UX31LA does not turn on - mobo/battery dead?

Hey all,

I have a ASUS UX31LA-UH51T. I have been using it for the past 2 years for school (nothing intensive). I had a longer gap between classes yesterday and used it from 100% battery to around 30%. Turned it off, went home, and it sat in my bag for about 8~ hours. I then went to charge it for the night and wanted to check a few things, but it would not turn on. Absolutely no response. Unusual.. my initial thought was that I did not fully turn it off (doubtful) and it drained for those 8 hours, so I let charge for about half an hour and tried again, but no dice.

Like anyone would, I started googling. It unfortunately was not the very common "keyboard ribbon cable disconnected" issue (power button is on the keyboard). I went on to other possible solutions but had no luck.

These were my attempts between last night and today:

• Holding power button for 60 seconds while plugged in.
  
  
• Holding power button for 60 seconds while unplugged.
  
  
• Disconnecting the CMOS and main batteries overnight (7+ hours). Held power button for 60 seconds.
  
  
• Disconnecting the main battery and plugging in the laptop to power.
  
  
• Charging the laptop for 2 hours. The light on the charger tip was orange ("charging") but the charger did not get warm at all. The measured voltage from the charger was 19.30 V (multimeter) and it is rated for 19.0 V. Charger appears to work but I do not think the laptop is not accepting power.
  
  
• CMOS voltage is 2.916 V versus rated 3 V (insignificant?).
  
  
• Main battery voltage is 8.65 V. I believe it to be a 6-cell battery in a triple-parallel configuration of double-series cells. It is a 11.1 V Lithium Polymer battery. This means that each series pair of cells has a voltage of 2.88 V. This is well below the "minimum" for LiPo batteries (rated should be 3.7 V).
  

I think I have isolated the problem to either the motherboard or battery. My theory is that the battery somehow drained a hell of a lot, and the voltage of the battery became so low that some protection-element of the motherboard now refuses to turn on (or charge the battery).

But, I am uncertain to whether it is the battery or motherboard. For one, the battery voltage is very insanely low for a LiPo. I would think battery, but when I disconnected it and connected the laptop directly to power, it should have turned on.

Is it possible to somehow charge the LiPo without the laptop? Or to trick the laptop to think it has an 11.1 V battery connected? There are 8 contacts, L to R are RED,RED,RED,WHITE,YELLOW,BLK,BLK,BLK. BLK = ground and the 8.65 V measurement was RED to BLK. I do not know what the WHITE/YELLOW wires are but I assume some sort of control wires?
I really need this laptop working...

 

Post Deleted.

 

I had to replace the mobo on one of those for a family member. Same thing as you they closed the lid one time and then it wouldn't boot. Only difference is I could at least get the screen to turn on. In their case I believe the processor had overheated beyond repair because I found that the cpu fan had been dead prior to the laptop failure.

Replaced the mobo and fan and now it works like new. Paid about $150 for parts.

FYI it boots without the battery plugged in. Should not be a battery preventing it from powering on.

 

5 MONTH UPDATE

For anyone who is as unfortunate as me to have this problem... I have an update.. and it's good news
I finally got enough spare time and motivation to get this damn laptop fixed. Turns out it was a dead motherboard. Picked up a working one on eBay for $160 and swapped it out. A very easy procedure.

The new one didn't boot at first; no POST, no fans, only the single power light. This was with no battery connected. I thought the new board was a dud, or something else was the problem. Then, following RSD1982's instructions here, I disconnected the SSD, network drive, and CMOS battery - IT BOOTED to BIOS. I then turned the system off, connected the SSD, and successfully booted. Repeat for the network drive. Then, I booted with the entire laptop with only the CMOS and main batteries disconnected, and reconnected first the CMOS and then the main battery while the computer was running.

A possibly important piece of information; DO NOT connect the main or CMOS battery to the motherboard until the system boots to Windows, ONLY THEN connect the batteries WHILE the system is running.
I am not sure what happens if you don't do this, but my fear is that it triggers some sort of "battery is low, do not charge" warning to the board, like RSD1982's little theory.

 

Glad to hear you got your issue resolved! Just as a side note the repair at ASUS wouldn't be much more then what you paid, minus the headache of having to replace and repair this yourself. Hopefully, you don't have worry about this issue for awhile.