Hello everyone,
I just purchased a used G73JH. I must say I'm impressed with the design. The case is robust, the screen bright and clear, and I feel like I could carry this thing around by the screen and not harm the hinges!
However, I'm having a perplexing issue. The unit will not shut completely down, go into sleep mode, nor hybernate. It will restart but seems to take a long time, although that might be the design? Windows (7) isn't hanging, it's just not giving the power down command to the machine. The screen goes black, the keyboard lights go off but all the blue lights stay on as well as the fan and power button. I can, of course, hold the power button for a few seconds and it will power down. Upon restarting, I get no windows errors so windows is definitely shutting down. And the fans seem to run a little fast for idle temps (37-40*c). I will bullet point my trouble shooting so far:
1. Event viewer shows nothing unusual
2. CHKDSK /f reports no errors
3. sfc /scannow reports no errors
4. two clean installs from the existing restore partition made no difference
5. swapped in known good HDD and installed Windows 7 from a DVD from another computer - no change
6. Flashed BIOS to 213 - n change
7. Played with boot order in BIOS - no change
8. uninstalled LAN controller
9. removed DVD drive and uninstalled
10. tried the no bat, no ac adapter, hold power button for 30 - all no change
11. nothing external hooked to unit
12. I just discovered while writing this that the headphone jack is non-functional
13. Changing the desktop background image resets to default (two units back-to-back) upon restart
14. Tried installing Windows 10 - no change
15. updated all drivers - still no change.
16. Ran Ccleaner which found some registry errors but still no change.
I completely disassembled the unit, cleaned it all up (it wasn't bad), re-pasted the heat sinks (pretty dried out), but discovered the fan power connectors would not come loose. No pinching, prying, pulling would get them out and I destroyed one (fan end) getting it out. Maybe that signifies an overheating event? While in there I pulled the foil from the back of the touchpad so it works pretty well now. Task manager shows all processors working, nothing parked as far as I can tell.
This machine was a major upgrade for me so I'm motivated to get it right. I need either "sleep" or "hibernate" mode to make it usable for me.
I should mention here that when I recieved the unit, it was boxed in the original packaging, inside the original shipping box from ASUS so it was well cared for (apparently). It had Windows 10 on it when I powered it on for [my] first time and it powered off just fine. However, the DVD drive wasn't recognized by windows. I figured it was a Windows 10 issue and that's when I did the first clean install from the restore partition. I now had the DVD drive but also the shutdown issue. The original owner (now an e-friend) said he didn't do anything special, he didn't have this issue.
It seems like hardware to me, rather than software, and I'm leaning toward the motherboard. Maybe it was manhandled during the holiday shipping? No damage to the boxes though. And close inspection didn't uncover any scorch, cracks, or bulging caps (although my eyes aren't what they used to be, lol).
Thoughts? Something I'm missing?
Many thanks 🙂
-Mac
