laptop keeps shutting down

**CStarFlare** · 10-03-2009, 11:30 PM

this started out really irritating me but now it's got me worried

every once in a while, my computer will just power down. it usually happens in the middle of the night, but I've had it happen while I'm on in the afternoon, so it's not happening at a certain time.

at first, I had difficulty starting it back up - I'd hit power, it'd begin to whir, then it would shut down a second later. eventually I realized that taking my battery out stopped this startup cycle, and assumed that it was a battery issue. since I'm always at my desk I just left it plugged in and threw the battery aside. the whole random shutdown thing seems to happen much less often if I leave the battery out.

still, I'm beginning to worry about the long term consequences of this. so, I grabbed my system restore discs and decided to start over, hopefully fixing the problem along the way. unfortunately, when I start the recovery process I get a progress bar that says something like "loading windows files" that fills up within a minute or two, then the machine shuts down. when I enter the Setup menu right after booting, it seems to shut down after a minute or so every time.

naturally, I'm getting more worried as time goes on, and I'm hoping someone here has encountered this kind of thing before. any ideas on what's going on and how to fix it? pretty sure my machine's not under warranty anymore. I've got my stuff backed up on an external HDD just in case things crash and burn.

Hiryuu · 10-04-2009, 01:18 AM

One question: Is the laptop really hot, at all?

Only reason I say that is because, if that's the case, we might be looking at the processor overheating.

**CStarFlare** · 10-04-2009, 09:21 AM

It usually is pretty hot, but it's usually pretty hot anyways.

Assuming that's the problem, what's the best way to make sure it stays cool? I've got it in an open area on a hard surface with nothing blocking the ventilation, but that doesn't seem to do a whole lot to keep it cool.

**helix eternal** · 10-04-2009, 09:39 AM

they make laptop cooling things that set on your desk and you can set the laptop on top of it, has fans and whatnot. you can buy them at just about any large retail chain like walmart, target, best buy, etc.

WiLLiSTER · 10-04-2009, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by helix eternal

they make laptop cooling things that set on your desk and you can set the laptop on top of it, has fans and whatnot. you can buy them at just about any large retail chain like walmart, target, best buy, etc.

They sell em for <$20 iirc. They really do help with the overheating if that's the problem and it very well could be. If taking the battery out helped then maybe it was getting overcharged and things were getting too hot.

Excel-2010 · 10-04-2009, 03:48 PM

If you haven't yet, get a can of compressed air and blow out the vents and fans.

**dieKatze88** · 10-04-2009, 07:24 PM

Get a laptop with proper cooling? I'm pretty sick of these machines that are designed to fail.

LunarAura · 10-04-2009, 08:00 PM

First run memtest to kinda make sure it's not your ram.

Find the service manual of your laptops model and reapply the heatsink thermal paste. If this doesn't resolve it there's probably something wrong with your motherboard or the reading of your CPU's temp sensor is correctly/incorrectly reading too high causing it to shutdown.

Hiryuu · 10-05-2009, 04:13 PM

I would have something like SpeedFan going if you have it running stable at a point just to see what the CPU temperature gets up to. If it's getting above 60C or so, you know something's up...especially if it gets much higher than that.

**CStarFlare** · 10-05-2009, 05:15 PM

I got myself one of those cooling pads, and things are smooth so far. System restore finally happened, which is great. Thanks guys!

I'll grab speedfan and test just how how it gets with/without extra cooling.