spontaneous shutdown

[Ara Av-Toa]

Occasionally, the laptop I'm working on spontaneously shuts down without warning or any hint on why. Whenever I feel on the thing then, it's like super hot and I'm thinking it shuts down because of overheating. Everything installed on it remains untouched, however, so it can't be a crash.


Anyone has any idea what's going on?

[Malina]

Could be a battery problem or a dodgy power lead as well, however if it's really hot then it's most definitely an overheating problem. Do you have the laptop on a soft surface or a hard, flat one ? And which part of the laptop is the hottest ?

[Ara Av-Toa]

Let's see...
It's on a hard flat surface, and the left part, which likely contains the CPU, is the hottest.

[Malina]

Could be the heatsink then (I should say I have virtually no computer knowledge but I've had a similar problem before xD)
Does the fan appear to be going OK ? Maybe that's wearing out and isn't cooling it properly. Is it a very old computer ?

[Ara Av-Toa]

If I may believe my father it's like 4 to 5 years old.

[Malina]

Probably a heatsink /fan problem then, which I'm not sure is very easy to replace. Do you do very taxing things (eg video rendering, Photoshop) on the computer or just light web browsing ? Either way you may be better off just getting a new pc, but don't let me tell you that cuz I have such little knowledge of this xD

[Ara Av-Toa]

One random internet game, and YouTube combined with for example these forums is what it gets to handle mostly.

[Vosur Aekira]

Since you have the laptop on a hard-flat surface most of the time, it might be an idea to purchase an undercooler for it to help cool-down the laptop in general (or at least extend the amount of time before it shuts down unexpectedly). The next time it's fully shut down, it may be an idea to have a look at what's going on. If you are capable to confidently do so, try opening up the portions of the laptop where it gets the hottest, or the closest access panels, and see if there is a lot of dust. Depending on how old it is, it may've just accumulated a lot of dust.

[guest22811]

hey hey hey, i used to have the same **censor** annoying problem.


How often does it shut down?

[Salakar Crocoli]

Try opening it up, very carefully I might add, and seeing if there's a bunch of dust inside. Older computers build up dust that reduce their cooling efficiency and thus make them overheat more often. I can not stress enough that you DO NOT USE WATER TO CLEAN IT. The best way to clean dust out of computers is a dry cloth and compressed air.

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[MrRazot]

I  wouldn't say open the laptop because they can be a pain to get together again.
I've worked on PCs all my life and when I went into my laptop, the sound jacks, SD card reader and a USB port don't work any more. Also the keyboard won't fix in place anymore...

It's definitely an overheating problem and an undercooler can be a very good idea. Another good idea could be to get a can of compressed air for cleaning keyboards and spray it into the fan vent. All else fails, it could be the thermal paste has gone dry and needs to be replaced. I would then recommend you take it to a professional. It shouldn't cost very much. Most places will cost you the paste and the labour which isn't much.

[guest22811]

IMO, I think it may be an overheating issue, but it also might be 1) your computer overreacting to heat and force shutting itself down or 2) a virus. or 3) Strange background processes jacking the heat up.


It actually happened to me so many times. I had to reset and format my entire laptop 5 times. It would not crash / force shutdown for a week, then it would start again, then I would reset it again etc.


Resetting didn't work for me, but then I thought, 'what if it was one of my programs I was installing?'


So yeah. I downloaded one program, waited a week. Nothing happened. etc. Until I installed adobe creative suite (photoshop, flash etc), it began acting up again.


This time, I reset my laptop, installed everything EXCEPT for creative suite, and now i have a normal laptop that will actually let me work without killing itself every 15 minutes.


I don't know why. I tried installing adobe suite again to see if it would give me some mercy, but nah. It's definitely adobe suite.


But it's very strange. Either my laptop doesn't like Adobe Suite, or Adobe suite has some sort of virus.


I can't really think of it having a virus, I mean, come on, 1) it's Adobe and 2) it's a legal copy, not pirated etc




That's kinda the only shit I can contribute here. I dunno if this information helps or not.
P.S. DON'T RESET OR FORMAT WITHOUT BACKING UP A COPY OF EVERYTHING YOU HAVE
since i was genius i forgot what 'formatting' was and just clicked it without backing shit up

[Ara Av-Toa]

I already thought it could be useful to put the laptop on some sort of stand to make some room under the laptop, so the heat could also escape from the bottom.

[Salakar Crocoli]

I  wouldn't say open the laptop because they can be a pain to get together again.
I've worked on PCs all my life and when I went into my laptop, the sound jacks, SD card reader and a USB port don't work any more. Also the keyboard won't fix in place anymore...

It's definitely an overheating problem and an undercooler can be a very good idea. Another good idea could be to get a can of compressed air for cleaning keyboards and spray it into the fan vent. All else fails, it could be the thermal paste has gone dry and needs to be replaced. I would then recommend you take it to a professional. It shouldn't cost very much. Most places will cost you the paste and the labour which isn't much.

With a can of air, you should be able to just take off the bottom panrl and clean it out. You wouldn't have to take it all the way apart... Unless the manufacturer was stupid when they designed it.

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