S96S crashed, won't boot, video distortion, fried video card?

I went to wake up my laptop from its sleep state and power came on for a sec, and as soon as the screen displayed anything, it locked up. After 5-10 seconds it automatically rebooted. The boot screen appeared and had verical lines and pixilation across it. It would get to the windows vista loading screen with the scrolling bar at the bottom and then it froze again.

I immediately shut it down from there. I started it back up, went into the bios and noticed the fan wasn't displaying any rpms, checked the fan itself and yup it wasn't moving. and then I shut it back down immediately. Temps were only 60 C though. I opened up the rear of the case and pulled off the fan/heatsink. The cpu thermal paste looked ok, but the GPU had the stock thermal pad and it looked like it was a little deteriorated. I cleaned both the cpu and gpu and the heatsinks off. Both appeared okay visually. I applied new arctic silver to both and reapplied the heatsinks and fan.

I attempted to start the computer and now it displayed even worse, the vertical lines are still present, and now it displayed almost 6 distored screens images on the same screen. The fan initially started but shut off after a few seconds. I went into the bios and confirmed this, and saw the cpu/gpu temps rise without the fan kicking on.

So based on the visual display problems my guess is that the gpu overheated and is now bad. Or could it also be the cpu? The problem is definately hardware and not software. Its not the ram either, unless both sticks went bad, as i tried removing one at a time and the problem persisted. Unfortunately I don't keep spare cpus lying around so I can't swap that, and the gpu is intergrated right? Probably not the lcd screen either?

If it is the GPU, then I would needs a new motherboard, which means a new case/motherboard combo right? Or can i find just the motherboard/gpu and a new fan somewhere?

Any imput you have would be great. Thanks

I'd post pics but it won't let me since I don't have 15 posts

 

Yes it looks indeed like overheating + GPU failure. To make sure try booting with an external screen, if the external is jumbled as well then it's clearly the GPU.

You can buy and replace just the motherboard + fan, it will set you back between 200-400 USD I guess. Check ASUS eStore if you're in the US, or one of the resellers.

We have a disassembly manual here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=122632#disassembly

 

hi mikejwatkins,
did you heard about nvdia chip mayor failure?, if you didn't yet, maybe it's time to make a search (Google, or whatever search engine) and find out exactly what happen with your GPU, but don't worry, I am not here to just point out the problem and laugh about it, I'm the owner of a S96S laptop case and i experimented this same issue before:

Description:
six small clones screen when you turn your laptop on.
no sign of video when windows (or linux) fully start.
maybe a little random pixel o lines on the screen.
no video in the external video output.

Cause:
Your GPU is dead because nvidia made the things bad (again).

Solution:
Ok, first i need to advice something: your GPU and maybe your motherboard is completely useless now and you don't need to be so much gently with them.

1)
Basics: unscrew you fan, heatsink, wireless card, bluetooth card and memory.
2)
take a dry hair and put the heat air stream under the GPU for 5 min.
3)
screw all again and turn on your laptop, and everything is ok now.

please don't ask why this trick work because I'm terrible with explanations and tutorials. If you had curiosity find it out yourself.

PD:
if you care, yes, I fixed my own laptop with this trick, and yes, I have working in and manufacturing electronic company for a while as a engineer.

 

YEAP Alex18c is TRUE!!!!
This solution worked for me!!!

THANKSSSSS

 

Hi Alex18c, prozak

I have same problem:
six small clones screen
no video in the external video output

Asking little advice, because two attempts to fix my GPU- failed.
I did exactly llike Alex18c said 123.
What could be the failing possibilities?
Not so powerful/hot hairdryer?
Do I have to remove also that black film and heat whole gpu processor or
just a chip thru that hole?
Do I have to cover/protect other parts on mb from overheating?
How far (cm) I have to hold hairdryer from gpu?
Is 5 minutes enough to heat?
Thanks in advance...

Sorry for my english...
s96s, GPU-gf 8600m gs

 

I am sure that the fix posted by Alex18c is NOT a guaranteed fix. It may at most possibly fix the damage if it was not so severe.

If the fix didn't work then most likely your GPU is dead for good...

 

We service these notebooks almost on a daily basis. though most vga artifacts are due to vga defect sometimes the lcd data cable can be the cause too. in your case because it affects the normal functionality of the laptop i would suspect it to be the vga card which is part of the mainboard.

 

Thank You guys for quick reply.
Sure, I know and understand that this kind of fix is not 100% guaranteed.
There could be number of reasons- starting from revisions a1, a2 etc and
ending with just a bad luck. I have read many articles of problematic 8000
series and how Nvidia denies it. theinquirer.net gives quite good overview.

Anyway.
My lappy is almost useless without working GPU.
I disconnected display from mb (that gives me forced external vga output)
I got "black hole cubics"(some text almost unreadable) in DOS mode (external display) and vertical stripes in Mini XP (Hirens CD)- so its definitely gpu problem.

I have nothing to lose- but I dont want completely kill my gpu too...
So-(still believe in miracles)- I want to put my GPU to the limits
If you have any suggestions- I will give a try.

Ermo.

 

A large hammer perhaps?

I don't have any useful suggestions, sorry. :S

 

Hi again everyone,
I had a very good news, recently I started to notice some random freezes when I was playing games and this was the reason for what a I decided to made a overall fix to this issue.

Note:
I am not lying when I say that this will be a bad ending if it is not made correctly.

Procedure:
Maybe its time to spend a little and replace your old and useless dry machine for a more powerfully and professional heat gun (I am not kidding these things are awesome, I bought a GE and only the satisfaction of create a 1000 Celsius degrees in two or three seconds for multiple purposes is splendid) and a good thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5 is great).

In a little introduction I can tell you that you need to do the same steps described previously with some differences that I'll explain later:

1)
Basics: unscrew you fan, heatsink, wireless card, bluetooth card and memory.
2)
take a dry hair and put the heat air stream under the GPU for 5 min.
3)
screw all again and turn on your laptop, and everything is ok now.

first follow the step 1 and If you can, remove as many extra obstacles as possible (remember that less is better when you are gonna toast your motherboard).

the second part is when everything become tricky:
Some guys asked me how much they should put the hot stream of air on the chip and what is the right angle to "attack the chip", the answer is simple, doesn't exist a calculated time or angle, you need to seek for the temperature on the chip, Why?, simple, yours little pads are made of lead free solder and all that you want to do is reflow this pads (sorry cracked and useless pads) to stick them nicely between the PCB and the chip; By fortune we know what is the right temperature to melt these balls of solder (depending of the compost they melt between 199 - 240 Celsius degrees), so, If you had a good thermometer is time to look for it.

Put your heat gun in minimum temperature (Only if you want to be cautious) and start the reflow process :

1) carefully start heating the chip from a very prudent distant (1 feet, more or less) and gradually minus the distant till reach the desired temperature (between 250 and 260 Celsius degrees).

2) With a stick press the chip kindly to try to paste the broken pads again. In this step the chip are almost only attached by the solder balls (pads) and we really don't want a mess, so, don't overdue it with an excessive force.

3) equally important is the way you remove the heat from the chip, we don't want an abrupt change of temperature and we'll apart the hot air as carefully as we heated the chip.

4) wait .....
and then wait more .... (everything need to be cold to continue).

5) Replace your old and useless thermal past with the new and shiny arctic circle 5 (or whatever you bought it).

6) put everything in place again.

6a) I did a little extra modification and added extra cooling devices (mmm, just a random extra heat sink and a new fan) to prevent overheating and its done.

7) Test the laptop and say thanks.