Asus EEE powering off?

Alanstrainor

I didn't want to make this part of the eee monster thread as it'd probably go unnoticed, but in the last 12 hours my Asus eee 701 has been powering off for no reason, just seems to die?
It's plugged in when this happens and it's saying it's fully charged too. I'm running windows xp sp2, and nothing major has changed as far as software in the last couple of days. And i haven't made any hardware changes either. So i'm completely at a loss.

bbtex

Threre is many things which could cause ur laptop powering off.

Virus
Trojan Horse
Overheating
Battery
Power supply failed
Any of internal component failed.

Things u can do

Scan for viruses
Remove battery
Check ur buck with other power supply
If u have 2 RAM Chips try to remove one
Check if there is air flow comming out for air intake

Tom Dunne

bbtex wrote: »

Threre is many things which could cause ur laptop powering off.

Virus
Trojan Horse
Overheating
Battery
Power supply failed
Any of internal component failed.

I really don't see how a trojan or virus can cause a laptop to power off. TBH, it's a bit of a cop out to blame something you can't explain on a virus or trojan.

I also fail to see how a battery could cause a plugged-in laptop to power off.

I would suspect overheating - is there anything in the Event Viewer? Also check the BIOS - are there any power/heat related settings in there.

Are there any power management tools installed with it? I would have a look at them too.

Alanstrainor

viruses & trojans are pretty much a no no, pc is regularly checked, today included, with avg spybot search and destroy.
Laptop has never over heated as such it was running at around the 50degrees Celsius at the time.
Now the Battery and power supply are my prime suspects.
Ram has been checked and is fine.
Fan is working fine, it's not blocked and runs fine from 0 to 100% (manually controlled test.)

Tom Dunne

Anything in the Event Viewer?

bbtex

Tom Dunne wrote: »

I really don't see how a trojan or virus can cause a laptop to power off. TBH, it's a bit of a cop out to blame something you can't explain on a virus or trojan.

I also fail to see how a battery could cause a plugged-in laptop to power off.

I would suspect overheating - is there anything in the Event Viewer? Also check the BIOS - are there any power/heat related settings in there.

Are there any power management tools installed with it? I would have a look at them too.

I think u have to lern more about virsues and trojans. For the begining u can goolge - "shutdown virus".

And believe or not faulty battery can even burn ur buck

Alanstrainor

Just to clarify, it is not a virus/trojan as it has crashed on the bios screen. It appears to be an issue with either the plug itself (i dont have my multimeter handy to check) or the power connection on the laptop. Either way it's not looking good.
Event viewer has nothing logged. The machine just dies without warning
Thanks for the quick replies lads.

bbtex

Unplug power supplay and try to run it on battery only if it still happes it means that power supply is fine

Try to disconnect HD if it does't work another part ( graphic, screen, WiFi etc)

Alanstrainor

Okay an update, power supply itself is fine. But the connection between pc and psu is not okay. While running on the fully charged battery, plugging in power supply had no effect unless i twirled it around until it made a brief connection which it lost. What i can't understand is why it dies while on the now 80% ish battery charge. Well, it ain't right boys, i hoped i'd never have to deal with laptops direct but ah well. I'll drop them a mail, or better yet give them a call tomorrow.

bbtex wrote: »

Unplug power supplay and try to run it on battery only if it still happes it means that power supply is fine

Try to disconnect HD if it does't work another part ( graphic, screen, WiFi etc)

Harddrive is soldered to the motherboard.

Tom Dunne

bbtex wrote: »

I think u have to lern more about virsues and trojans. For the begining u can goolge - "shutdown virus".

Um, I did that and I get a load of instructions on how to make a pc shutdown as a prank, nothing concrete on a shutdown virus. Oh well.

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Just to clarify, it is not a virus/trojan as it has crashed on the bios screen. It appears to be an issue with either the plug itself (i dont have my multimeter handy to check) or the power connection on the laptop. Either way it's not looking good.
Event viewer has nothing logged. The machine just dies without warning
Thanks for the quick replies lads.

Is the machine still under warranty? If so, you should be fine.

There's two scenarios where it can happen, as I can see it:

1: Battery charged, inserted, laptop plugged in, dies => can't be the power connector/plug as the battery should kick in.

2: Battery removed, laptop plugged in, dies => in this case it does sound like the plug/power connector

bbtex

Can u get to BIOS? Can u chande any settings?

Alanstrainor

Indeed i can, but it appears to be a power connection that is loose somewhere, which means that i can lose power at any stage.
This really couldn't have happened at a worse time, i'm heading off to the states for a bit on saturday so i needed a road warrior to carry with me...might go out and take the plunge on an advent or aspire one...dag nammit.

bbtex

can check with other power supply but I think it's power socket or cold solder joint beside it. Press laptop casing near to power socket and then twirl the plug if laptop is not powering off it's 99% sure that cold solder joint causing problems. It costs a lot of work to fix it because its hard or somethimes even impossible to pinpoint which joint is cold. Some techs connect power supply to battery socket but I have never tried it. If u have enough good ectronics knowlege u can try it:P

Alanstrainor

bbtex wrote: »

can check with other power supply but I think it's power socket or cold solder joint beside it. Press laptop casing near to power socket and then twirl the plug if laptop is not powering off it's 99% sure that cold solder joint causing problems. It costs a lot of work to fix it because its hard or somethimes even impossible to pinpoint which joint is cold. Some techs connect power supply to battery socket but I have never tried it. If u have enough good ectronics knowlege u can try it:P

Machine is under warranty so ill leave it for the moment. But the thing i can't understand is why i faulty power socket on the laptop would result in a complete loss of power, the battery should take up the slack.
Cheers for all the replies lads. I'll give laptopsdirect a buzz today and see if i can get anywhere.

Ron DMC

Unless the battery connection is on the fritz also (which would be very unfortunate).

sound_wave

Funny, the exact same thing has happened to me last week. I emailed laptops-direct who told me to contact Asus. I haven't done so yet but it should be interesting to see how you get on Alanstrainor. Will you update us when you have gotten onto Asus?

Alanstrainor

sound_wave wrote: »

Funny, the exact same thing has happened to me last week. I emailed laptops-direct who told me to contact Asus. I haven't done so yet but it should be interesting to see how you get on Alanstrainor. Will you update us when you have gotten onto Asus?

Really? That seems very odd.
I did read on their site that direct contact with asus was better, but my contract is with laptopsdirect, not Asus. Anyway sure i'll post back with any response i get.
Cheers.
Alan.

bbtex

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Machine is under warranty so ill leave it for the moment. But the thing i can't understand is why i faulty power socket on the laptop would result in a complete loss of power, the battery should take up the slack.
Cheers for all the replies lads. I'll give laptopsdirect a buzz today and see if i can get anywhere.

As I said I could be cold solder joint on motherboard.When u twirl the plug some joint somewhere on mobo break the electric circut and ur buck loosing voltage.

Alanstrainor

Just an update on the situation. Sent mails off to asus and laptops direct, never got a response from laptopsdirect but within one day had a mail and a link to a form from asus. Once i filled out this online form i was told i would receive further instructions via post. I received a letter from asus this morning with a free UPS return delivery sticker, and instructions to ring UPS to arrange collection of the laptop. All this within a week. Hats off to Asus on their superb customer support!

machalla

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Just an update on the situation. Sent mails off to asus and laptops direct, never got a response from laptopsdirect but within one day had a mail and a link to a form from asus. Once i filled out this online form i was told i would receive further instructions via post. I received a letter from asus this morning with a free UPS return delivery sticker, and instructions to ring UPS to arrange collection of the laptop. All this within a week. Hats off to Asus on their superb customer support!

Which should be a warning to anyone dealing with Laptops Direct. They are the ones who should take responsibility for faulty goods but keep palming it off to the manufacturers. Nightmarish bunch to deal with if you have a problem.

I have had one machine repaired by Asus and the experience once someone in there took ownership of it was pretty good. Asus do seem to have upped their game recently after being a bit iffy before the Eee came along.

Run_to_da_hills

I had trouble with mine, i.e freezing etc, I just fitted an external DVD reader to the USB and loaded the systems cd that came with the machine and gave it a fresh install. Everything is now fine. You must set the bios to boot on external usb sourse.

ASUS use Norton Ghost to transfer the operating system and what ever else over to the PC very clever and something microsoft could learn from.:D