Laptop won't boot up

Got an Asus K550—pretty sure it’s the K550JK model.
It’s over two years old now. Everything seemed fine until yesterday when I was just watching a series; then, boom, the laptop dies and won't turn back on.

When I try to power it up, the indicator lights show it's on. The battery light keeps cycling between green and orange, and the Caps Lock stays solid green.

When I hit the power button, the laptop stays quiet for about 15 seconds, then I hear the fans kick in, but it shuts itself off after a minute. The screen stays black the whole time.

If anyone knows what's going on here, let me know. It would be a huge help.

Matthew Roberts3 said:I've got an ASUS K550—not sure if it's the K550JK specifically.
It’s been over two years old now, and everything was running perfectly until yesterday when, boom—the laptop just dies and won't turn back on.

When I try to power it up, the indicator lights show it's on; the battery light cycles between green and orange, and the Caps Lock stays solid green.

When I hit the power button, the machine stays quiet for about 15 seconds, then I hear the fans kick in, but after a minute, it shuts itself off again—and the screen stays completely black.

If anyone has any clue what might be causing this, I'd really appreciate the help.

Could be the hard drive? It's possible yours just kicked the bucket.

Pulled the hard drive and booted up—still nothing.
Tried pulling the RAM and rebooting too. Same result.
Plugged it into an external monitor. Total blackout.

Is a repair actually worth the cost if the hard drive has failed? I’m dealing with the exact same issue on my laptop, but mine is already eight years old.

Matthew Roberts3 said:I pulled the hard drive and tried booting—still nothing.
I even tried pulling the RAM and rebooting, but I'm still getting the same result.
Tried hooking it up to an external monitor too... absolutely nothing.

If it isn't the hard drive, you should probably check the graphics card.
Anything could be causing this!

Ashley Chase92 said:Is it actually worth fixing if the hard drive dies? I have the exact same issue with my laptop, but mine is already 8 years old.

You don't repair a hard drive; you simply swap it out for a new one, which isn't a huge expense. However, if the motherboard has fried—which might be the case for the OP—things get a bit more complicated, and usually, it's just not worth the investment.

It is an issue with the graphics card. The technician identified the problem immediately upon powering it on 🙂

I’m not actually having any trouble booting up, so I figured I’d just drop a note here instead of cluttering things up with a brand-new thread. I’ve got this General Electric Satellite laptop that’s about three years old, and luckily, I still have two years left on the manufacturer's warranty. Everything was running smoothly until about a month ago when things took a bizarre turn. Out of nowhere, my keyboard started acting possessed—for instance, if I pressed the "A" key, it would spit out "ssss16." That happened with almost every key, usually resulting in some weird string of "16" appearing everywhere. Then, the file system went haywire; I couldn't open folders properly because they’d show up as "read only," and instead of moving files, the OS would just create shortcuts while leaving the originals sitting right there on the desktop. Even browsing in Firefox became a nightmare—trying to type anything in the search bar would just trigger more "16" inputs, opening random tabs and making the screen flicker incessantly. After two days of chaos, things actually seemed to stabilize, right up until last Friday. This morning, I tried using a cookie-clearing utility via a right-click (since the left-click wasn't responding), and suddenly, everything seems back to normal.
It feels pretty obvious to me that this glitch is just waiting in the wings to strike again, so I was wondering if anyone has any insight into what might be causing such erratic behavior?