[SOLVED] ASUS ROG KB not functioning

[Pandaiiiiiii]

Hello,
I am new to this forum and decided to give it a try as I do lots of my troubleshooting via Tom'shardware site

About 2 years ago I bought a new Asus ROG Strix laptop and started having hard drive issues (BOD).
I ended up swapping my HDD for an SSD and reinstalled Windows 10 pro.
I rate myself as intermittent to expert user on computers but cant figure out for the life of me, why my KB wont work!

I've tried:

1. Windows troubleshooting but it doesn't see anything wrong.
2. Uninstalling the only keyboard found in Device manager (I use an external KB), Unplugged external KB, rebooted laptop but device manager doesn't show any KB's loading except for when I plug back in the external KB.
3. Installed all of the ASUS drivers via their site.

*Laptops KB doesn't work when trying to get to the BIOS via F12. This tells me it isn't a windows thing but most likely a MoBo related issue pertaining to drivers of course!

Note: After the new Windows installation, The laptops KB was working except for the FN keys and LED lights.
Because of this I tried reinstalling all of the Asus drivers including the AURA software for the LED lights but I still had issues with the FN keys and the lights which still didn't work so I decided to upgrade the BIOS to V310 (don't recall what version it had prior).
Sometime after this upgrade I noticed the KB issue I am now stuck with.

I really loved my light show on the keyboard and wish I could get this working again!
Any help/ suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

CURRENT SPECS:
MODEL: ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamers) Strix
PROCESSOR: 2.80 gigahertz Intel Core i7-7700HQ
MAIN CIRCUIT BOARD: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. GL703VD 1.0
BUS CLOCK: 100 megahertz
UEFI: American Megatrends Inc. GL703VD.310 04/29/2019
OS: Windows 10 Professional (x64) Version 2009 (build 19042.928)
Installed: 6/25/2020 4:57:02 PM
BOOT MODE: UEFI (Secure Boot likely not supported by this UEFI)

 

[white.a.drew]

Hello,
I am new to this forum and decided to give it a try as I do lots of my troubleshooting via Tom'shardware site

About 2 years ago I bought a new Asus ROG Strix laptop and started having hard drive issues (BOD).
I ended up swapping my HDD for an SSD and reinstalled Windows 10 pro.
I rate myself as intermittent to expert user on computers but cant figure out for the life of me, why my KB wont work!

I've tried:

1. Windows troubleshooting but it doesn't see anything wrong.
2. Uninstalling the only keyboard found in Device manager (I use an external KB), Unplugged external KB, rebooted laptop but device manager doesn't show any KB's loading except for when I plug back in the external KB.
3. Installed all of the ASUS drivers via their site.

*Laptops KB doesn't work when trying to get to the BIOS via F12. This tells me it isn't a windows thing but most likely a MoBo related issue pertaining to drivers of course!

Note: After the new Windows installation, The laptops KB was working except for the FN keys and LED lights.
Because of this I tried reinstalling all of the Asus drivers including the AURA software for the LED lights but I still had issues with the FN keys and the lights which still didn't work so I decided to upgrade the BIOS to V310 (don't recall what version it had prior).
Sometime after this upgrade I noticed the KB issue I am now stuck with.

I really loved my light show on the keyboard and wish I could get this working again!
Any help/ suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

CURRENT SPECS:
MODEL: ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamers) Strix
PROCESSOR: 2.80 gigahertz Intel Core i7-7700HQ
MAIN CIRCUIT BOARD: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. GL703VD 1.0
BUS CLOCK: 100 megahertz
UEFI: American Megatrends Inc. GL703VD.310 04/29/2019
OS: Windows 10 Professional (x64) Version 2009 (build 19042.928)
Installed: 6/25/2020 4:57:02 PM
BOOT MODE: UEFI (Secure Boot likely not supported by this UEFI)

Question if you put the old drive back in yes i kniw it blue screened but does the light show come back

 

[Pandaiiiiiii]

hmmm! good idea. Let me give that a try.

 

[Pandaiiiiiii]

TROUBLESHOOING ATTEMPT 1: (Testing that LED lights and/ or FN keys function after reinstalling defective BOD HDD)

At boot up:
Republic of gamers logo comes on. It appeared to hang there. I gave it at least 20 minuets then tried:

Reboot,
Pressed F12 a few times via laptops KB (to see if BIOS is accessible).
After about 15 minutes, the logo went away and It asked to select a proper bootable disk drive. No choice was given and so I did a reboot via the power button because Ctrl+Alt+del didnt do anything.

Tried same steps as above again but this time with external keyboard,
Pressed BIOS menu F12 a few times,
Logo remained again for 18 minutes.
BIOS came up and HDD was detected.
I selected 'bootup via Windows boot manager' (by using external KB as laptops KB had no reaction)
After saving and exiting, BIOS screen and external mouse froze for 5 minutes then went to ROG splash screen with windows dotted startup circle indicator.
It remained in this frozen state for at least 20 minutes until I decided to power it off.

I will re install SSD drive so that my daughter can access her homework and stuff :\
Ill try this next step tonight when she goes to bed. I may even need to let it run all night to see if it comes out of a hung status.

* So far there has been no sign of KB lights or key functionality

Going forth on this idea in booting with old BOD HDD to see if at least the lights come on;

1. If lights dont come on, would that indicate a hardware issue with KB (Im leaning to this idea as a last confirmation as the laptop is hardley ever used and aside from the HDD failing after 2+ years, everything else was fine and the laptop was never dropped)

2. If the lights do at least flicker on/ off, would this suggest a BIOS downgrade would need to be done in resolving the issue?

Any ideas? Thanks friend.

 

[white.a.drew]

TROUBLESHOOING ATTEMPT 1: (Testing that LED lights and/ or FN keys function after reinstalling defective BOD HDD)

At boot up:
Republic of gamers logo comes on. It appeared to hang there. I gave it at least 20 minuets then tried:

Reboot,
Pressed F12 a few times via laptops KB (to see if BIOS is accessible).
After about 15 minutes, the logo went away and It asked to select a proper bootable disk drive. No choice was given and so I did a reboot via the power button because Ctrl+Alt+del didnt do anything.

Tried same steps as above again but this time with external keyboard,
Pressed BIOS menu F12 a few times,
Logo remained again for 18 minutes.
BIOS came up and HDD was detected.
I selected 'bootup via Windows boot manager' (by using external KB as laptops KB had no reaction)
After saving and exiting, BIOS screen and external mouse froze for 5 minutes then went to ROG splash screen with windows dotted startup circle indicator.
It remained in this frozen state for at least 20 minutes until I decided to power it off.

I will re install SSD drive so that my daughter can access her homework and stuff :\
Ill try this next step tonight when she goes to bed. I may even need to let it run all night to see if it comes out of a hung status.

* So far there has been no sign of KB lights or key functionality

Going forth on this idea in booting with old BOD HDD to see if at least the lights come on;

1. If lights dont come on, would that indicate a hardware issue with KB (Im leaning to this idea as a last confirmation as the laptop is hardley ever used and aside from the HDD failing after 2+ years, everything else was fine and the laptop was never dropped)

2. If the lights do at least flicker on/ off, would this suggest a BIOS downgrade would need to be done in resolving the issue?

Any ideas? Thanks friend.

It sounds to me as though the data stip for the keyboard wasn't fully seated during assembly and has been slowly been working it's way free over time opening it up may have releaved just that much pressure for the cable to say hey freedom

 

[Pandaiiiiiii]

TROUBLESHOOTING ATTEMPT 2: Verify the KB Data strip to make sure it didn't get disconnected.

@ White: Thank you. I'm fairly new working with 'Laptops' hardware but Ill find my way around and will post back the results in about 2 hours.
*I'm feeling good about this

 

[Pandaiiiiiii]

All 4 Keyboard cable strips are properly fastened to their sockets. I took then all out one-by-one and re seated them just to make sure.
I also checked if anything else seemed suspicious but all seems ok.

* The power button is the only thing on the keyboard interface that has kept functioning from the start.

1. Im wondering if the BIOS could have anything to do with it?
I found out that my system originally had BIOS version 308 but now it is 310 (there is no 309 version from what I could see).

2. I just downloaded all GL703 VD drivers and also took older ATK packages, which I will try tomorrow to see if it changes anything because I noticed that my current installation of drivers were for a ROG GL702 VT > At the time, I could not find my actual version and was told that the GL702VT would be as close as I could get!?
I was able to find the 'true' drivers by scrolling down more and looking under 'ROG Strix GL703'

Ill give this a go tomorrow morning and will update my results there after.
I'm really hoping to get this resolved because spending all my weekends on trying to fix this is just eating away at my free time :\
*Ahhhrggg HELP!!!

 

[white.a.drew]

All 4 Keyboard cable strips are properly fastened to their sockets. I took then all out one-by-one and re seated them just to make sure.
I also checked if anything else seemed suspicious but all seems ok.

* The power button is the only thing on the keyboard interface that has kept functioning from the start.

1. Im wondering if the BIOS could have anything to do with it?
I found out that my system originally had BIOS version 308 but now it is 310 (there is no 309 version from what I could see).

2. I just downloaded all GL703 VD drivers and also took older ATK packages, which I will try tomorrow to see if it changes anything because I noticed that my current installation of drivers were for a ROG GL702 VT > At the time, I could not find my actual version and was told that the GL702VT would be as close as I could get!?
I was able to find the 'true' drivers by scrolling down more and looking under 'ROG Strix GL703'

Ill give this a go tomorrow morning and will update my results there after.
I'm really hoping to get this resolved because spending all my weekends on trying to fix this is just eating away at my free time :\
*Ahhhrggg HELP!!!

I mean it can be the bios but thats highly unlikely. I wont lie i will be amazed if your bios bricked the kb the driver for it should be seperate from the mobo in all honesty

 

[Pandaiiiiiii]

Yeah, im thinking the same thing!
something I just noticed and could be related to the issue: When windows circle prompt appears, my laptops lid has the ROG logo light up red but then it shuts off once windows logon screen is reached!? I remember this logo would remain lit red until shut down!

I just remembered that Windows had an update to version 20H2. I cant remember if the KB stopped working prior to this or perhaps after the update? Ill ahve to search a bit regarding the upgrades impact, if any :\

cheers for now, im off to la-la land

 

[white.a.drew]

Yeah, im thinking the same thing!
something I just noticed and could be related to the issue: When windows circle prompt appears, my laptops lid has the ROG logo light up red but then it shuts off once windows logon screen is reached!? I remember this logo would remain lit red until shut down!

I just remembered that Windows had an update to version 20H2. I cant remember if the KB stopped working prior to this or perhaps after the update? Ill ahve to search a bit regarding the upgrades impact, if any :\

cheers for now, im off to la-la land

If this is a windows thing there maybe be a quick fix for the kb, but the rgb will be down the road as we trouble shoot what windows is doing here...
generic keyboard drivers win 10 64bit
If that dosn't work,
Driver booster. "should" detect all drivers "needed" for "that device."

It is recommended that you have anti virus usong drive booster im not entirely sure it is up to pair any more. If it ever was like i thought. But ehhh it will tell us if its drivers.

 

[Pandaiiiiiii]

Okay so I reinstalled all Asus Rog strix gl703vd drivers (for some reason I always had the correct version for the BIOS (v310) so no need to reinstall this one).

Issue is still present

1.
@ White > Tried Driver booster (already had driver booster 8 installed)> there were 5 drivers needing updates, so I updated:
-IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
-Memory technology device
-System devices [Intel management engine interface]
-System devices [Intel serial IO I2C host controller]
-System devices [Intel serial IO GPIO host controller]

Rebooted laptop
Issue is still present

2.
@white > tried using the generic KB drivers you quoted:

after install > got error msg: No supported device detected - Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard center cannot detect a Microsoft device connected to your computer.
> My external KB is a DELL so that would explain that, same for my external mouse but the ASUS laptop is Intel so I'm wondering why Microsoft didn't at least detect the laptops keyboard! Hmm

* also tried installing the drivers by unplugging external mouse and KB and only used laptops mouse pad.

Issue is still present

@white > Thank you for your help by the way, its a relief just knowing there is someone else with suggestions (they say 2 heads are better than one) This is true
Im not sure where to go from hear aside from thinking that maybe I should take out the KB all together just to see id the other ends of the strips are all properly fastened!?

 

[white.a.drew]

Okay so I reinstalled all Asus Rog strix gl703vd drivers (for some reason I always had the correct version for the BIOS (v310) so no need to reinstall this one).


1.
@ White > Tried Driver booster (already had driver booster 8 installed)> there were 5 drivers needing updates, so I updated:
-IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
-Memory technology device
-System devices [Intel management engine interface]
-System devices [Intel serial IO I2C host controller]
-System devices [Intel serial IO GPIO host controller]


2.
@white > tried using the generic KB drivers you quoted:

* also tried installing the drivers by unplugging external mouse and KB and only used laptops mouse pad.


@white > Thank you for your help by the way, its a relief just knowing there is someone else with suggestions (they say 2 heads are better than one) This is true
Im not sure where to go from hear aside from thinking that maybe I should take out the KB all together just to see id the other ends of the strips are all properly fastened!?

Yeah that's the only thing I can think of a this poor is keyboard died or it in itself is no longer plugged in

 

[Pandaiiiiiii]

Thank you for your help. Ill try taking the KB completely out to check all connections later on tonight and will post results by tomorrow.

I had thought of getting another SSD drive and reinstalling another version of Windows just to see if it could have anything to do with the newest Windows version 20H2 but honestly, I don't think this would change anything as the issue appears to be related to something prior to OS or SSD validation since we are unable to use KB in BIOS!

 

[Pandaiiiiiii]

Unless someone else has ANY suggestions, Ill stop after my next post.
Last night I detached the KB completely and didnt notice any issues with it. Plugged everything back in but this didnt change anything.
*Wish I had another working ASUS so that I could have tested the KB on its motherboard :\

TROUBLESHOOTING ATTEMPT xx:
I did buy a new SSD and so my next move will be to install another version of Windows (such as Vista or WIN 10 but an older version) and I will also be downgrading my BIOS back to what it was originally > v308

Ill post the results if not by end of day today, tomorrow.

 

[white.a.drew]

Unless someone else has ANY suggestions, Ill stop after my next post.
Last night I detached the KB completely and didnt notice any issues with it. Plugged everything back in but this didnt change anything.
*Wish I had another working ASUS so that I could have tested the KB on its motherboard :\

TROUBLESHOOTING ATTEMPT xx:
I did buy a new SSD and so my next move will be to install another version of Windows (such as Vista or WIN 10 but an older version) and I will also be downgrading my BIOS back to what it was originally > v308

Ill post the results if not by end of day today, tomorrow.

Thats the best option for now but at the same time I wouldn't have bought a new ssd I would have bought the replacement keyboard I honestly think the keyboard controller has died. All laptops have supper thin weak keyboards that can die super easy over nothing.