Help with GA15DH non-boot condition

[sycotic1]

Guy brought this machine to me for help. It's a BRAND-NEW (but mfg date was 2020), unboxed only twice (I unboxed it the second time), GA15DH-AH772. Don't know why the family never used this machine, but it's been packed away for several years now.

Specs: Ryzen 7 3800X, 16G DRR4, GeForce RTX2070S 8GB, 512GB M.2 SSD, 1 TB SATA

So, he brought the machine to me in the original box and packaging saying it wouldn't power up. There's a single orange light placed right next to the graphics card that lights up when the PSU is switched on, but no other components power up.

I tested the PSU with a multimeter while it was attached to the mainboard via the graphics card power connectors  I got nothing, so I assumed PSU failure. Problem is, when I pull the mainboard power connector from the board, short pins 16 and 17 on the connector and power on the PSU, I see the CPU, graphics card and 1 TB drive powering on. Tested again the same way but with graphics power disconnected and I get the correct voltages from those connectors. 

I'm thinking something's wrong with the mainboard itself - but looking for confirmation from experts. I'm kind of at a loss as to what to try next. I can't find a decent motherboard manual at the ROG site for this machine, so I'm not sure if I'm testing the power switch pins correctly, but I tried that as well. I tried shorting them to see of maybe the power switch was somehow at fault.

[cl-Albert]

Hi,

Thanks for helping with this.

Don't know if this can make any difference, but worth a try in my opinion since it isn't too difficult and might help.

If the machine has been sitting that long unused, the CMOS battery has probably gone bad which can cause different issues in different models and if you just want to try replacing the CMOS battery, that's an idea.

Before you do that, you can also try a 'hard reset' by unplugging the power cord and holding the power button for 40 seconds as mentioned in our FAQ below which doesn't say it is for desktops, but I wouldn't worry about it.

After holding the power button for 40 seconds with the power cord unplugged, plug back the power cord, press the button, and see if there is any difference, but if nothing happens or nothing changes even if there is no power, please give it another 5 or 10 minutes to make sure the system does not start booting up and don't be surprised to see a CMOS error if it does.

Actually if you haven't waited 5 or 10 minutes after pressing the power button (even when there is no power) without trying the hard reset, you may want to try that just to see if the system is taking longer to power on and boot up with a bad CMOS battery, but there shouldn't be much harm to try the hard reset if you would just rather do that and don't forget to wait 5 or 10 minutes after pressing the power button.

How to Reset Embedded Controller (EC Reset), Real-Time Clock (RTC), and Hard Reset | Official Suppor...

If you end up deciding to replace the CMOS battery for whatever reason, and it still doesn't work, suggest to try the hard reset in that situation as well and make sure to give it plenty of time (5 or 10 minutes?) to work and boot up the first time.

If that doesn't help, it should be just standard troubleshooting as far as I know.

Good luck!

[sycotic1]

Thanks much for your help. I got 2.7V out of the existing battery so I went ahead and changed it out. All I had were some that ran about 3.2V, but I think that should be good enough. Unfortunately, no joy even after the EC Reset procedure you recommended.

I used a known good GPU as a test and no change.

I've also reseated the 2 RAM sticks together. Then I pulled them and set one at a time in each slot. No change. The only thing I haven't done is reseat the CPU itself. I'm still at a loss as to why I could short pins 16 and 17 on the mainboard power connector, turn the PSU backplate power switch on, and have all the components appear to fire.

[cl-Albert]

Don't believe this suggestion applies to this situation if the desktop is not powering on, but wanted to run it by you anyway.

The GA15DH includes display outputs for both onboard cpu graphics which will not be working for the Ryzen 7 3800X cpu, so just wanted to remind you to connect the monitor to the RTX2070S display outputs rather than the cpu graphics outputs when you do get the system to power on.

The user manual p16 on our global support page mentions this if you're interested to take a look.

Just in case there are any issues to open the long user manual link, the link for the support page to find the user manual is below too, but don't know that this is anything you need to worry about yet and are probably aware of already.

https://rog.asus.com/desktops/mid-tower/rog-strix-ga15-series/helpdesk_manual/

https://dlcdnta.asus.com/pub/ASUS/GamingDT/G15DH/E22426_G15DH_Win10_UM_V3_WEB.pdf?model=ROG%20Strix%...

[sycotic1]

Thank you, yes I was careful to use the add-on GPU for testing.

I'm wondering if the last test to conduct is to reseat the CPU. If that doesn't work, why wouldn't I assume mobo?

[cl-Albert]

Honestly, I don't repair desktops or help customers repair desktops and just do troubleshooting to determine if it needs to be sent back to repair, so you may have a better idea than I do of the problem or may want to get more feedback from others.

If you're interested to send to desktop to our repair office, that's one more idea.

Yes, you may also want to inspect the cpu and socket to make sure everything looks normal.

If it's not too difficult, you may just want to unplug any unnecessary devices to get video like the SSD and try to check or swap what is left including the power supply to try to isolate the bad hardware component(s)?

If you had an identical working desktop, it would be easier to figure out what is wrong by swapping parts between them, but if you have some extra working components around to compare with, that may be good enough. 

Don't expect it is very likely, but if you end up removing the motherboard from the case, thought you may also want to look out for loose screws or anything that could be shorting out the motherboard, and maybe try testing the motherboard out of the case as well if not too difficult, but not very sure what is wrong with this desktop.

I may always be worried about the worst case scenario, but in case there was some power problem at the customer's house (lightning storm, power surge etc.) a little worried more than one component may have been zapped, so if you have an easy way to confirm the SSD (without erasing it?), memory, or vga card work in a different system, thought you may want to try to make sure it doesn't sound like more than one part is bad.