G73lh A-1 Boot Issue, :(

Hi all am really hoping that someone can point me in the right direction.
I tried to search for the answer but to no avail.

OK here's what happens, sometime when I turn on my g73 it wont start up. I press power button and I get the blue LED's on the laptop (pwr button,3 hotkeys upper left, and theone on the front lip) but nothing else happens, it won't boot no matter how long I wait. Sometimes the fans spin up also, but again nothing happens. I then press and hold the pwr button until is shuts off, and then hit pwr again and usually it starts/boots up fine with no others problems, sometimes it takes several tries to get it to power up correctly.

I have no idea what is causing this to happen. I tried everything I can think of to fix this but no luck.

I am pretty sure I'm not the only person this is happening to and hope someone has found the cause.

Thanks in advance, Ron

 

Ron, you're not alone. There are at least three other G73 owners including me that have a similar boot issue. Coincidentally, I just sent a PM to another user on this forum who's having the same problem. Here's the background on what I know:

I press the power button and 3 seconds later I can hear the hard drive suddenly stop, the keyboard lights go out and the screen is black. Then, another 2 seconds later the hard drive spools up again, the keyboard lights come back on and the boot process finishes...but the screen never recovers and stays off! (I know the boot process completes because I can hear the Windows theme chime after it loads.)

Sometimes the start up cycle hangs two times in a row during the same boot up. Meaning, after I press the power button the hard drive stops, spools up again and then stops a second time, and spools up a third time. The screen stays black/off the entire time and windows eventually loads.

I just moved and haven't had much time to troubleshoot. My G73 came loaded with bios version 206 so I think it might be a hard drive issue. I'm going to look into a way to mirror my primary OS drive onto my second hard drive then swap them. That should identify if it's just the drive.

Is your problem the same as I've discussed or slightly different? What have you tried to fix it?

I plan on calling my reseller (powernotebooks) and then Asus later this week. I'll let you know what I find out. In the mean time carefully listen to your hard drive when you turn on your G73 to see if it's hanging and doing the same thing. You'll hear a slight click as it suddenly stops. Obviously, this isn't good for the life of the drive!

 

Well mine does nothing other than I get all the Blue Lights and sometimes the fans go to high after a bit, but nothing else.

I have to press and hold power button to turn it off, then I wait a few secs hit it again and usually it boots up and runs normal (sometimes I have to do it a couple of times).
I tried turning off anything that may seek to update anything (window update, Asus Live, virus boot scan ect), but I still get the same issue.
It only happens once in awhile and when I restart it everything works fine.

I have had the g73 since March 2 and have none of the other issues that some people seem to have, just this one thing. I have tried system wipe clean win 7 64bit instal ect, no help.

I have bios 2.06 and everything else is up to date, but it did this once in awhile even when I first got it and had bios from release.

Ron

 

I have the same issue but only if I fill the last memory slot. As long as I take out the ram from the last slot it boots correctly. I asked one of the other people who has the problem to test it for me but got no response. Can one of you try removing the ram from the top slot and see if that improves the situation?

Cheers,

 

My last 2 G73JH's had the same problem that you guys are experiencing about once a week. They both encountered the error while I was trying to show off the unit at the time. Talk about bad luck. Both of those units did it with 6GB's of ram.

My 3rd unit has 8GB's of ram. It has yet to experience this problem.

 

Mine has 8gb 1333mhz ram, I have not tried removing a ram stick to see if that the problem. The thing is that most times it does not repeat, meening when I hard pwr off and then try agin it works fine.

Can RAM be intermittent like that? My system reads all 8gigs and runs perfectly when up.

It would be nice if I could see the post screen at start, is there anyway to enable them?

 

This may or may not help, but I'll throw it out on the off chance it might:

I built a desktop once that had a similar issue. Sometimes it'd start to boot and lock @ memtest, sometimes the board would light up and the fans would come on but no screen. Have to power down by holding the button, then power it up again.

Turns out the power supply was a little flaky and causing the problem. A higher quality PSU fixed the issue.

Granted, you wouldn't THINK you'd have an issue like that with a notebook with an onboard battery, but it's a thought.

 

this matches a problem with my xt5000t back in the day, what would happen is that i would usually have to either leave the laptop on till it got really hot before it would turn on. the first time it acted up like this i returned it and the motherboard and the memory stick that came with it was replaced and nothing else (had overheated and memory burnt out).

side note...2 memory sticks were inside at the time one from manufacturer and extra that i bought. the extra was completely fine after testing.

for the heating it up before turning on it was said that doing that would help make the internal contacts work better by giving them better "contact" to the board. after awhile that stopped working.

the next thing i wound up doing was to take out the battery and unplug it and attempt a reset of the bios by holding down the power button for 30-60secs, this worked for awhile but then stopped like the last solution.

i knew it was the motherboard problem, but since the company closed up shop in the US i could not return it to get it fixed for a second time. the unit lasted a year though before and after the first replaced motherboard all that started happening.

 

Yes there is a way to have the startup screen show all the messages. I'm not in front of the machine now but I think it's called verbose boot or something like that.

Can you try removing the easiest to remove RAM stick? I'd just like to know if the problem is widespread and easily recreated. If so I'll live with the 6GB limit since other than this one issue my system has been working perfectly.

When I add that 4th RAM module the system just give a brief attempt to start and shuts off. Trying different ram makes no difference. As long as I take out that last module I'm trying to add, it boot perfectly every time.

Cheers,

 

It's interesting many of you are mentioning RAM might be the culprit. When I ran hwinfo32 the first thing I noticed was that my G73 had 2 different brands and speeds of RAM! 3 sticks of Hynix (Hyundai) at 1066 MHz and 1 stick of Kingston at 1333 MHz (located at "Row 3").

Panzer06, I'll see if I can remove the top one and run it a few days.

Has anyone that experienced this problem noticed different brands of RAM?

 

Just checked all 4 sticks are hyundai 1333mhz.
Funny thing since I made this post have not had it happen, I think maybe my g73 is on to me and is a little bit scarred

The next time it happens I will try the ram removal and see what happens.

 

I talked with Asus tech and they had no idea, but thought it was not available. If you could let me know how when you get a chance I'd appreciate it.

 

Is it ok to have different speeds of ram installed?

 

Looks like you are correct. I was remembering my G72. I just looked and the G72 has an option to turn off the full screen logo boot. I cannot find any similar option on the G73.

Cheers,

 

this is my second Asus G73jh and I haven't had this problem, strange!
does it get stuck at POST test or it bots (you can hear for example the login sound etc) but the screen doesn't work?

 

IT shouldn't be an issue, since they will all be clocked at the lowest frequency of the stick, usually people don't do this, I guess they had shortages.

 

On mine it doesn't relly post at all. Just some lights flicker and maybe a strangled beep and it powers off or hangs and I do a hard boot. I take out the last ram module and it boots fine. I can rearrange the ram but no matter which module goes in the last slot it will not boot with 4 modules installed. I hate to RMA it since it works perfectly otherwise. So I live with 6GB which is fine for all the games I currently play.

Cheers,

 

I assume it gets stuck on the POST. it doesnt do anything other than I get all the blue lights (pwr , 3 hot keys upper left corner, caps lock, number lock, ect, to spool up of hds or anything like that.

I press and hold the pwr button untill it shuts off, wait a couple of secs and hit the pwr button and everything starts normal and it works perfectly.

Is really getting on my nerves that other people also have the problem but cant figure out whats causing it. But the one guys thoughts seem to make sence that something is not passing the p.o.s.t.
Would be freaking nice if you could actually see the post text then you would know right away what the issues is, is stupid that tey hide it.

If someone can figure out a way to get that to work all our problems would be solved.

 

You know it kind of sounds like a hard drive delay issue, where the hard drive isn't spinning up in time. It's probably something else, but if you want you could try this.

When you first power it on it fails to boot, but the second time you power it on it boots. What would happen if in between you waited long enough for the hard drive to completely spin down before hitting the power for the second time? Would the second attempt also fail?

Or, if instead on the first boot you went into BIOS, waited a moment or two and then discarded and exited? Does the first attempt now succeed?

To the other person, all four of my sticks are Kingston 1333. I'm from the old school of thought that all pairs should be matched.

 

usually there is a manual with the number of beeps and what they mean, I had a bios manual before about that, strange thing is that it does not show anything on screen so it encounters an error before checking the screen or the HDD. do you have the latest bios? cause the first thing when you power on is that the bios witch is avaible at a virtual memory address higher than the latest address gets copied into RAM, (beginning) so the problem might be that when you get higher than 6GB it tried to read from actual ram instead the BIOS (just an idea)

 

Well, got my G73JH-A1 from TD and I am very disappointed about the build quality, as I hit one of the more annoying issues, the boot-up problem.

Everything was going quite well until I decided to close the laptop lid and move it to the other room. I opened the laptop and noticed that it hard froze, so I did a forced shutdown and the laptop does not even boot (all lights are on but no screen activity, stays like this until I turn it off).

I then proceeded to remove all but the single ram module that was under the keyboard and still no luck. I put all the ram back together, thinking it was just a fluke, but now the laptop doesnt even stay on for more then 5 seconds. Before I moved the ram modules, the HD indicator light would be lit for a while then off, while the laptop is hanging at the post screen, but now it does not even light, even with the hard drives connected or not.

I suppose its time for a TD RMA?

 

oh yes, yes indeed. its DOA I believe.

 

Apparently, TD doesnt do RMAs online, only returns unless I have to call them up for an item exchange or do I have to deal with ASUS for that RMA?

EDIT: Called TD for a exact laptop exchange. Hopefully when the laptop gets here AND it still doesnt work, I am opting for a full refund.

 

mine hard froze after leaving it in sleep for awhile today. did a forced shutdown and it got to login, put in password and it hard froze again. restarted again to see if it was still trying to clear up something, but it hard froze again. so i boot into safe mode hoping it wouldn't freeze, it didnt and i started checking event viewer to see what had happened said it had some problems loading something cant remember what right now and i couldnt even figure out what it was.

then i started wondering if it was something to do with having steam running while i shut it down and still having all the creative software installed. so i uninstalled the sound audigy thingy and restarted and logged in fine. i dont know if it really was the reason for my being able to log in or not but i'm in now.

i have the bb-rbbx05 version.

 

I got my A2 a few weeks ago and i have this boot issue.
Lights come on and can hear HDD spinning but nothing on the screen. Have to force shutdown a few times or do a power cycle to get to boot up.
I was told by ASUS support that the only possible fix is to update BIOS to 2.06. That didn't help.
So will be sending back to retailer as RMA. I get the feeling it may be a motherboard issue

But i have another issue which may or may not be related to the boot issue. When gaming especially when there is a lot of fast motion, the image appears to be slightly out of sync vertically (image breaking up vertically). After googling i found that this is called 'Screen Tearing'. Have any of you experienced this?

 

Unfortunately, they tell people to update the BIOS as if it's the only words in their vocabulary. In doing so, some have lost their keyboard backlighting due to their fix. Just something to keep in mind.

 

Not booting with 4 sticks of RAM : This was an issue with me with an P35 Asus mobo. The problem was that 4 full banks requires a 2T setting in the timings for it to post properly. Unfortunately in the BIOS, if the "Overclocking Protection" kicked in, and resets to default values, it defaulted to 1T refreshes and wouldn't post. My only solution was to pull one stick, post, get into the BIOS, reset the refresh rate to 2T, shutdown, replace the stick, and restart. Needless to say, that mobo was replaced eventually with a Gigabyte

Asus loves to tweak their BIOS for performance, and sometimes will not have the best settings for compatibility at defaults.

Sounds to me the laptops are experiencing a similar issue with certain RAM combos.

 

Yup, happens when you are displaying stuff too fast then your monitor can handle, which is usually 60hz.

To prevent screen tears, enable vsync but it may reduce performance as well, (limit rendering fps to 30 or 60)

 

Hey Chasity, will this "2T" refresh rate reset stay, or do you have to set it every time you power up your laptop? My G73 shipped with one oddball stick of RAM (different brand and speed than the other three sticks) and It's hanging and restarting with a black screen 2 seconds after I press the power button. I'm either going to pull it the 4th stick of RAM out and see how things run or try the refresh rate reset you metioned. Can you please explain how this is changed and if it will remain set after it's switched in the BIOS?
Thanks

 

Oh great, I just remembered to format the drive since it has some of my personal stuff, so I unpacked it from the box, took out the hard drives and connected both to my pc.

While it was formatting, I figured "Why the hell not", I put the battery into the laptop with no drives, turned it on, expecting a non-booting system just to make sure, but instead I was greeted with an ASUS logo like nothing happened.

Since all of my personally tweaked installation is now gone, should I keep this laptop still or send it back to the TigerDirect and hopefully get something that is a bit more stable?

EDIT: Found out by dumb luck about why its does not boot; sticking any drive into the right side of the laptop (nearest to the ram module), it does not post so I am chalking it up as hardware defect. Going to exchange it with TD for a non-defective/fully working one.

EDIT 2: Out of pure curiosity, I switched the hard drive positions and now both drives work on the laptop and it also boots as well. (although quite slowly and some weird Windows 7 glitches)
WHAT IS GOING ON?!

 

For those of you considering upgrading your BIOS to fix the problem, my G73 shipped with version 2.06 (206) and it has the boot problem regardless.

 

If the oddball stick is a different speed than the paired set, then it's gonna cause issues with the Symmetrical Double-Rate mode. I would contact Asus and have them send you a matching RAM unit.

For the time being, pull the oddball out, and operate in Asymetrical mode. (I don't believe we have the option to set it in BIOS, so it should do that automagically)

 

I opened her up and the odd stick of RAM happens to be the one on the motherboard slot. Go figure. I'm calling Asus to see what they say about sending me 3 new sticks to match them up. They'll probably want me to send it back vs. shell up the additional sticks of RAM. I'll post the results.

 

Check this link for a discussion on a new BIOS version 209. This might help with the boot issue, but I'm still calling Asus before I commit:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/485568-g73jh-bios-209-your-risk.html

 

I don't think the new BIOS is going to help, however, you could check the G73 disassembly guide and get at that persnickity stick.

 

I'm using the new bios and still have the same problem

 

After numerous attempts to get 8GB to boot on my G73, I removed all but the hidden module and rebooted. It would not post, just a brief beep and a few light before it shut off.

I then added one 2GB, skipped a slot and added another. It booted up fine but only saw 4GB, still ignoring the top slot.

I then populated all slots and it booted! Why!? Who knows. It's been working 2 days now with all 8GB finally. These systems seem to be very finicky at times. I've not updated the bios or ATI drivers with all the problems being reported here.

I don't dare touch the RAM now that it's working.

Cheers,

 

So based on panzer's experience it sounds like a RAM seating issue??

I have had this issue from day one and it always happens after the unit had been shut down for a few hours. Interestingly, it booted up on first attempt last night. The only thing i can think of is that i shut down whilst running on battery only and then booted it up on battery power only (AC not plugged in).
i'll try it again tonight to see if it happens again. Maybe something for you guys to experiment with...

 

I've attempted to narrow down probable causes with the power adapter, shutting down on battery vs plug, resume from sleep/hibernate vs fresh power on, etc. I've verified my specific problem doesn't fall into one of these categories. At this point I agree it's either:
1 - BIOS
2 - The primary Hard drive
3 - RAM related

I'll have to do more research on when the RAM comes into play during the BIOS POST. Could the RAM really cause a reboot/hang within 2-3 seconds of powering up?

 

Other than this boot issue i am very happy with my unit, no GSOD or other serious issues as reported by others. so the dilemma is whether to RMA and risk ending up with a unit with a more serious problem, or go through ASUS service/repair which by some reports don't have the best reputation.
What are you guys doing?

 

Well it seems that this problem is much more prevalent than I thought. While I'm glad it's not just me, it sucks that so many are having this problem.

Other than this once in a while boot issue this laptop works perfectly. I am really wary about RMAing it and getting another one which may have more severe issues that other people are experiencing.

I think that I may just sit tight for now as it is only a once in awhile issue and I have 2 years of warranty to cover myself. If it becomes a more frequent issue (where its just a PIA) I will then RMA it for a new one.

Has anyone gotten any help/suggestions from Asus other than update bios ect? I think everyone that has this issue should contact Asus and make a ticket on it. If enough people do it and it gets to be a known issue maybe it will get addressed.

Maybe in the meantime someone else will actually figure out what causing it and we'll all be happy.

Ron

 

I'm going to continue to trouble shoot the 3 items I believe to be the root cause, call Asus about the issue, and enjoy the heck out of my G73's performance (after it boots correctly, lol). If it gets worse, or the end of my warranty period starts to draw near then I'll RMA it.

Absolutely!

 

Hello to all. I have been here around on asus forums for couple months now. And for about two weeks before I have gotten G73JH A2 from USA (reside in europe). And Ihave noticed imidietly that my model stuck on asus screen always on cold boot. Means if laptop was off overnight when i try to boot it it stuck and i have to restart and then loads Ok. I can restart it after that as many times as ii want and no problems. Which leads me to think that its something bios related. I think its some error in bios which refuse to load windows if sensors are reading temps under 25 C deg. or so which is my room temp. My bios is 205 originally and i havent upgraded it yet. Other then that have no other major problems loke gsod, psod, bsod (not once).

 

I found something interesting while doing some system tweeks that may, repeat may have something to do with our issue.

I was adjusting the size of the system restore settings (which hd's to protect ect) and I noticed that I had 2 C drives listed there. One had the OS on it and the other had nothing on it, in fact it had (missing) next to it in the description box. What was wierd though is that it was the only drive that had system protection / restore active.

I highlighted the second C drive and deactivated it, and then it dissapeared.
Its been 2 days now and have not had the boot issue again, so maybe ...........

Check and see if you guys have something like that as well you never know, maybe the system is trying to boot up using that C drive and since there is nothing on it, nothing happens, worth a shot.

Oh and btw also of note while in the advanced section of power/performance settings I also found the the gpu was set to max bat life, even when plugged in!!!, and cpu was also set to only 50% of max and 5% min (the power saving settings) while plugged in!!! should be 100% max.

I switched these to the correct settings and gained 25 fps in STO on the spot.

Ron

 

Mine had the same issue, I made it best buys problem and walked away

 

Well I guess that wasnt it, had the same no boot issue today /sigh .

Guess we have to keep looking

 

yes.same here.My room temps is always under 25c in the morning and always have this issue.Then I didn't turn on my computer today morning and i went to uni,after that i went back home,then turn on and there was no boot problem.

 

I believe very strong now that its bios related. But I dont see it as big problem really. Can noen who have installed new beta 209 bios confirm if this error has been repaired or not.

 

i have installed the beta bios.It still have this problem

 

This is definitely a good thread to cover all boot related issues. But I've noticed there are slight differences on when and how our machines hang up during start. For those of you that have machines that hang on the Asus screen try the following:
- Uninstall the Asus Fancy Start program (recommend using Revo Uninstaller's "advanced" option since it scrubs the registry for leftovers during the uninstall process).
- Enter the BIOS (F2 during start) and set the startup chime ON and the startup logo to DYNAMIC (or something like that, I'm at work and can't verify the exact wording.
- Power down the laptop, remove the plug and battery, then press and hold the power button for at least 15 seconds. Put the battery and plug back in and power it up as normal.

Since the machine is hanging at the point were the BIOS looks for these options this may help resolidify what it's looking for. I made the above changes to my G73, as well as removed the partitions from both drives using the built in Windows 7 feature and I HAVEN'T HAD A BOOT ISSUE SINCE (approximately 10 boots).

I have no idea if any or all of the above actions helped; it might be pure coincidence. In case the hard drive partition removal had something to do with it I've listed the instructions below (pasted from Paladin's post). If anyone applies the above steps and still has the boot issue please reply so we will know it was random luck. BTW, my machine has BIOS 206, the version it came with.

You can repartition both drives using: Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage.
You do not need any third part utility.
In the windows at the bottom you start with the D: drive - right click and then click Delete Volume, then right click again and Delete Partition, then right click on the C: drive and click Extend Volume. Just go through the Wizard and you have deleted the D: drive.
Then start with the G: drive (or the drive letter on the right). Right click and Delete Volume, then right click on the drive letter remaining on the bottom and click Extend Volume.

EDIT: Sorry all, this doesn't seem to have fixed the issue. I did get through 15 successful boots with no issues, but my machine still has the problem.