UX31 Completely DEAD! Help.

Hello...

So there I was, being all happy with my one-week old UX31 (i5, 128gb).

So last night i'm using my laptop. I think my battery was down to about 15% when i put it to sleep (fn+f2).

The next morning, I wake up, grab the laptop and try to turn it on, but it doesn't. Funny, I thought, must have drained the battery while asleep.

I then walked to my charger, plugged it into my laptop and I recall the LED turning orange, as it always does. I didn't turn on the laptop.

Two or so hours later I see the LED is green, good I thought, that thing is fully charged. I press the power button and the little LED comes on, and so does the LED of the caps-lock. About two seconds later both LEDs switch off again (screen never switched on).

So I press the power again, and it does the same thing (lights ON, then off). The fourth or so time it no longer reacts to my power button press (no lights anymore). I then unplugged the charger and pressed the power button for about 10 seconds (to completely switch it off, if it wasn't already). I press power and nothing happens. Insert charger, and the LED stays green but pressing power has no effect.

So right now, my UX31 is completely dead, no matter which buttons I press it will not react in any way. I called Asus, they said "hmmm that's strange, you better send it in." Well the problem is that I'm out of the country for the next two weeks with my laptop (and I called Asus from abroad). I need the laptop for work, so I was hoping anyone here could give me some last things to try.

And yea, I'm the type of person who treats his UX31 like it is some kind of Ferrari. NOONE gets to touch it, it doesn't have a scratch, and I handled it perfectly.

Thanks.

 

Remove the charger and battery (if you can) Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds. reassemble and try to boot.
Check the bottom of the machine for a reset pin hole - if there is one remove all power - press and hold 10 seconds, then try to boot. Let us know.

 

I would like to remove the battery. I found a screwdriver that fits in the tiny torx screws at the bottom of the UX31. I just need someone tell me if they can tell that I opened it? If I screw everything back properly? I mean there certainly are no stickers covering anything, but I dont know if they have some special glue that will tell them I opened it thus voiding my warranty?

 

Generally only removal of CPU Or stuff attached to the motherboard can void the warranty, but to be safe I would wait till someone who knows more about this model posts. I did not realize you needed tools to remove the battery

 

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Personally I would leave it be, as opening it will probably void your warranty, send it in as soon as you can.
Have you tried pressing the power button for about 15seconds and see if that turns it on?

 

That sucks, I can offer no advice apart from do not open the UX31 up. Asus will assume you have done something on your part and you will void your warranty.

Send it in.

 

Alright. So I plugged the charger back in and pressed the power button, and the power light switches on. And... it stays on. It's still on as I type this. The caps-lock remains off. But... the screen doesn't turn on and it doesn't boot.

Yes I'll send it in at the end of the month. Sucks.

 

Does pressing 'enter' wake it up?

 

No enter does nothing.

Situation has changed slightly. When I press power now, all three leds switch on (wifi, caps lock and power) but they switch off after about two-three seconds. The screen never switches on (the ux31 switches off just as I expect the screen to turn on).

 

i would expect that ripping the bottom off, removing battery, removing cmos battery then leaving for 10 mins before reconnecting both in reverse order would sort it

however, on an expensive and new bit of equipment i wouldnt recommend it!lol!

 

Exactly how I felt about keeping it pristine with no scratches. Sent it in for RMA, requested special care, still comes back with new scratches. The issue was NOT FIXED, now it's back there again, probably accumulating MORE scratches. Pissed me off to no end.

 

Hey buddy!

I'm having the same problem with my UX31E-DH72... using it yesterday, regular use, I got the blue screen of Windows and then every time I try to turn the computer on I get the BIOS screen. BIOS cannot find my SSD at all.

Any clue of how to proceed with it?

RMA for me would be very hard because I bought the notebook when I was in USA and now I returned to my country (Brazil).

Many thanks in advance!

 

looks like your ssd is dead. you HAVE to send it in. Luckily the asus warranty is global.

 

Your issue is not the same, yours switches on. Mine doesn't.

 

I got exactly the same problem as SeBsZ. Yesterday I left my computer on to finish a back-up job. This morning, it wouldn't start and I got the same symptoms as SeBsZ's computer. A real drag because I went on a 3 week trip to Paris today. Perhaps one shouldn't buy notebooks with fixed batteries, I've had similar problems with Dell laptops but it could always be fixed by taking away the battery for a while. If someone has experience opening the UX31 and taking away the battery, I would be grateful to hear about it.

Cheers,

G

 

Ahh Gurax that absolutely sucks for you, I absolutely know the feeling because I took it abroad with me as well.

I'm just sending it in for repair. I'm actually a little glad to hear I'm not alone with this problem, but then again makes me worry that there are more people out there.

Kind of scary really to realize that I can't even unplug the battery. Good luck.

 

I just registered for the forum so I could respond to this.

Sounds exactly like what happened to my UX31 two weeks ago. Power lights come on but won't "wake up." Called Asus once, it fixed itself, then it happened again a second time. Called Asus, sent it to California, and just got it back today.

Hard drive is preserved, but the tech sheet says

"Issue was duplicated"

and

"Replaced System Board"

and that's all. I am bummed for you guys, and myself, as I specifically bought Asus because I was told they make their own boards.

Sure, DOAs happen, but you would think a company like this would nail it by now. Plus the trackpad/wifi problems....sigh.

Probably going to do a full re-install and get the new drivers (they just dropped a new Elantech driver a few days ago) and see if this laptop will turn into the powerhouse I want it to be.

 

I also had exactly the same problem - first strange "sleep" situations that wouldn't wake up, then confusing combinations of power lights (power only, power+CAPS, power+CAPS+wifi...) each time I pushed the power button, but no boot. Then, confusingly, every twentieth try or so, it would boot and run just fine... until it was shut down or went into sleep mode, then we start all over again.

But now, nothing at all... no lights, no boot...

Fortunately I took advantage of one of those rare waking periods to backup my important files, but since I had only had the computer for a month, I had just finished setting it all up with the new software I use, configurations, etc., sorted out my files, reorganized. The real drag is not the files, but the whole process that took hours and hours.

I would of course send it in for repair, but... I slipped on the ice a few weeks ago and the fall put a ding in the corner of the case, in my satchel. It actually worked fine after that, so I wasn't worried, but when I took it in to the vendor after the blackout, they said there would be no way in hell Asus would repair it under guarantee.

Since what I really want to do is try to recover the disk image - and I don't really have to worry about voiding the warranty anymore - I opened it up last night to see what the innards look like. I can take out the SSD, today I need to find some kind of connector/reader to see what I can extract to another computer.

Just so you know, the screws on my case-back had a little blue paint on them so the technicians can tell if you've opened it. Otherwise, the SSD chip had a sticker on its mounting screw that voids it if taken off.

Before I throw the rest away, I will try the battery-CMOS disconnect to see if, hope of hopes, that does anything.

Finally, I could almost copy in the disk image to a new UX31E, but... does anyone think the problem might carry over on the disk - I don't know, buggy software? I was kind of concerned about a possible conflict/incompatibility between WIN7 hibernate and energy settings, and the ASUS sleep/battery settings, at first I thought the problem was there, so in one of the rare waking moments of my computer, I updated all the drivers from ASUS. Ultimately, though, no dice, so I don't know what the problem is: BIOS, energy and charging software, motherboard... and ASUS repair for Switzerland wants over $200 just to open it up and do the estimate with a voided warranty! (applicable to the repair, if it is possible to repair it, but I think we'd quickly be up to nearly the cost of a new one.

Yes, it's been a rough week.

 

Damn! That's rough.

I don't think the disk image would cause the wake/reboot problems. On my repair sheet they said "replaced system board" and they didn't even touch the hard drive. They installed a camera software (probably to test the webcam) and updated the wifi driver; otherwise my OS was untouched, so I think Win 7 (with updates) is fine.

Good luck!

 

Wow.

Thanks for sharing your stories. I did some investigating about the blue paint on the screws. Apparently it's just Loctite and not some kind of intrusion detection: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/21980-blue-paint.html

Good luck let us know if you can remove the CMOS battery. I am not going to open mine, I'm sending it in in two weeks.

 

It's easy to unscrew the back. Once open the CMOS battery can be disconnected and reconnected quite easily. The main battery is huge and attached by 3 Philips screws. You can unscrew it, lift it slightly and detach its connector.

Hope this helps

 

So the problem seems quite widespread - thanks for sharing! Mine has now completely stopped responding, no power lights turn on (it is still charging through the USB-port however) -- I'm sending it in tomorrow (in France, bought it in Sweden), I hope they will preserve the content of the hard drive...

 

Mine came back after 4 days. They kept my data intact. Works fine but I won't be updating the bios again

 

Same issues as some guys here (UX31E i5 128gb)
Was happening before the bios updated think I was stock on 206 or 207 updated to 209.

Had problems were it wouldn't get up from sleep continuously held power then powered back on till display came up, was just luck to get my display to come up and boot.(did it like twenty times one day)

Then eventually refused to power up no lights, charger would stay green.
So sent it in and it came back today, says everything was OK... yea right I've worked in most aspects of computing and fixed dozens of odd and retarded problems and then get a nice sheet saying tested OK.

So called up spoke to the technician personally, said one of their tests is a full power drain/cycle. So when I received it powered on OK, booted up windows (have dual boot with backtrack5) left it at login, went to a client came back. No charger was connected.

Power light was flashing so hit power to resume, no display, lights went solid gave it a few minutes still nothing, held power to power down. Still no charger was connected.
No power light coming on, then decided to plug it in my bosses charger, exact same model zenbook charge light went orange when connected but still no power light.

Looks like a motherboard/bios issue.
Was thinking of doing a cmos reset myself but wasn't sure on the zenbook warranty. They picked mine up following day I called on a tuesday and got it back today on a tuesday so 7days for australia.

Already got it booked for pickup again.
Pretty disappointed as I do promote asus products to my clients, and like to dish some crap to the mac fanboys on occasion.

 

Ahh man that is REALLY bad. I hope they don't do that to me! I'm gonna ask for a replacement at the shop, I had the thing for 10 days!!

But them not replacing anything is really bad. What are they thinking?

 

Sucks >.< our IT company goes through the occasional retarded support from other computer manufacturers, only surprising part was first time for asus giving us problem, except for their speedy pick up and phone support was relatively quick, not so happy with the speedy return because of the crappy diagnostic test that was ran.

Not too hard to spend an extra 5-10minutes to boot in and out of windows a few times, then let it sleep by itself and try and bring it out yourself.

Just got picked up by express.

So if it comes back with the same problem, I'll bring up the asus 3 strike policy since its being RMA'd for the third time then.

Try and get credit or a brand new one.
Unless some other amazing ultrabook comes out, have to try and resist the MBA. *sigh*

 

Do you know how the connector for the big battery works? I couldn't get it to move, and didn't want to force anything. But it really wouldn't slide off!

And where is the CMOS battery? I'm used to the tower kind, a coin-like thing on the motherboard, but I didn't see anything like that...

Thanks for any info!

 

just registered to this forum to let you know tha I have the same issue as SeBsZ. Screen remains dark. Some lights blinking. Came back yesterday. Reinstalled old BIOS 209. Then it worked fine, but this morning it did not work at all. Will send it back. This issue is only happening when the UX31 is going to sleep / energy save mode. It does not happen when you shut it down. Would be nice to know if one can open the back and remove the battery oneself
Regards from Germany

 

Can anybody definitively say if it is possible to uninstall the ASUS power management/sleep software and just use Windows hibernate/sleep/shutdown selections? I get the impression that the ASUS "sleep" mode is linked to the machine going into a blinking light coma followed by brain death.
Does it still work without the ASUS software? Does the battery still have a repectable work time?
Thanks!

 

Biboch
The CMOS battery was clearly visible just under the edge of the main battery very close to the main battery connector. The connector simply lifts off when you pull it up. There's a little friction so you have to pull firmly. There was some tape I had to lift up first.

 

Thanks very much darkfinger! You just have to know which direction to pull, not good to make a mistake on this one...

I tried the battery disconnect, and the CMOS battery (wrapped in black insulation stuff... and disconnected with tiny tweezers), but still no sign of life after re-connection.

So I am condemned to trying to recover my data from the disk. I've obtained what is sold as a "miniSATA" (mSATA) connector, and a "microSATA" connector, but both are too big to accomodate the SanDISK 256Gb SSD.

Please, does anybody know what kind of connector this is, and maybe where to find an adapter... to anything, regular SATA, USB???

Thanks very much!

 

hi biboch,
did you press the power button for 30 - 60 seconds after disconnecting the battery? This makes sure that there is no more static energy remaining.

... And this will make the zenbook "forget" that it was in sleep mode

 

Thank you guidomarcel, tried that but no sign of life! I'm pretty frustrated, just hoping I can still somehow get the data off the disk.

 

Flashed my bios today, everything seemed fine. But now it's completely dead. Nothing happens when i press the power button. No lights.

Is there a way to recover from this bad flashing or do i need to send it in?

 

same situation on my side. I removed the battery, pressed the Power-Button for 60 seconds, but still the machine is DEAD :-( I had to reactivate my old PC :-(

 

It's rma time guys. Nothing you can do after bad flash.

 

Well, I can't RMA, already refused because of case ding.

And it wasn't a bios flash in my case, it just slowly stopped re-starting properly after sleep mode.

And not even SanDISK can tell me straight what kind of connector the SSD has so I can recover my data!

Just an all-around bad situation.

 

same thing here. It started to refuse to wake up after sleep. I upgraded bios to 210, latest instant on drivers, latest graphics card drivers. It ran fine for a day and then it died completely. RMA time
I really don't like this laptop. ty trackpad, ty keyboard, slow SSD. I really like the screen though.

 

What is "case ding."?

 

same happened to me. I upgraded to 210 and it worked fine for a couple of days. When problems started I downgraded to 209 and it worked fine for 5-10 shut-down/sleep phases. Then, next morining, UX31 passed away, sometimes the fan is just running. UX31 will be sent tomorrow for repairing / RMA

 

Hi guys!!

Oh my God, thought I was alone in my misery!

For God's sake, why would you try and remove the battery?? Just get the RMA and send the thing!

Personally, to temporarily overcome this problem and recover my documents, I switched on my UX31 without the charger and let the battery die. It was regularly turning off by itself, the fan was sometimes running like crazy (in that case, I got scared so I turned it off and on again to stop the fan from over-running... I'm not an expert :s).

Waited a whole afternoon. Then realized there was no battery anymore and plugged the charger. Magically rebooted.

Still gonna send this expensive one month old *e* to the service center. They have to do something about it.

Good luck & cheers

 

*....e*

Oops! Didn't mean to be rude, just Scottish

 

Oh and I am skipping the sleep mode till I send it.

Hope I helped

 

Dear all,

some bad news. I sent in my zenbook UX31 on the 18 of January (in France, I bought it in Sweden). Since then the info is that ASUS is waiting for a replacement piece. When I contacted them via e-mail, I got the answer (after two days) that they are waiting for a replacement motherboard and they expect it to arrive on the 18th of February!! The reason they give is that it takes 21 working days to ship it from Taiwan... (I guess ASUS never heard of DHL). It is awfully bad service and shows that ASUS world-wide guarantee isn't worth much. So I regret buying this computer and I cannot really recommend it to anyone else (a pity since it was quite nice as long as it worked).

How long time (and it what country) have you guys had to wait for getting your UX31 fixed? Have you all had the mother board replaced?

Cheers

 

I also bought mine in Sweden and they have had it for a week now. No word yet on the status. All in all I hate this machine. I'm now typing on my ancient T41p and the keyboard and trackpad just works so much better.

 

Sorry to hear that twom, it is a shame. I suggest you e-mail them to get more info.

I guess that also means I cannot blame the French (I kind of suspected that the service would be better in Sweden and that it was the French ASUS support that had put the foreigner on the back-burner).

I bought my from Webhallen, I'm thinking about getting in touch with them to see what they have to say about it. Did u get in touch with the store from which you bought it?

 

I bought mine from Komplett and on their website it says that you should contact Asus directly. I did and laptop wasn't sent directly to Asus, but to an outsourced repair-shop, we'll see what happens. I also have another beef with them in the sense that they will not return the HD if they decide to change it. They said that I should back it up before sending it in, which is slightly tricky when the machine is dead. Overall I have received a very "corporate" treatment with zero flexibility.

 

Is this happening only on Ux 31 i5 128GB, or also on the i7 256Gb? I thought the MB is the same between the 2, only other processor and ssd.
Please provide your configuration.

 

Mine is an i7 128Gb

 

Booyeh!! I got the best outcome.
So if you guys caught or read what happened to me on i think the 3rd page. Same power issue.

So sent it back to Asus, even tho I could of done a CMOS reset myself, I do work in an IT Solutions company.

So they said they had to order in a new motherboard as the information I provided pointed them in that direction, the bad was they had to order it in from HQ taiwan, luckily it came in before chinese new year.

So since it went back second time and I made a few calls in between to check up, technician calls me back tells me they upgraded me to an i7!! Hell yea!

Didn't even argue or get aggressive with them (I'm a pretty cool customer ) , anywayz all of the support I talked to and the technician were all friendly.

This is asus australia btw.

So in my opinion if you dont have a rush and the patience, your better of sending it back to asus, then going to the hassle of fixing it or opening it yourself.