Power button not working?

I've encountered some weird stuff these last 3 days.

Suddenly the power button stopped working: when the laptop is off there is not way to turn it on with the power button. Similarly, when the laptop is on there is no way to put in to sleep with the power button. I can't force it to shut down by pressing the power button for about 10s like before either.

The only way I can put it to sleep / wake it up (without interacting with the Start Menu) is by closing / opening the lid.

To turn it on from shut down state I have to remove the AC adapter and plug it in again: the laptop will automatically turn on.

Does anyone know what could possibly causing this? My model is Sager NP7378 / Clevo W370SS.

Thanks in advance.

 

did you recently make any changes to it before these items starting happening?

 

Have you checked in your advanced power settings (control panel > hardware and sounds > power options) to see what the power button action is set to? There is an option to have the power button do nothing. See if maybe that needs to be changed back to sleep or another setting.

 

Thanks. That's also what I checked in the first place. It's still set to put the laptop into sleep mode. I also tried to change it to shut down, hibernate, etc. to no avail

Not really. I'm planning to open up the back case to see what could be done. Do you have any suggestions on what I should look into?

On my model the power button is situated right next to the sound bar (if it's of any help).

 

Does the button still click when you press it? Is there a definite action like you would normally get?

 

Yes, the button is still going down and back to its original level once I've stop pressing it, it doesn't seem to be stuck. Actually it feels pretty much the same as always (with the clicking sound and backlight), just that there is no reaction (like at all) from the laptop.

I guess it isn't an OS problem since I couldn't get it to boot up with the power button either.

 

Remove the AC AND main battery. Plug just the AC in and press the button. If it still wont power on it can't be a software issue, it must either be hardware or firmware.

 

If I remove both the AC and main battery, upon plugging the AC in the laptop will automatically turn itself on without me pressing the power button.

Like I said I still managed to shut the laptop down, turn it on, put it into sleep mode, wake it up, etc. without the power button. It's just not as convenient as before.

 

That can't be an OS issue then. Either the cable has an issue or the firmware could do with a re-flash.

 

So I opened up the laptop, re-seated the RAM, SSD and stuff. Now the power button will work fine (i.e. will put the laptop into sleep mode / wake it up / pressing for 10s will force a shutdown) unplugged but upon plugging in the power button will stop working again, and even worse, the laptop will turn itself off within 1-2 min.

So I had to run the laptop on battery until about 6% is left, turn it off, plug in the power cable, wait about 40-50min for the battery to be fully charged (cannot use the laptop while plugging in since it will shut down within 1-2 min). This is really bad for battery life (my battery wear level increased from 7.9% to 10% in a mere 2 weeks!!!)

I suspect something is wrong with the power switch board. Do you guys have any disassembly manual for the model (Clevo W370SS / Sager NP7378)?

 

Or there is a weird grounding issue with the jack, very odd. Does anyone have a compatible brick you could try?