Laptop Randomly Shuts Down

[antoainb]

Hey there!

 

So I got this laptop to be fixed because it wouldn't turn on. It turned out it had a faulty power adapter, so I used another one and it seemed to work just fine. However, I also decided to try to get Windows 10 on the thing, and while it was downloading the update it would randomly shut down. I suspected it was the 2nd power adapters fault, but then even with an adapter more powerful than the OEM one that had came with the laptop it would still shut down every so often. I decided to run memtest86 to see if it was a RAM problem, and it would still shut down either right before the 1st pass finished or midway through the 2nd pass. Then I decided to try to stresstest the CPU. I used Prime95 and HWMonitor. As I ran Prime95, the temperatures rose to 99C in a matter of seconds and even before the fan had ramped up, the laptop shut down again.

My guess is that the fan profile isn't aggressive enough to cool the CPU in time, before it reaches the threshold and shuts down, but how would I go about fixing it?

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Darel321]

If you-re fixing a laptop you should know that first you must clean the cooler and change the thermal paste on it... -.- thats the first thing you should always do.. if not.. its the same if you send it to the tech service idiots that just install a new windows and say its fixed...

[antoainb]

1 minute ago, Darel321 said:

If you-re fixing a laptop you should know that first you must clean the cooler and change the thermal paste on it... -.- thats the first thing you should always do.. if not.. its the same if you send it to the tech service idiots that just install a new windows and say its fixed...

I did clean the fan/cooler, haven't tried replacing thermal paste because I don't have any available and I don't want to spend money if that won't fix it. If you think it might be responsible for this, I could pick up a tube and do it.

[forthe48]

2 minutes ago, antoainb said:

I did clean the fan/cooler, haven't tried replacing thermal paste because I don't have any available and I don't want to spend money if that won't fix it. If you think it might be responsible for this, I could pick up a tube and do it.

I agree with Darel that changing the thermal paste would be a good thing to do, especially if thermals are the reason the computer is randomly shutting down.

 

I'm not sure why it's randomly shutting down unless thermals are to blame. Does it have a working battery in it? If so, then I don't know. But if there's no battery and you're running it solely on the AC adapter, you might have to make sure that it isn't the port on the laptop that's bad/loose rather than the power adapters.

[spartaman64]

4 minutes ago, forthe48 said:

I agree with Darel that changing the thermal paste would be a good thing to do, especially if thermals are the reason the computer is randomly shutting down.

 

I'm not sure why it's randomly shutting down unless thermals are to blame. Does it have a working battery in it? If so, then I don't know. But if there's no battery and you're running it solely on the AC adapter, you might have to make sure that it isn't the port on the laptop that's bad/loose rather than the power adapters.

download openhardware monitor and check if thermals is the issue. also you say your new charger is more powerful as in it delivers more voltage than the oem one? that is generally not recommended as it can degrade your battery

[antoainb]

1 minute ago, forthe48 said:

I agree with Darel that changing the thermal paste would be a good thing to do, especially if thermals are the reason the computer is randomly shutting down.

 

I'm not sure why it's randomly shutting down unless thermals are to blame. Does it have a working battery in it? If so, then I don't know. But if there's no battery and you're running it solely on the AC adapter, you might have to make sure that it isn't the port on the laptop that's bad/loose rather than the power adapters.

It's running on AC only, I removed the battery. I have replaced the power connector on this same laptop before and the connector itself is almost brand new. As for the connection, I did try to take it off and plug it back in when I opened the laptop but it wouldn't even come off, so I think it's not an issue with that connection.

 

I might pick up a tube of thermal paste and apply it to see if that fixes it, it makes sense, since this laptop is quite old and I'm guessing has never had new thermal paste applied.

3 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

download openhardware monitor and check if thermals is the issue. also you say your new charger is more powerful as in it delivers more voltage than the oem one? that is generally not recommended as it can degrade your battery

Same voltage, more amperage. Also no battery installed since the one that it had no longer charges.

[spartaman64]

4 minutes ago, antoainb said:

It's running on AC only, I removed the battery. I have replaced the power connector on this same laptop before and the connector itself is almost brand new. As for the connection, I did try to take it off and plug it back in when I opened the laptop but it wouldn't even come off, so I think it's not an issue with that connection.

 

I might pick up a tube of thermal paste and apply it to see if that fixes it, it makes sense, since this laptop is quite old and I'm guessing has never had new thermal paste applied.

Same voltage, more amperage. Also no battery installed since the one that it had no longer charges.

dont use prime95 it puts an completely unrealistic load on your cpu use intel burn test or something. for example my i7 4770 with an hyper 212 evo only reaches 50 degrees max but with prime 95 it goes to 75+

[antoainb]

1 minute ago, spartaman64 said:

dont use prime95 it puts an completely unrealistic load on your cpu use intel burn test or something. for example my i7 4770 with an hyper 212 evo only reaches 50 degrees max but with prime 95 it goes to 75+

I'll try that, thanks. I'm also thinking of doing a lighter test, just like playing a YouTube video and having a couple other programs open to see if it shuts down then. I'll also monitor the temps.

[antoainb]

I tried opening two browser tabs and having a text processor open and after 10 minutes it shut down again. This time, it reached 94C for a decent 10secs before shutting down, while watching a 1080p video on YouTube, browsing twitter and writing a document on WordPad, with 2 medium def images downloaded and inserted into the same document. CPU loads were around 100% when loading pages, refreshing twitter and inserting images and ~75% when having the video open, twitter static and typing into WordPad. I'm going to pick up the thermal paste and see if it fixes it. Right now, the only one I can pick up is this random CoolerMaster one that Staples sells (http://www.staples.pt/cooler-master-massa-trmica-cooler-master/cbs/208194.html?promoCode=400600999&Effort_Code=WW&Find_Number=208194&mT=0). Either that or these two another tech store near me offers (https://www.worten.pt/catalogsearch/result/?q=massa+termica). I'm guessing any paste will be a great improvement over the current one though.

Before buying it I will, however, run Intel Burn Test to make sure it really is a problem related to thermals.

 

@spartaman64 @forthe48 

[Darel321]

9 minutes ago, antoainb said:

I tried opening two browser tabs and having a text processor open and after 10 minutes it shut down again. This time, it reached 94C for a decent 10secs before shutting down, while watching a 1080p video on YouTube, browsing twitter and writing a document on WordPad, with 2 medium def images downloaded and inserted into the same document. CPU loads were around 100% when loading pages, refreshing twitter and inserting images and ~75% when having the video open, twitter static and typing into WordPad. I'm going to pick up the thermal paste and see if it fixes it. Right now, the only one I can pick up is this random CoolerMaster one that Staples sells (http://www.staples.pt/cooler-master-massa-trmica-cooler-master/cbs/208194.html?promoCode=400600999&Effort_Code=WW&Find_Number=208194&mT=0). Either that or these two another tech store near me offers (https://www.worten.pt/catalogsearch/result/?q=massa+termica). I'm guessing any paste will be a great improvement over the current one though.

Before buying it I will, however, run Intel Burn Test to make sure it really is a problem related to thermals.

 

@spartaman64 @forthe48 

more than thermal paste its the dust... laptops gets filled with dust very fast if you dont have it always on a table or something with a solid clean surface.. soo.. even cleaning it will help.. but I still recommend changing the paste because its probably dry alrdy.. you'll see when you open it its probably a solid chunk of dust alrdy in

[antoainb]

14 minutes ago, Darel321 said:

more than thermal paste its the dust... laptops gets filled with dust very fast if you dont have it always on a table or something with a solid clean surface.. soo.. even cleaning it will help.. but I still recommend changing the paste because its probably dry alrdy.. you'll see when you open it its probably a solid chunk of dust alrdy in

I did clean it on Tuesday, right after I got it. It's completely clean and still performs quite poorly, so thermal paste must be the thing that's causing the issues. The owner also told me that the laptop wasn't used for almost a year, so that might have dried the thermal paste.

 

PS.: I'm probably getting the deepcool stuff from the second link on my other post because that store offers price matching and another store that they match has it for €2.

Edited July 1, 2016 by antoainb
Adding the PS