My Asus ROG STRIX G15 G513QM is not turning ON after thermal PAD/Paste change.

[Pan77]

 Hello. Here is a short explanation about what happened.

I had an issue with the laptop getting hot and freezing (due to overheat I guess). So I decided to upgrade the cooling system. 

- I used thermal Pad PTM Grizzly for the CPU and GPU.

- I used Arctic TP-3 Thermal pads for the other components. And I did it exactly as It used to be. 

- I changed both GPU and CPU fans as they were wear off and even the best air condenser couldn't save it. I used OEM parts.

- Before doing everything I mentioned before, the laptop was turned off without power for a week (I had no time also wanted it to be cold). 

Here is the result: After doing all this also cleaning everything meticulosly as adviced, the laptop wont turn ON. 

 - When I connect the power cable, the LED of the power source turns ON.

- When I press power button, LEDS, Keyboard, even top leds, all turn ON, except the laptop itself. 

- No noise, fans wont turn on, and It's like just LEDS turning ON and not the laptop itself.

I've been investigating the issue for two weeks, tryed everything adviced on any forum and nothing worked. I send my laptop to a experienced technichian and he told me that I better off buy a new laptop as probably the motherboard or cpu is dead. 

Well, as I said, the laptop was working just fine before maintenence and the only issue was ocasional freezing due to overheat. But if the issue was caused by bad placing of the thermal components, only potential issue would be shown after turning PC on and having a hotter CPU/GPU. 

I also tryed to find electronic diagram to troubleshoot myself, however I couldn't find anything. 

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[ElectroStingz]

Hello,

How did you clean the original CPU and GPU thermal paste?

Did any of the old CPU / GPU thermal paste get on to the motherboard?

Was the battery disconnected prior to maintenance?

Do you have any photos of the laptop / board with the heatsink off from before you cleaned it

The fans you replaced, are they exactly the same plug / wiring from what you can see and power / current rating?

Your thermal pads, how thick are they? - If these are too high it might prevent good contact with the CPU /GPU. Only way to tell is to take the heatsink off and check, do that and post a photo too so we can see how it looks.

What did the exeprience technician do to the laptop? (was it taken apart by them or not?)

You should stop powering it and see how it looks for a better assessment of the issue (photo would help)

[Pan77]

Hello, first of all, thank you for your answer. 

Fans are OEM with same pins and connections.

I did disconnect the battery before doing anything.

Thermal pads on the non CPU/GPU components are 1.5mm thick so there is no issue about that. 

GPU and CPU were placed with Grizzly PTM. After doing some research I find out that it's the best choice.

The "experienced" technichian apparently never repaired Asus Rog laptop so...

After some headaches I decided to send my laptop to the asus official technical support team.

We had a short phone call and he informed me that all strix laptops doesn't have a normal thermal paste, but instead they have liquid metal, and they are supposed to work forever and never require a change. He also informed me that there was a slight possibility that I didn't clean the motherboard as good as I expected and there might be a little bit of liquid metal making a short circuit and for the damage prevention, the laptop won't turn on. 

He told me that he will take everything apart piece by piece and inspect througly.

I've read a lot of horror stories last couple days from reddit and many other forums. Most of them said that it was dead motherboard or dead CPU and in any case it requires fully new motherboard which costs around 300€. 

I don't think it's worth to spend that much money to repair the laptop as it just have 3060 on it and it's just slightly better than my 1060 old desktop PC. If I have to waste 300€ on a laptop repair, I might aswell sell the laptop as spare parts for 200-250€ and then add another 1000€ to build a brand new PC.

What I've learn through these years is that PCs last more than laptops. Like my PC is almost 10 years old and still runs a lot of games and never had a heating issue. However my laptop after just 3 years, started to give me a headaches.

[ElectroStingz]

Yes there is a possibility that if there is liquid metal making contact with some other part of the board it might be causing a short, which is the reason why I was asking how you cleaned everything and for photos of before / after. There are specific methods required to ensure the liquid metal doesn't drip off the CPU and also sometimes it can leak under the protective film of the CPU so it's important to be extremely careful when cleaning it.

However the information on liquid metal mentioned to you is not accurate, it doesn't last forever and behaves in exactly the same way as any other thermal paste, that is over time due to various heat cycles it will eventually spread out and off the CPU. This is common to all thermal material but in general the thicker / stiffer the material is, the more resistant it is to this effect. (it's called "pump out"). For laptop use it does mean there is a higher maintenance schedule if liquid metal is being used.

Laptops run hotter than desktops so it is inevitable that they cannot last as long as a PC, heat kills components, again it's actually the physical aspect that when electronics expand and contract due to heat cycles they degrade. Also specifications are not the same, for example a desktop RTX 4070 is way more powerful than a laptop RTX 4070 to the point that calling them both an RTX 4070 is a little misleading so our desktops will keep up over the years too.

Anyway, given that there is still power your laptop might be ok and just needs some cleaning to remove any liquid metal residue, assuming that is the cause (I hope so).

[Pan77]

In the end it was a liquid metal leak. But also it made a shortcut which damaged the laptop motherboard. They cleaned everything and they managed to make it work, however, with only one slot of RAM (the other slot is dead). It makes me really sad, and even worse, thinking how much money I've wasted on that laptop, not just buying it, but also upgrading. I asked of they could buy me back the laptop as parts, but they said no. 

I will probably try to get everything (both old parts and new ones) sold in pack. If I can get 200-300€ that would be a huge win for me. Said that, the laptop currently works just fine, however, instead 32gb of ram, it runs on 16gb.

[ElectroStingz]

At least this is some good news, maybe someone will buy it or trade in some place?