G74SX Won't Post / Won't Boot

[jim881606]

Hello, I have a Asus ROG G74SX with an i7 and the 560m which is giving me problems. It had been completely disassembled by someone with no knowledge of notebooks, and they tried removing the wifi card and placing it into another notebook thinking it was the processor or something like that. Long story short its got all of its screws loose, and although it is assembled (screw less) it won't post it seems. When we first were troubleshooting it, it would boot up, and we started a factory reset process, which when it had finished, we started having problems with the LCD never turning on we thought, but I see that the power indicator light comes on, but no hard drive activity happens, leading me to believe the machine isn't POST'ing.

I have tried removing RAM and HDD's and trying, same thing happens. I tried reseating the cable between LCD and motherboard, no difference (both sides, LCD and Mobo). I tried taking battery/power out, and holding power button for a minute, and then reseating, no difference. Tried hooking to external monitor and an HDTV, both no difference.

Any ideas beyond getting a new motherboard???

[jim881606]

BUMP, some more info - tried to troubleshoot some more today in hopes of getting closer to the problem.

Took it all the way back apart, reseating carefully each and every connection. Reset cmos battery (again) and screwed in many screws in the appropriate place (not all of them, but some). No real change, hitting power just very briefly flashes HDD indicator (cant remember if it did that before and I didnt notice or if thats new) and it acts just the same functionality wise.

Other notes:
- it flashes the backlite for the keyboard briefly as well. about a second or so its on.
- disc drive opens, closes, and tries to read no problem. havent got a boot disc lying around, but I doubt it would help right now.
- not a thing on screen, no backlight, no dim display, no nothing.
- not using the proper charger, came with a generic 90w duracell charger... which does charge the thing, but I had noticed before the screen stopped coming on, that it flickered between charging and back, (ac mode flashed on screen over and over), so possible bad AC Jack? I doubt it though...
- tried holding CTRL + HOME keys then hitting power and continuing to hold (read somewhere to try that) and no effect.
- I really hate paying $300 for a new motherboard, especially one a couple years old and nearly hopeless...
- I am about to go to a local MicroCenter and test out on a real charger (I think it needs like 120w/130w/150w or something stock, not 90w)

Somebody with experience in this department have any more suggestions? anything??? I'll report back if I can get anywhere, but were about stumped on this end...

EDIT: using a 120W cord to test it made no difference...wiggling the cord on the charger might be making a difference in whether or not it actually charges, like the power jack is giving us problems...

[djhough]

Sorry you never got your reply and maybe you solved the issue already but I may be able to help.

I have an ROG ASUS G74SX thats about 3 years old. Today it froze and I had to force restart it, when it rebooted it displayed the exact same characteristics you just explained. I looked around a little and saw that others have had issues with the magnetic field sensor that tells the laptop when it is closed. I reset it by removing the bezel, finding where the magnet attatched to it made contact with the body of the laptop, then used the magnet on the bezel to make small 1" circles around the area for about 10 seconds. I know very little about magnets but I think doing this helped re-align the field. I plugged it back in and voila! It worked!

To give you an idea where the sensor is trace a line straight down from the gap between your "C" and "V" keys and stop just below the left touchpad button.

Best of luck! Hope I wasnt 10 months too late or I hope I could help another poor soul with a bricked $1300 laptop

[Kupuo]

djhough, that's a really good idea, yes, that might work.