Laptops Brand new Zenbook 13 won't turn on unless connected to AC power

sriharsha_m

sriharsha_m

Adept
Hi all,

I had bought a Zenbook 13 (UX333FN) from store last week.
It was a sealed piece which was opened by me in store to verify if everything is okay.

I tried to turn on the laptop out of the box and it didn't boot till it was connected to the provided power adapter.
I had ignored this thinking that may be the battery power was too low to boot.

Back home, I had charged the laptop to 100% and tried the same.
Again, the power button does nothing. Laptop won't turn on.
If I hold the power button for 10 seconds to force shutdown and try again, it works.

If the laptop is connected to the power adapter, everything works. The issue is only while running on battery. Once the laptop is turned on, there is no issue with the battery back up as well, it runs for hours without any hitch. But the minute I shutdown the laptop and try to boot on battery, nothing works.

There was a bios update available on Asus support, I had upgraded the BIOS expecting the issue to be sorted out, but no luck.

I have come across similar issues for certain HP & Dell laptops as well but no one had posted a resolution.
Has anyone faced this issue or had come across such issue?

RMA would be my last resort as I don't want them to pry open the laptop for what I think to be a software conflict.
 
Last edited:
Some things you can try
1. power out the laptop from 100% to 0% on battery only. remove the battery. hold down power button for around 20 to 30 seconds. plug in your laptop on charger only. start laptop and once it has started working, insert the battery and see if its charging. If this doesnt work, just check your bios and power settings if you see something odd and tinker out with it.
2. Take it back to store and try another battery if possible.
 
Unfortunately Zenbook 13 comes with a sealed battery.
Annoyingly, restart works on battery but turning on after a shutdown doesn't work.
 
Are you using Windows?

1. Update it. Quite a few bugs related to power management were there in earlier builds of Windows 10.
2. Change power management settings to run the processor at full speed all the time and see if it happens. I've read a few threads on Windows forums which all suggested that playing around with power management/battery settings fixed the issue for them.
3. My brother's dell XPS had the same issue. BIOS and Windows updates fixed the issue for him.
 
indy1811 said:
Are you using Windows?

1. Update it. Quite a few bugs related to power management were there in earlier builds of Windows 10.
2. Change power management settings to run the processor at full speed all the time and see if it happens.
3. My brother's dell XPS had the same issue. BIOS and Windows updates fixed the issue for him.
Click to expand...

1) Got a few updates this morning. Force updated everything in the evening, but still the issue persists.
2) Will give this a try.
3) Bios upgrade didn't work for me.

I think I'll just change the shutdown mode to force hibernate and see if that works as an interim solution.
 
Tried every possible fix and nothing worked.

Have to say that Asus service is one of the worst I have experienced so far.
I had raised a replacement request well withing the replacement period of 7 working days.
They had asked me to wait as my request was being worked upon and a couple of days later,
they kept asking me to wait for a couple more days as the issue is being escalated.
They stopped me from visiting the service center saying that If I choose to get it serviced, they won't be able to replace and asked me to wait.

Fast forward to 10 days since the purchase, they started giving me excuses saying that the device is well past the replacement period.
This is when I had lost my cool and gave a piece of my mind to them and they agreed to get the laptop checked and if the issue persists they would process a replacement.

At every step they kept saying that the device is out of replacement period and they are doing this as some exceptional case.
This sounded way too absurd to me as they are the ones who had asked me to wait and then turned their back on me.

I'm pushing for a refund, so that I can steer away from Asus and their exceptional service.
 
sriharsha_m said:
They kept asking me to wait for a couple more days
Fast forward to 10 days since the purchase, they started giving me excuses saying that the device is well past the replacement period.
This is when I had lost my cool and gave a piece of my mind to them and they agreed to get the laptop checked and if the issue persists they would process a replacement.

At every step they kept saying that the device is out of replacement period and they are doing this as some exceptional case.
This sounded way too absurd to me as they are the ones who had asked me to wait and then turned their back on me.

I'm pushing for a refund, so that I can steer away from Asus and their exceptional service.
Click to expand...

These fcukers always try this. You shouldn't have budged. File a complaint and ask them to review their security camera footage which will prove you visited them.

If you are on twitter, raise a stink. The customer service in India needs a fillip. I wonder who can rein these mo-effing c*nts from these shady tactics.
 
soulweaver said:
These fcukers always try this. You shouldn't have budged. File a complaint and ask them to review their security camera footage which will prove you visited them.

If you are on twitter, raise a stink. The customer service in India needs a fillip. I wonder who can rein these mo-effing c*nts from these shady tactics.
Click to expand...

I would've done that usually, but I got a little busy at work and really can't spend much time running around this issue.
I just wanted to get this issue sorted out quickly and move on.

Update: They've sent a technician to verify if it's a hardware failure. He too confirmed it as a hardware issue and processed the laptop as DOA (Dead on arrival).
I've returned back to the store with the DOA letter and the laptop. They asked me to wait for a couple of days as the Royal Blue color is not in stock anywhere.
Now they're giving me new excuses that it would take 3 months to procure the same color one as Asus themselves have no stock and are pushing me to upgrade to the i7 version by paying the difference.
They are not offering the refund either.

For the first time in a long long time I've bought an electronic item in a physical store and this happens.
No wonder why people resort to online sellers.

Another funny story is, I've actually ordered this initially from Amazon as a gift to my wife and they royally screwed up with the delivery.
The delivery guy didn't call me when he arrived at home and no one was there. He straight away returned the product without even confirming with me.
The warehouse was just 100mts away from my home and they too couldn't do much as the product was already marked as return to seller.
A few heated calls to Amazon didn't make any change and I got pissed off and bought it from store and the adventure continued.
 
Final update on the issue.

Store manager called me up and offered an upgrade to i7 model as the i5 ones are no where to be found pan India. I agreed to it and went to the store, paid the difference amount and just when they were about to open the box, I noticed that the model number was ux333fa, which is the on board graphics variant, not the ux332fn with Nivida card.

By now I lost my patience and asked them to either replace with same variant or refund the amount. He tried calling various Asus dealers pan India and suprisingly no one had it in stock. Off the record, I was told that Asus India is very cautious about getting rid of existing stock and not ordering new ones owing to the China - US fiasco. Anyways the store guy had no other option so processed the refund.

Came back home and saw the announcement of new zenbook 13 with touchpad screen like Zenbook pro. Got tempted for a second and then decide not to buy any ASUS product again, owing to this experience.
 
Asus and it's management team in India is in shambles at the moment. I usually swear by their products but that might end up changing soon. Dinesh Sharma who heads their mobile division is a total bottlejob which makes me wonder how he got hired in the first place. Their mid range phones are pretty solid when it comes to the hardware side of things but on the flip side their software has been corrosive at best. No wonder people have started calling them "Bugs ki Dukan".
 
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