Help my brand new MSI Laptop suddenly stopped charging!!(SOLVED)

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Its this unit here.

Raider GE68 HX 14V - Light' em up (msi.com)

Been using it for 3 weeks on travel.

I plug the US spec into a Euro spec outlet with an adaptor ( not a converter)

So my charging unit has seen 220 Volts for past 3 weeks, but I know laptops can routinely do this and it even states on the MSI charger "110 to 240 Volts"",

No burnt smell from a failing PSU or big pop from a failing PSU, so..

Just stopped charging.

I heard conflciting stories on these computer being able to charge or not via USB-C but clearly even if they can it will not be enough for gaming.

Tomorrow is Sundar so nothing open here and Monday will be a Holiday.

What could have failed?

I have no computer tools and dont feel all that competent to open it up because if something turns out to be broken inside I could know how to fix it anyway.

I always felt the power connction seemed  a bit flimsy in contrast to the rest of the laptop

 

[HeyYou]

Opening it would void the warranty anyway. If you have a volt meter, see what the p/s is putting out, if anything. Not sure on an MSI, but, on some laptops, bios will tell you if it detects the a/c adapter or not, and even tell you what size it thinks it is.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

1 hour ago, HeyYou said:

Opening it would void the warranty anyway. If you have a volt meter, see what the p/s is putting out, if anything. Not sure on an MSI, but, on some laptops, bios will tell you if it detects the a/c adapter or not, and even tell you what size it thinks it is.

Well, the unit is bricked now.

I followed the advice of an Admin on the MSI website t hold down the power button to reset the CMOS.

No longer starts at all as it no longer recognizes the charger.

Either because Charge is bad or something brocke internal to the laptop

I am overseas but onshore, heading to the closest PX to see if I can connect my laptop to any of thier MSI chargers ( i highly doubt they have a spare charge in stock) so then I will know if its the charger or the laptop,

[HeyYou]

If the battery gets below a certain point, (varies by manufacturer) the laptop won't turn on. Feed it power for a little while, and it'll wake back up. Of course, that means you need to be ABLE to feed it power......

Just holding the power button shouldn't reset cmos.... it will just put the machine in either hybernate state, or, actually power it off, depending on how long you hold it. Some have a little hole you can poke a pin into to either reset cmos, or, 'static discharge' the laptop. (which sometimes will cure some interesting ills....) But, if the machine doesn't recognize it's ac adapter, you are on borrowed time till the battery runs out.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

3 hours ago, HeyYou said:

If the battery gets below a certain point, (varies by manufacturer) the laptop won't turn on. Feed it power for a little while, and it'll wake back up. Of course, that means you need to be ABLE to feed it power......

Just holding the power button shouldn't reset cmos.... it will just put the machine in either hybernate state, or, actually power it off, depending on how long you hold it. Some have a little hole you can poke a pin into to either reset cmos, or, 'static discharge' the laptop. (which sometimes will cure some interesting ills....) But, if the machine doesn't recognize it's ac adapter, you are on borrowed time till the battery runs out.

When I held the power button down it was still at 39%.

But will not start at all now.

The other guy says it will not  only start if it rcognizes the charger, which this was a test for.

I wish he would ahve reommneded the USB C alternative first, because a slong as it turne don I could have USB C charged it. I would not have done that because now the unit is bricked until I can get it fixed.

So I bought a 100w USB C laptop charger to try but it did not help either.

So now I to wait until tommorrow and hope to find a computer repair store that is open.

This should not have happend after only 3-4 weeks on a nearly $4000 premium gaming laptop.

 

The Admin on the MSI forum encoruages me to go to them, I dont have the time for all this. I already used all my "laptop managing time budget " up in the last 4 weeks.

[HeyYou]

Yeah, when ya crank out that kind of money, you expect things to actually WORK.....

We used to sell MSI laptops at work..... but, they were real hit or miss on reliability.... to the point we stopped selling them..... Some of them were great, no issues at all, lasted years. Others, not so much. It was random chance what ya got.

[zixi]

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I'm so sorry. I hope it resolves really soon. If you buy cheap you can shrug your shoulders and say: That's life! But else, it can be more difficult to stomach. 

[363rdChemicalCompany]

The MSI admins on the MSI forums especially the one,  are trying hard to get their main office to take me in Frankfurt. Its a drive but worth it IF they can do it .

Otherwise I am putting this to a local repair shop IF I can find one that is competent on such a new and tightly packed hi end laptop.

I dont have 2 weeks to wait to send it to MSI. Also now I question can I trust it even after a fix? If these are this fragile that it broke even after mostly just sitting on my hotel room desk.

[zixi]

1 hour ago, 363rdChemicalCompany said:

If these are this fragile that it broke

I understand this mistrust but sometimes components fail. You may have many happy years with it after this. My previous (expensive, made-to-measure) games machine developed a fault almost immediately. I lived with the fault but eventually it had to be fixed and actually it was a couple of things that had gone wrong but thereafter it provided really good service and never gave me a moment's grief. It may be you've been unlucky with a flaky component and all now will be well. I really hope so! You put a lot of effort into choosing this and it deserves to be a success! 

[363rdChemicalCompany]

22 hours ago, zixi said:

I understand this mistrust but sometimes components fail. You may have many happy years with it after this. My previous (expensive, made-to-measure) games machine developed a fault almost immediately. I lived with the fault but eventually it had to be fixed and actually it was a couple of things that had gone wrong but thereafter it provided really good service and never gave me a moment's grief. It may be you've been unlucky with a flaky component and all now will be well. I really hope so! You put a lot of effort into choosing this and it deserves to be a success! 

I appreciate your sentiment very much.

But I must confess I am getting more bitter towards MSI  by the hour.

 

As soon as I unpacked the unit I realized the electrical loading accessories were an obvious terrible design, what were they thinking!:

 

- plug facing to the rear which is exactly the wrong spot for a laptop as they are often on tables adjacent to a wall and so this could eb bumped

- The short "tab insert" into the computer making it suscpetible to leveraged lateral and vertical  twist loads, unlike the more common designs which on top of that at a glance appear mechanically much more robust to being with.

- On top of that, this plug is MSI propiertary , making trouble shooting and parts replacement unneccessarily difficult, excarberting the issues above

 

And I havent even used it as a laptop but treated it with kid gloves!   On the plane it wasnt even in my luggage to prevent rough handling I kept it with me at all times.

At this point even when repaired,  I am not sure I will trust this laptop ever again for my worktrips. I may have to give it away once fixed, perhaps without the SSDs that are in it right now, since they present so much work.