Lap keeps turning itself off

tommy26

I have a dell laptop,its two years old ,it keeps turning heating up and turning itself off,what could be wrong with it?

Angry Troll

tommy26 wrote: »

I have a dell laptop,its two years old ,it keeps turning heating up and turning itself off,what could be wrong with it?

i had the same problem with a toshiba laptop a few years ago…turned out to be an overheating issue. i cleaned the ventilators and cooling unit with a vacuum cleaner and all is grand now…i keep cleaning it every couple of months or so…could have many different causes of course….

swordsinfo

press f8 on boot up and try boot in safe mode. if you can boot in safe mode there is an issue with addons on start up and not your windows install itself

Overheal

dell laptops ought to have a removable back plate near the fan/grille. remove that if its there and either use a vaccum or the preferred method get a can of air duster from the shop and blast the heck out of it, its probably full of dust.

if it was a driver thing it would probably be blue-screening, not shutting off. Safe mode wont do much i dont think.

swordsinfo

if it was a heavyily corrupted system malware/virus can get into the system startup cycle shutting it down. if it blue screens on startup it is ususally set to restart. starting it up in safe mode would show this is the case - if you think the lapper is overheating unplug the battery and leave the cable in should still power up. also there is an option for last good config when you press f8 on bootup try that.

one last point to make - i think if u press f12 on startup it gives you the boot sequence but also an option for diagnostic. run the diagnostic and run a deep scan on the harddrive (could take a couple of hours) and see if there is an issue with sectors on the harddrive.

let me know how you get on

ricman

can you hear the fan, if fan stops working ,the laptop shuts down when it gets too hot.

duckysauce

swordsinfo wrote: »

if it was a heavyily corrupted system malware/virus can get into the system startup cycle shutting it down. if it blue screens on startup it is ususally set to restart. starting it up in safe mode would show this is the case - if you think the lapper is overheating unplug the battery and leave the cable in should still power up. also there is an option for last good config when you press f8 on bootup try that.

one last point to make - i think if u press f12 on startup it gives you the boot sequence but also an option for diagnostic. run the diagnostic and run a deep scan on the harddrive (could take a couple of hours) and see if there is an issue with sectors on the harddrive.

let me know how you get on

the laptop is over heating how will this help?

Bebop

An overheating laptop will typically freeze rather than shut down, you will still see the display but the mouse or keyboard will not respond

Overheal

Bebop wrote: »

An overheating laptop will typically freeze rather than shut down, you will still see the display but the mouse or keyboard will not respond

really depends on the laptop, chipset, bios, etc. - many motherboards will force a power cut, while some processors will take it upon themselves to lock up before they reach critical.

Angry Troll

Bebop wrote: »

An overheating laptop will typically freeze rather than shut down, you will still see the display but the mouse or keyboard will not respond

mine used to shut down until i cleaned the cooling system

dubdvd

i'd be careful using a vacum cleaner on any laptop or pc as you run a risk of anti -static charge same goes for hair dryers and so on . Use a tin of compress air sold in a tin in the likes of maplins and pcworld ? . are you using your laptop in bed ?? alot of people leave them on their duvet which blocks the vents and causes overheating ....
what dell laptop is it you have which model ? as said earlier is there a blue screen before it powers off ?? is it after different times that it shuts down as in sometimes its ten minutes other times after an hour ??