Asus TUF FX706LI and Nvidia graphics card dead

Asus TUF FX706LI and Asus TUF FX506LI are identical laptops, with the only difference being the screen size, with the FX706LI having a 17.3” panel and the FX506LI coming equipped with a 15.6” screen. Mine came with a 10th Intel Core i5 processor and a Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics card. 

Asus TUF FX706LI

I bought mine for video editing and general productivity as I treated it as a desktop replacement laptop on a daily basis. It left my home may be 5-6 times – you could count on your fingers. 

Yesterday, the screen went blank and after forcing it to start – held the power button for a few seconds, I was finally greeted with windows’ screen, except for the fact it took considerably longer to boot up. My Asus TUF FX706LI has always been a zippy machine. 

Something felt off. A quick glance into the Asus Armoury Crate revealed my GPU was missing. This was confirmed by going into Device Manager where I observed it was using Intel Integrated graphics. 

These graphics did not play well with the firmware and that could be the reason it refused to go into standby or even shut down properly. The backlit keys and fan remained on which confirmed my suspicion. 

I tried flashing the BIOS – nothing happened. Some suggested turning on the GPU in Armoury Crate. Heck, it was not even detected so that too was useless. 

I played Forza Horizon 4 on it for total of 10 hours over the span of 3.5y – that is the only gaming I did. Rest of time, I did my usual spreadsheet work, blogging and video editing on Movavi video editor, which worked amazingly well with the dedicated Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics card. 

I ended up selling remains of Asus TUF FX706LI for peanuts, compared to what I originally paid back when it was just-launched in 2021. I am now using smaller sized Asus Vivobook Flip 14 and Apple Macbook Air M1. M1 works great for video editing and I find iMovie sufficient for my editing needs. Vivobook Flip 14 is a great productivity machine.

For those who say I did not contact Asus – I did. They told me they would have to change entire motherboard and graphics card, which would cost more than current price of laptop.