G53JW BIOS Frequently Won't Load

Hi all,

I've only had my G53JW for about a month now, and have had some issues with my BIOS not loading on initial boot. Here's what happens.

1. After pushing the power button, the power light comes on, but the bios doesn't load.

2. After about 5 seconds or so, the rear fans start blowing at full speed.

3. I crash the system by holding down the power button for 5 seconds.

4. Most of the time the laptop then boots fine on a second attempt.

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? I was thinking it might have been a residual charge issue, but it happens pretty frequently and after the laptop has been off for quite a while. As an aside, the laptop is always plugged into a surge protector.

As a second aside, when I first got the laptop this happened almost daily and it finally stopped booting all together, so I sent it off and ASUS replaced the motherboard. I figured the problem was fixed, but it did it again last night, so I though I'd poke round and see if anyone had any thoughts. I'm also not sure if I should push ASUS to replace the entire laptop at this point, but it booted fine this morning, and it's hard to explain to the customer support rep that there's a problem when it seems to work ok. "It booted ok, so the problem must be solved."

Many thanks!

 

Remove Battery/Power line and press power button for 30-40 sec. Then try to restart again.

Also try to reset your BIOS settings.

New bios version 211 available at ASUS download center. (BTW never use USB 3.0 when you flash your bios using easyflash.)

 

I concur, update to current BIOS, and then go into it via F2 and select "Reset to Defaults" or whatever it's called, to clear out whatever legacy settings are in the CMOS.

 

Might be a bad memory stick, memtest86 to be sure.

 

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I upgraded to v.211 using the BIOS' EasyFlash utility, and did a memory check. Everything seems fine, although I couldn't figure out how to test the video ram, if there is such a utility.

Do you all know if holding a residual charge is common problem with these laptops? So far it's only happened once on this board, unlike the last board, where it happened daily, so I'll post back here if it happens again.

Thanks again.

 

I've never had the issue before, and I had 3 laptops here.

 

Alrighty. I started having issues again more frequently and after speaking with a customer support supervisor, they placed rush RMA placed on the laptop. I was hoping they would simply replace it since it has only worked for me problem free for about two weeks of the time I had it (I purchased it at the beginning of March), but they didn't.

I got it back tonight and the report said that there were no problems found, and they sent it back to me as is. It didn't boot, however, out of the repair box! I'm really not sure what to do, so I made two youtube videos of me working to get the computer to turn on. I had to do this about three times a week to get it to start prior to sending it back to them a second time on 4/12/11. To note, in the video I said I held down the power button for 30 seconds, when it was 22 or 23, so that might be the problem -- although, honestly, I had tried a bunch of times prior to making a video and couldn't get the bios to start. When it turns on in the first video, that's actually the first time it loaded. There are two different types of boot oddities, the first is that it just doesn't start and the fans start blowing hard, but then when I try to get it to start a second time, it shuts down immediately.

Maybe I need to time myself to make sure I drain the power for 40-60 seconds, instead of just counting to 30 or 40. I don't think it's reasonable, however, to have to keep doing this just to get it to turn on. It already burned through one motherboard, so I'm worried it's just a matter of time before I lose another, and don't feel safe putting all my sensitive files on it. I'm really hoping there is something I can do, because at this point, I would just like it to work consistently.

Part 1: YouTube - ASUS G53JW Power Issues (Part 1 of 2)
Part 2: YouTube - ASUS G53JW Power Issues (Part 2 of 2)

Thanks again, all.