boots.

It took less time after Bios. That looks a lot like a temperature threshold. Really weird and annoying hehe.

 

If it's not hotter than normal, and not at the point where it's powering off due to heat, that is really doubtful unless you have some kind of busted sensor or dying fan that won't spin up immediately.

Have you tried pulling one stick of RAM at a time, and also the hard drive(s)? Is the fan working OK when it starts up?

Any number of things can cause it to fail to POST... also try it without the battery only on AC power.

 

Does it reboot successfully from safe mode?
Does event viewer have any errors around the same time as you shutdown?

 

@ALLurGroceries: This past week-end, my battery was unplug all the time. For the fan, I only see one and it is working since I can hear it. Are there other fans hidden somewhere? Note that I only removed the cover panel that protects the HDD bay, memory, GPU and CPU, I haven't removed anything else so far.

I haven't tried with the memory sticks and the HDD, but will. Thanks for the advice.

@iutbf: it doesn't reboot nor have any problem in Windows. When I power off the laptop and restart it just after, it won't boot at all, not even reaching BIOS.

 

I just opened the back cover for cleaning, just in case and it was quite clean actually.

 

Your problem isn't with shutting down for the reboot, right? It's with POST after your system soft resets..?

If that's the case I would try yanking out RAM and HDD(s) and see if that makes any difference. A bad battery chip could also do that in some circumstances but if you have tried it with the battery out and it made no difference, that is ruled out.

 

I'm not sure what POST means to be honest. But a typical example is as follow:

- Hit "Shutdown" in Windows and wait for the laptop to turn off.
- When turned off, press the power button.
- Maybe 2 to 3 seconds after I pressed the power button, the LEDs turn on, the screen remains black;
- After 1 to 2 seconds, the HDD LED stops flashing. All the other LEDs are working, still nothing on the screen.

And it stays like that forever. No ROG picture nor sound, no BIOS, nothing. Actually, the screen doesn't even look like it's powered on, so it's not a black background image I see, it's just a turned off screen. But I don't think the problem is the screen since the HDD LED doesn't lit up, which wound indicate me that Windows is starting.

NOTE: I wrote an example with a shutdown. But a "restart" action in Windows does the same.

 

POST = power on self test, it's what happens when you see the ASUS logo flash right when you first turn the machine on.

Try removing 1 stick of RAM at a time and removing the hard drives and see if it will POST normally.

Besides clearing your CMOS (reset BIOS to defaults) which you have already done, there are only a few things besides a motherboard (or GPU or less commonly CPU) problem that would do this.

Edit: If your HDD activity light is flashing like it's loading windows, try it on an external monitor. It could be an LCD problem. If you know the IP address of your PC and you still don't get anything from the display, try pinging it after a minute of the HDD activity to see if the machine is up. That would at least tell you if it's a display or GPU problem.

 

Well... what I mean by HDD activity is this basically that I can observe when I power-on the laptop:

- All LEDs turns on
- HDD LED flashes a couple of times (for 1 second, max 2)
- HDD LED turns off and remains off.
- Absolutely no sound comes from the laptop, except the fan.

For the idea of an external monitor, it has been tried. I have a 23in IPS screen I use all the time (HDMI). I tried unplugging it also just to rule out the monitor of the problem. No changes. Having a monitor pluged-in or not, that's the same.

So I'll go ahead tonight and try to remove RAM first. I'll get the laptop ready for HDD removal too, since I don't have a lot of time between reboots since at some point, the laptop starts normally.

 

Alright I made some attemps at overclocking my GTS 360M yesterday and I while doing it, I found something. I was getting a lot of driver crash even at 600/1600/1900, so I decided to remove the BETA drivers I was using and install the lastest stable drivers. So I uninstalled the drivers, rebooted, re-installed the new drivers, rebooted.

My 2 reboots were perfect. No hanging, nothing, just working ok. The I made an OCCT test and rebooted before attempting the 3DMark06 and it jammed.

I'm starting to think my problem is related to the video card...

 

Ah yes, overclocking your GPU too far can make it angry at you. I hope your card is OK. Good luck.

 

No no, I has been like that since I can't remember when. Probably from the beginning (1.5 years) actually. For the first time in my life, I tried overclocking this past week-end following the guide and being really conservative.

The guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-reviews-owners-lounges/487236-asus-g51jx-owners-lounge-102.html#post6799044

I mean, the max values I tried is like 600/1600/1900! But anyway, that's not the point. I have the reboot problem since... always. It just got me really angry this past week-end, so I decided to tackle it before warranty is finished.

 

Sorry to wake-up an old thread, but I have some news... I just got my laptop back from Asus, after 1 month. They changed the motherboard (+GPU) and RAM. Looks like there was indeed a real problem.

So far, it's working 100%!