W2J problems powering on from hybernation

My W2Jc has a really irritating fault, in that it often cannot be switched back on from hybernation while in battery mode and has to be plugged in to bring it back to life. When in this state the power button does absolutely nothing, no matter how long it is held down for!

The problem only occurs under the following conditions:
- it enters hybernation while on mains power
- the battery is fully charged (charge light out) when entering hybernation
- the power is removed before attempting to switch back on

It isn't a faulty battery, since I've already had that changed over, so does the problem point to some sort of fault with the AC/DC switch whereby once the off state gets stored by the hibernation mode it cannot switch on without power present?

Alternatively, could it be some conflict within the power management software? I'm using Power4Gear and when I turn this off the problem certainly becomes less constant, but remains an intermittent one nonetheless.

Asus tech support don't seem to have any ideas so has anybody else experienced anything like this?

 

I'm not 100% sure, but I seem to remember hearing some W3 owners complaining about this as well. I think the fix was to make sure that in all P4G settings, the hard drive is set to never power down.

 

Hey,
please take a look at my thread over here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81993

Looks like a similar problem, could you try the same thing as in my problem (let it charge when it's switched off, and when fully charged try to switch it on again without pluggin it in)

I'll try the hibernation mode and let you know something

 

Hi Spruytster - yes - definitely the same problem so thanks for letting me know that its even worse than I thought and not just limited to switching on from hybernation...
When is a laptop not a laptop? When you can't power up on battery methinks!

Having already sent the unit and then the battery in for inspection, I've not been given the number of an Asus 'engineer' so will let you know how I get on...

 

Well, I tried your situation and at first all went like it should, but this morning I tried again and TADAA, nothing, not starting.
If you have some news, let me know (as you have already sent it in, I can wait for your results )

 

Well no news so far I'm afraid... I spoke to a very helpful sounding service centre engineer last Friday who seemed to understand the problem and take it seriously - he promised to speak to Asus and get back to me before the end of the day but now it's Wednesday and still nothing...

I have to say that its pretty unacceptable having a laptop you can't switch on.. Imagine being in a position where you're trying to pitch to a client or something - how embarrassing..
All totally unacceptable on any, but particularly on a top range portable!

 

I have the same power/ no boot problem with my w2jb,

another problem i have is the grainy screen which seems to be an issue with all x1600 video cards

third problem is while on battery, and while system is idle, there is a annoying buz/whine sound coming from the laptop, any one have that also?


fourth problem i have is that the laptop takes forever to boot-up...very slow hard drive .....!!

please keep us posted about the power issue, i don't mean to hijack your thread with my questions..just wanted to see if the problems are common

thanks, this was my first post over here ....

 

Well, the grainy screen should be solved with the next BIOS release from ASUS. Just read the sticky: graininess fix for w3j

The whining sound is something very strange indeed, but can't help you with that (it's not the fan or something like that)

My laptop also takes a long time to boot up, and it has a fast harddrive. It's after all a laptop with a lot of hardware in it. Maybe you can try to clean your harddrive a bit. Make sure you don't have to much programs in our startup list.

About the "no power-no boot" problem, I'm waiting for olivervh's results. Seems this is a bigger problem then I thought.

 

Well, I've had no answer to several calls and have now written to complain to Asus through my dealer so we'll see..
I'm pretty pissed off and now using an old Sony laptop when I have to go out to business presentations since I can't rely on the "superior build quality" of my Asus...

 

what happned to the hibernation issue? any fix, update?

also, when will the graininess issue be fixed on the w2j? is Asus even aware of it ?


this hibernation/ standby issue is really annoying.,.........

 

I had to double check mine before commenting, but I don't seem to have the hibernation power issue that others are speaking of here. My display appears very sharp also with no graininess observed. Weird, although I should be grateful. I wonder why some people have this problem and others don't?

No weird noises either but my comp does take pretty long to boot when fully off. I attribute that to all the asus-ware that loads along with my AV. I avoid the wait by using hibernate most of the time since that seems to be much quicker. Sorry I am no help to those of you with problems but I just wanted to report that they are not universal faults.

 

Sorry for the delay in giving an update on the power issue but my W2J has been stuck with Asus UK HQ for the last three weeks... I only hope the standards of service and customer care are better elsewhere in the world than they are in the UK, since otherwise these guys really don't deserve to stay in business!

Having finally identified the fault they had to replace the mother board and send my board back to Taiwan for Asus to investigate, since it is a problem they haven't seen before apparently..
My notebook seems to work ok now (so far at least) but seems slower to start up and and never great news to have somebody rummaging around inside...

A happy ending hopefully but not good news in terms of the enormous amount of hassle and delay with getting there - more than four months since I first reported the fault - so I only hope others have better luck!

 

the only fix for the w3j was a bios update, maybe they will make one

 

we all have this issue, so are we all going to have to replace the motherboard ? This is horrible.....

 

Well Latief - sounds to me like you've got some other serious problems as well? The only other person with the same issue seems to be Spruyster? Asus said it was very rare and they had never seen the issue before... Will be interesting to see if others pick up on this since when I last spoke to them they still had no idea what causes it.

On the positive side, once the motherboard was replaced everything seems fine and my W2J came back with all data and settings in tact - so worth the wait to get it back but very very time consuming and frustrating getting there...

My advice? Send it back to Asus and insist it is sorted out!

 

Thanks olivervh for letting us know what the problem was. Unfortunately, it's not that great news .

As for being the only one with the problem: Over at the Asus vip forum where you posted the same question (I'm assuming the OVH is the same person as the olivervh here), there seem to be more people experiencing this fault. Maybe you should post your "solution" over there also.
I guess I'll be bringing my laptop in for service during the Christmas holidays, I won't be needing it as much then. Do you have a case number or something like that? Maybe I can give that as a reference when bringing it in. So they don't have to search too long . They should speak English well enough to call ASUS UK

Thanks for your efforts already

Spruytster

 

thanks for the info oliver, as spruytster said, there are a lot of other people going through the same problem, if i send my machine to asus, they will keep it for quite a long time i'm sure.... i cannot afford that long period of time right now , i guess i'll wait and see if they find a solution.......

 

Same problem here, first I thought it was about the newly flashed BIOS (v300) but now I see more people have the same problem...

I sold my good old Toshiba for this top of the bill ASUS W2Jc but I'm not pleased with this, it's a shame you can't boot on battery power!!!

Also you have to be sure NOT to fiddle around with the speaker settings, at one point you don't have sound anymore (crappy software) and have to roll back to a Windows restore point to get the sound back!

I also can't use the playback option without starting the laptop.

Resuming I can say that I'm NOT a happy ASUS user anymore!

P.S. after flashing the BIOS my administrator password was gone, I had to return the notebook to ASUS Netherlands. Lucky for me, it was without charge (normally you have to pay the warranty says). Off course I knew my passwords, it's a BIOS problem so watch out, FIRST change to default settings before a BIOS update!!!

 

I know this thread is a little old but I wanted to see if any resolution to this "failure to power up from battery only" issue was ever discovered. After 7 months of no problems, my W2JB now occasionally fails to power up from battery power only. It happened the other day as I was about to give a presentation. I had to scramble for my AC adapter to get the machine powered up. I have researched this on the Asus site as well. Their potential diagnosis is a bad motherboard. That really sux. Any easier, softer fix would be appreciated. For now, I'm going to keep using the computer until the problem gets worse. It's very intermittent. The thing has been booting fine since the quirkiness of the other day. Go figure!

 

New motherboard.....send it and they will replace it for you, thats what they did to mine.....

be prepared to get some scratches on the case though...

 

I agree - replacement motherboard is the only solution to get rid of the problems for good.
You'll never be able to rely on it otherwise and I spent months wasting time on BIOS/software updates.
Sorry for the bad news!

 

the problem is that they don't know what is wrong with it, they change the mobo becasue they don't know what the fix is, my fear is that they new mobo will do the same thing a couple of months from now.....

 

Well all I can say is that mine has been absolutely fine since..

 

mine also, but it developed a weird hibernation problem as i posted over here a while back so i sent it in for a replacement....i am sick and tired of this, i'm just hoping i will not have to go through similar problems with the replacement .......

thanks for the input .....

 

Thank you for the replies. A total drag to be sure though. After posting my glitch last week, the darn thing has been waking up fine ever since. Now I'm wondering if I should wait for the problem to reappear or just send it in for the mobo swap. I've got about 5 months of warranty left and putting this thing under the knife will give me heartburn, let alone worrying if it will come back scratched or something. This thing is one sweet notebook though!

 

i guess they have to replicate the problem before they change anything......

i could replicate mine this way, drain the battery out, turn off the laptop, charge it completely, unplug, turn it back on....it will refuse to turn back on without the power cord plugged in....

they changed the whole thing and sent it back within 2 days. that tells me that they are aware of the problem, although they don't announce it.......

if i were you, i would definetaly change fix this before the warranty ends...i would give my self some time to test it just in case new problems emerge after the change as was the case with my laptop ....

i agree with you though, best looking laptop on the market untill this moment..my only problem is the touch pad, it shows signs of wear really fast (if you look at it from the side) i wish they put in a metal touchpad instead of a leather one....could we do anything about that ?

good luck....

 

Thanks Latief. I agree about the touchpad although I didn't know it was leather. Very cool looking with the dimpled texture and sizeable surface area but it gets kind of shiny after awhile. I will keep a sharp eye on the power problem and send it in for service as soon as the issue becomes more pronounced. Did yours come back with the 300 BIOS? I loaded the 204T that was supposed to reduce graininess. I never noticed much of that to begin with but it didn't hurt either. How's your display image quality?

 

the replacemnt machine came back today with the orginal release bios, not 3.00....also when they changed they the mobo on the previous machine came back with the orginal release bios, not updated, i don't know why....

the screen is a little grainy, but i did not want to install the bios that fixes that untill asus release it offically... the last thing i need is for something else to go wrong on this machine......before you send it in, make sure you put the official bios in, the beta bios might void your warranty !!!!at least that is what i think ......
i'm not sure it is leather, i guess the right word would be leather like!

good luck man... now i hope my replacement machine does not go through the same problems all over...if it does ,,,, i will sell this thing on ebay...!!!

 

well guess what, the replacement machine is going back too... the screen turns on for a few seconds, then dies,,(inverter board maybe? )....what a nightmare..........

 

So sorry to hear about your aggravation. Regarding the beta BIOS, I see your point about possible warranty issues: but I have found the one offered by GenTechPC to be very stable. I am puzzled though as to why Asus would not officially release this. Good luck with your nightmare.

 

Thank you all for the great information. My A8Jp immediately wakes up from hibernation when it is plugged in (but not when on battery power). So far I have not had problems starting up from battery power, so I don't think I'm going to send it in for replacement. I just bought the machine so I have some warranty time to see how things go.

After seeing Latief send his motherboard in for replacement twice it seems a new motherboard might actually have more problems!

If anyone ever finds that Asus has found a better solution to this problem than motherboard replacement please make a post!