I recently (January) purchased an ASUS ROG G16 GU605MI laptop. I have opened the case twice since then to blow dust out of the fans. My question here is: Is there some low-level mechanism that disconnects the battery while the laptop back cover is removed? Or is my battery damaged in some subtle way? I'll describe my exact observations below.
Generally when I open the case of a laptop, I like to do a power check while the cover is still removed, to see if I have dislodged any connectors or shorted anything, broadly check that it all still works before I close the case up. I do this by opening the lid to 90degrees and sitting the edge of the screen & base on the table, then turning it on; verifying everything works; then full shutdown before I reattach the cover.
The first time I opened my new laptop, the power check failed. I observed that the system would only power on if the AC power is connected; and if the AC power is removed, the system immediately dies. I ran the BIOS diagnostics tool for "power check", which has a section for testing the battery, which almost immediately passed and said there was no issue. (To test I pulled the AC power and the system instantly died.) I re-powered on, booted to Windows, and Windows said that the battery was there and was perfectly fine, and was actually charging! It started at 80% and quickly crept to 81, 82, 83, etc. I gain pulled the AC power and the system again immediately died. The next day I did some high-power gaming, and then pulled AC power again, and to my surprise the system did not die. The battery was magically fixed!
Today I once again opened the laptop case to blow dust out of the fans, and once again, the power check failed while the case was open. I saw the same "battery seems to be not outputting any power" behavior as before. This time I fully reassembled the laptop, connected AC power, ran the battery BIOS test and found no issues; booted to Windows, which reported the battery was seemingly fine; then I removed AC power to test. To my surprise, the system did not die.
From these events, I can only imagine two causes: either the laptop has some way to detect when the case is open, and prevents the battery from outputing any power while it is open (and for some unclear length of time afterwards); or, there is some physical fault in my battery that means it won't output any power while it is oriented sideways (and for some unclear length of time afterwards).
ASUS support team or community members, can anyone please help solve this mystery?
