ASUS A45A (K45A or K45VM) Laptop Issues

Hi there guys, I've been a long time reader but I hope this time I will get more involved in this forum.

It's been a month now since a weird problem started. Some times, the laptop won't boot. The power and battery LED are lit and the drive LED flashes two or three times. Nothing happens. The screen is off.

One day I called ASUS support and while I was on the phone with them, my laptop was on but showing the symptoms described above. We were about to finish the call with the details on how to send it when suddenly the laptop booted. It was about 15 minutes since I powered it on.

After it booted I told the guy on the phone that I found a BIOS update that somehow described a similar problem. That I would updated it and in case the problems rose agian, I would call it again.

I updated the UEFI/BIOS after and for a couple of weeks it worked. In the mean time, I constantly checked ASUS website to see if more UEFI updates were published. They were, and I flashed them all (about 4 or 5 since I bought the laptop).

The problem when powering became random. Some times it just worked perfectly after restarting/shutting it down several times to test. Sometimes, it won't boot no matter what.

There's something weirder: When it works normally, if I suspend it by closing the lid or using the charm settings, it randomly will crash Windows 8 when waking it. Windows shows an error, then restarts and boots as it should.

I have checked the RAM, the battery, I upgraded to an SSD and tried removing it and placing am HDD with the same luck.

I will call support tomorrow to send the laptop but I wonder if any of you guys have seen this in other Windows 8 laptops. As I did a clean install of Windows 8 Pro, ASUS website doesn't provide all the apps it came with. Perhaps I'm missing something important or not.

Just one time of all the dozens of tests I ran, the battery LED blinked three times. If there was a battery problem, the laptop would work normally when plugged in without it, right?

Any thought? I'm already desperate as I have plenty of experience but it's the first time I see this.

Thanks!

PS: sorry for the long post

 

Did you try an EC reset after those BIOS updates? It's not generally necessary, although I've seen that MSI recommends doing it after flashing the BIOS. Also, you don't generally want to update the BIOS unless you're experiencing a known problem that a newer BIOS version specifically addresses.

The wake from sleep/suspend issue is common to Windows 8 lately, it seems. Have you been able to check your minidumps to determine the error?

 

Thanks for the reply. I updated the BIOS because it showed on the website that some issues similar to what I've been experiencing were addressed in those updates.

I did the EC reset routine every time after flashing it.

The sleep/suspend errors were caused by the Instant On feature. I didn't install the Instant On utility from ASUS when doing the Win8 Pro clean install and after I install it, it clearly stated that using the "performance" settings, the battery would last a few days in suspend mode. I guess that's why I see some error when waking it up after a couple of days on suspended state.

The real problem is that the laptop is not booting and shows nothing on the screen (the screen panel is not lit up). The power and battery LEDs stay lit. Some times, when the battery is not connected, I'm power it on, waiting, etc. if I turn it off the laptop will turn itself on automatically after a few seconds.

This sounds like the BIOS/UEFI is trying to boot, encounters a problem and turns off (in this case the laptop hasn't turn off by itself, not once), just like it happens on desktop motherboards.

 

Ouch, that sounds like motherboard failure. Are you still under warranty?

That's usually an indication of a major malfunction/failure. Otherwise, the POST will yield some sort of beep code, subject to the BIOS developer (Phoenix or AMI are the two major BIOS producers).

 

I bought the laptop back in December so I'm under warranty. I already sent the laptop because I need it to work on my software development projects.

I will let you guys know when I hear back from ASUS to see what the problem was. Thanks for the replies.