ASUS laptop suddenly shut down and looks completely dead

rambomhtri · 24 Jun 2018

Hi, a friend of mine gave me a cheap ASUS X551CA laptop and asked me to install Windows 10, clean it, etc...

I installed Windows 10 using a USB drive, all went correctly. Then I installed latest updates, but one of them, a big one, was always giving an error. I tried to reset Windows Update, clean downloaded updates, everything... still couldn't install it. I then tried to start all over again.

For the second time, I installed Windows 10 using a USB flash drive, but this time, during the installation, in the storage screen, it said that "the drive was damaged and Windows couldn't be installed there". So, after a lot of thinking, I discovered the hard disk was faulty. I swapped it by another one and this time the installation process went fine. By the way, I checked the faulty hard disk and I was right, it had many sectors bad, 10MB/s write maximum. So, I continued, installed Windows 10 successfully on the new hard disk, and when I logged in for the first time and was about to look for updates, BOOM, the laptop suddenly shuts down and won't start up anymore.

It looks completely dead, no LED's light up, no sounds, I press the TURN ON button and nothing happens, absolutely nothing. I've removed the battery already (had to disassemble it to do so), pressed down the power on button for 30 sec, nothing. Tried to do it without battery and only the power cord, viceversa, nothing. Doesn't matter if the battery is put or not, if I connect the power cord, no LED's light up. As I say, it looks completely dead. By the way, I'm quite sure (not 100% sure) no LED's lighted up when the laptop was turned off and the power cord connected, which I thought was a little weird because normally when the power cord is connected, at least one LED lights up, even if the laptop is turned off.

What can it be?
Why so suddenly, if it was working just fine?

I'm kind of shocked, I'm an "expert" doing this and this is the first time this has happened to me.

rambomhtri · 24 Jun 2018

Never-*******-mind...
When I was testing the original hard disk drive to see if it really was faulty, I unplugged the laptop charger to plug my other notebook's charger, where I checked the original hard disk.

Then I put the new hard disk in the ASUS laptop and forgot to plug the charger again. I installed Windows 10 while running by battery, then I logged in, check some things and the battery died. I saw the power cord was plugged in the laptop, so I started to do all kind of sh*t. I gave up, wrote this thread, and once I finished, I looked at the wall plug and saw the ASUS laptop charger on the floor. I face palmed so hard my hand is still going on. At least you guys can laugh, hahahaha.

Oh, by the way, when the power cord is plugged in the laptop, of course a LED lights up even if the laptop is turned off, but of course, the charger must be plugged in to the wall plug. Energy is not free you know. I have a cable mess right now, that's why I missed the basics.

This is what happens when you're so used to weird problems laptop have, you're used to solve them doing all kind of crazy things, and finally you forget about the basics. I was sad because I was about to call my friend and say: "look, you have the worst luck ever, your hard disk just died and then the laptop MoBo, I guess, just died as well"

Clintlgm · 24 Jun 2018

Thanks for letting us know how you resolved your issue you should probably go ahead and mark the thread as solved.

Wynona · 24 Jun 2018

rambomhtri said:

Never-*******-mind...
When I was testing the original hard disk drive to see if it really was faulty, I unplugged the laptop charger to plug my other notebook's charger, where I checked the original hard disk.

Then I put the new hard disk in the ASUS laptop and forgot to plug the charger again. I installed Windows 10 while running by battery, then I logged in, check some things and the battery died. I saw the power cord was plugged in the laptop, so I started to do all kind of sh*t. I gave up, wrote this thread, and once I finished, I looked at the wall plug and saw the ASUS laptop charger on the floor. I face palmed so hard my hand is still going on. At least you guys can laugh, hahahaha.

Oh, by the way, when the power cord is plugged in the laptop, of course a LED lights up even if the laptop is turned off, but of course, the charger must be plugged in to the wall plug. Energy is not free you know. I have a cable mess right now, that's why I missed the basics.

This is what happens when you're so used to weird problems laptop have, you're used to solve them doing all kind of crazy things, and finally you forget about the basics. I was sad because I was about to call my friend and say: "look, you have the worst luck ever, your hard disk just died and then the laptop MoBo, I guess, just died as well"

Not to worry, Ram; if we're all honest, we'll tell you we've done the same more than once. I recently had something similar happen to me on an old desktop I put Windows 10 on and donated to our local Senior Citizen Center. I plugged the monitor cable into the motherboard connector I'd disabled, rather than the video card I'd installed to get better video. Thankfully, I didn't come here; caught my mistake before I asked for help.