$1200 Asus game laptop, DC jack repair and now fails POST

[thecompu-doctor]

So I recently picked up an ASUS G53SX gaming laptop from a customer. They broke the pin off the DC jack into the tip of the power supply by a "light trip" over the cord. Now the customer claims that it was functioning fine on the battery until it ran down. But of course when I got it, it was dead.

So I disassembled the unit, removed the old DC jack, installed the new one without any issues. Reassembled, plugged in and powered on just fine. However, there is nothing on the screen, and the fans are going at full speed. So it is clear it is not making it out of POST.

I took it apart again just to see if i can figure it out. No issues, no disconnected wires and nothing grounding. I removed the new jack and installed a second new one just to be thorough. I also got the system down to just the board, ram, CPU, GPU, and a fan. It still will power on, but not pass POST and fans are at full speed. I'm thinking it is a GPU (this has a GPU card) or a main board problem. The customer is of course very upset, said there was nothing wrong when I picked it up. I politely explained that if there was nothing wrong, he wouldn't have had us work on it. Plus the jack was physically broken.

As of right now, i'm looking at returning it with the new jack, can power on but not POST, but no $$ back. Customer said he will ship it back to ASUS and have it repaired by them. While i'm fine and not worried about that, I'm worried he may threaten legal action. Now i know I have a strong case, and am not really that worried about it since it was not powering on at all when I picked it up, so it is his word against mine. But I am worried about possible bad reviews.

Anyone got any bright ideas?

thanks

 

[Blue]

Check the CMOS (BIOS) battery?

 

[compnet]

Thats a tough one.. Personally I wouldnt charge someone and give back a dead computer.

What happens if asus(right or wrong) says the board was damaged from the dc jack replacement?

 

[PCX]

We tell each customer that comes in with a motherboard that cannot be powered on, that we are not responsible for any further damage on their motherboard if we cannot test it. We explain to them that they could have shorted out the board by trying to make the loose power jack work. The customer is still responsible for paying for our time and they understand that they are taking this risk from the very beginning.

The fact that their motherboard is shot and that the power jack replacement did not fix ALL their issues is not my fault. We did the work, so we charge for our time. Again, the customer understands this from the beginning.

As far as handling this situations, I would have an agreement that they sign that basically states what I said above. If you do not want to take the risk personally, then don't do power jack replacements on boards you cannot test.

 

[theplextech]

Have you tested the hard drive? I have a machine in that would not get past the Bios splash screen. I tried the hard drive in a different machine and it gave the same result. Maybe this helps if you still have the machine in your shop.

 

[lan101]

I think I would just not charge the customer this time since there's a misunderstanding and then from now on do what PCX said. I think that is wonderful advice PCX. That way you can at least get your diagnostic charge up front with no problems in the future.

 

[brandonkick]

Since you have removed the motherboard from the machine I am assuming that you would have removed any USB mouse recievers or anything that goes into the USB slots.

I have a HP G60 519WM that I bought off of ebay for $100 and it only needed a new hard drive. I fixed it and sold it to a family member for $200. They call me a few days later stating the machine wouldn't turn on. I go over and over this thing, everything I try fails.

I remove the USB mouse receiver and boom it powers on. Has something to do with the battery going dead while the laptop was unplugged and in sleep mode. If it does that, I have to remove the mouse receiver in order to get the machine to post. Other wise it does just what you have suggested.

I assume you have re seated the system memory? Try that if not.

 

[TechguyUK]

All good advice above.

When I took in a machine that wouldn't POST/BOOT I always wrote 'machine untested' or 'unable to POST' across the work order and had the customer sign for it.

Much easier to set their expectations low then over deliver if possible.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

just curious, did you confirm that the battery is in fact charging now at least

 

[BillMoney]

Did you try to turn it on without the memory in see if it might throw a beep code, also google the motherboard model to see if it will beep without ram that could give you an answer to a dead board

 

[thecompu-doctor]

Nope, tried changing the bios battery too. System will power on with all power lights, fans go into turbo mode and that is it.

 

[thecompu-doctor]

I've pretty much tried everything suggested here. This is a monster system with multiple daughter boards for usb's and so forth, but the DC jack is on the main motherboard. I took it all the way down to just the board, fan, CPU, GPU and a stick of ram. I swapped the ram all around just in case. Still no go. She's dead.

I agreed to return this at no charge, which i think is a first for me. I'm taking a big hit on this for the multiple hours of labor spent working on it. At this point, i just want it out of my shop.

All customers sign the following "release and work order agreement"

I authorize The Computer Doctor and any of their agents to transport and perform diagnostic and repair work on the computer(s)/parts listed below in accordance with job description. I also agree that I will not hold The Computer Doctor liable for damages or missing data. Moreover, if I decide not to have any work performed post diagnostics I am still responsible for minimum $45 basic diagnostics fee or $75 advanced diagnostic fee. If The Computer Doctor exhausts all methods to return my items to me, after 30 days a $2 per day storage fee may be assessed, and after 90 days my items will be forfeit. I understand that prior to the ordering of parts, nonrefundable prepayment may be required, and labor is due upon completion of the job.​

So while it is not as descriptive as PCX said, i'm confident I'm covered here if it came down to legal action. I doubt it will, but it is a concern. I think I will edit it to reflect PCX's suggestions.

PCX, would you mind showing us (or pm me if you'd prefer) your release waiver customers sign?


Thanks everyone

 

[thecompu-doctor]

Well, he did leave negative Google Feedback, as I expected he would... I'm working on a rebuttal, but needless to say he broke his computer and just like PCX said, I couldn't power on the system at the time it was picked up, so I had no way of knowing the system was more faulty than just a broken DC jack.

https://plus.google.com/107729690491926132078/about?gl=US&hl=en-US

Not a good deal, not a good place to get your computer fixed. You get what you pay for. I sent my laptop here with a broken DC jack. Before I gave it to him, I booted it up and everything worked fine, except the battery would not charge. The Computer Doctor had my laptop for a month. After he replaced the power jack, I get an email that everything is fine but the laptop won't power off when closing it. Then the phone call. Now your computer won't POST or Boot. He said I think your video card is bad. At that moment I stopped him and asked for my laptop back. This story was hard for me to believe considering everything was working fine when I gave it to him. He gave me some line about a known issue with NVIDIA Graphics cards, After doing some research I found there is a known issue, but not with this make/model of laptop or graphic card. I got the feeling he was trying to pull one over on me and was trying to pass off damage done by his technician on a known issue that didn't even apply. After asking for the laptop back, he said he was sorry, and that he would not charge full price for the work he had done so far. I expressed my displeasure with this, seeing as I am now out a $1200.00 gaming laptop because of something they did to it.

I have my laptop back, he did fix the power jack, and he did not charge me, so I guess that is worth something. The laptop in it's current state is worthless. I have set up an RMA with the manufacturer to have them investigate and fix. It will be interesting to see what comes back. Maybe his tech was not used to this particular model or something. Maybe they are better working on less complicated systems or less complicated problems. Not sure. I actually chose this person because of all the prior postive reviews.....​

 

[lan101]

Just out of curiosity, is this customer someone younger than say 30?

I've always approached anyone in that crowd, especially a "gamer" with extreme caution. They tend to be very cheap and think they know everything.

A couple lessons I've learned from your issue here is:

1. If I ever encounter someone with this type of system whether its laptop/desktop, I will REQUIRE checking to see if it powers on etc. in front of them. This way there is no questions.

2. Depending on how I feel about the customer, collecting a small diagnostic fee upfront that way you at least get something out of them, although that wasn't the case at all here. I am mobile, so I guess maybe this applies more to mobile maybe. Everyone has their own policies.

 

[NYJimbo]

.. The Computer Doctor had my laptop for a month...

What was the reason for keeping it for a month ?

 

[theplextech]

$1200 dollar gaming laptop seems to be the major theme of your situation. It is the title of your post, in his review, and I am sure he said it a few times around you as well. I noticed a lie from the customer on his review by them saying that you seen the laptop come on. You said it was dead on arrival. A light tip would probaly not break a pin in my opinion. I think it would take some force to do some damage. You don't know what this guy has done to this computer. If you know that you properly diagnosed it and you didn't do any damage during th process I would say this person had bad intentions. He surley made it clear how much it was worth to you and the world. I would have to say technician beware.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

so this laptop is only worth about $300 (has to be over 3yrs old) or so.... honestly I'm surprised he decided to repair it.

 

[NYJimbo]

so this laptop is only worth about $300 (has to be over 3yrs old) or so.... honestly I'm surprised he decided to repair it.

I fix DC jacks every day on machines worth a lot less than that.

 

[thecompu-doctor]

What was the reason for keeping it for a month ?

It wasn't quite a month, but it was close. Our normal turn around time is One business week for DC jacks, i know that is longer than many, but we have a pretty active shop and sometimes DC jack repairs get pushed back because you can't multi-task when working on them. So, we got to the end of the first week, took it apart only to realize that after it was ready for the new jack that his laptop required the 2.5mm pin style and we had the 1.65mm in stock. Unfortunately this laptop has two different jacks, with the center pin being the only difference. This was our mistake and we explained it to him while we had to order a new jack. Once that came in, we got it installed only to find out it would power on, but not POST. I thought it may have been an issue with the HAL (lid close/open sensor) that is a very common problem with this system. So we ordered a new HAL sensor for it and waited for that to come in, that didn't fix it. So I kept it a few more days until I could spare a few hours to pull it apart again and worked on it more.

All in all we had two jacks and a HAL sensor + 8-10 labor hours into this thing without a penny to show for it and now my first negative review. I definitely learned some lessons. I guess I've been quite fortunate for 6+ years of business and this is the first "major" loss and negative review. Still sucks.

 

[thecompu-doctor]

Just out of curiosity, is this customer someone younger than say 30?

I've always approached anyone in that crowd, especially a "gamer" with extreme caution. They tend to be very cheap and think they know everything.

A couple lessons I've learned from your issue here is:

1. If I ever encounter someone with this type of system whether its laptop/desktop, I will REQUIRE checking to see if it powers on etc. in front of them. This way there is no questions.

2. Depending on how I feel about the customer, collecting a small diagnostic fee upfront that way you at least get something out of them, although that wasn't the case at all here. I am mobile, so I guess maybe this applies more to mobile maybe. Everyone has their own policies.

He was somewhere in his mid 30's and seems like a responsible person. I know he's ******, but its not my fault he broke his laptop. I never saw it power on prior to our fixing the jack, regardless what he said.

Moreover, note how he said I told him it is a common GPU issue, he clearly wasn't listening or simply just didn't understand. While yes, this model has had GPU issues, and I said this current problem may be a GPU issue, I explained to him whatever is wrong, likely occurred when the system was damaged and he broke the pin. It simply didn't show up until full power was restored back to the main board, and just using the battery isn't the same thing.

The "laptop won't power off when closing it" statement refers to when i told him I thought it may be a HAL sensor as mentioned in my previous post. In the end, i didn't really think it was the HAL sensor, this was more a "hail-marry full court lob" that missed the basket by a mile.

I was grasping at straws trying to get this computer back up and running for him. I'm a computer Doctor, not a miracle worker and there was nothing more we could do. The best we were able to accomplish was to bring it back to life, but in a vegetative state.