Defiance 15.6 (2016 model) frozen and cant reboot

[andmil72]

I also sent this message to Tech Support, but maybe someone has seen similar problem and has some advice

Re my Defiance 15.6 Laptop, purchased 2 years ago. This machine has behaved perfectly until today.

Today it has locked up and frozen. Pressing the power on/off button does nothing. CTRL/ALT DELETE does nothing. The machine continues to run ie power is on and I can't power it off and reboot. It just continues to run in frozen state on the batteries.

Unlike most laptops it doesn't seem to have a reset button or small hole to press a paper clip into... unless I'm missing something. So I can't restart and reboot the machine at all. Please advise if there is any hard reset method for this machine. It should not die totally when it is only 2 years old.

 

[paul1224]

If you hold the power button down for a few seconds that normally turns a laptop off. Not sure from your post if you have tried this but hold it down a few seconds and see if it cuts the power and then you can try to reboot it and see what comes up.

 

[ubuysa]

Try a 'soft reset'...

Take the battery out and disconnect from the charger.

Hold the ON button down for at lest 60 seconds. Nothing terribly exciting will happen though.

Leave the battery out and insert the charger, see whether it starts then? If it does, shutdown, insert the battery and unplug the charger and check that it still boots.

If that doesn't work, remove the CMOS battery (after 2 years you might as well replace it, they cost peanuts) wait about 60 seconds and then replace it. See whether that helps.

 

[andmil72]

Thank you for your quick responses. The machine is now going again, although I don't know why it froze for the first time in 2 years (nervous!). Re your suggestions:

1. Initially pressing and holding the power button did not work. Both with mains connected and on batteries only. I tried this a few times, holding it for up to 20 seconds and nothing happened. However, once the machine had gone into sleep or hibernation mode because I had disconnected from the mains... then pressing and holding the power button for about 10 seconds actually worked and caused it to reboot. So this was the answer.

2. Regarding disconnecting the batteries. Yes, I thought to try this, but it is a major problem with this model of machine. You have to totally remove the back (floor) cover, and then you find that the batteries are hardwired to the motherboard. I assume that you can dismantle the battery cover and eventually find a way to isolate the batteries, but the screws on the battery cover mounting were tightened so much that I could not budge them even with pliers trying to rotate the serrated shaft of my jeweller's screwdriver. So another unexpected poor design point for this model, although not one you would normally expect to find. And I must confess I have no idea where to find the CMOS battery or how to deal with that suggestion, but thanks anyway!

 

[ubuysa]

You might want to try turning Fast Starup off in Power & Sleep settings. It's known to cause some issues on some motherboards....

Glad it's working again.