Home Forums Windows 7 Hard Power Down After or B4 Sign In, Boot is Done

Hey Folks,
As much as Nancy and I are still sticks and stones at the office ourselves with XP Pro even for our strong dual Xeon Dell 690 Workstation main machine, my daugher who is into lots of mucking around with art and music, I got her a decent Vostro 3400 I3, 4 gig ram, Machine a couple of years ago I'd say. unfortunately this is 14 year old's computer who she sometimes follows the leads of well intended, geeky friends who are not without some computer smarts but not very concerned about the potential hours of work when things bite the user, owner in the butt.

We run Kaspersky Pure 2 for our internet protection package which I feel is one of the tightest programs of that type I have ever owned, and no ransom demand so it shouldn't be that kind of a problem either. And in general she is smart enough to not trust most suspect things and ask Daddy what to do about them, accept or get rid of somehow, so again probably not that either.

Anyway, the Computer can usually get thru one or two boots almost in full so all black screens and sign in and most stuff on it installed and running too. But not necessarily enough to get it that last couple of items loaded perhaps. And then with NO WARNING at all, boom it just hard crashes in full, full power off like crash with that nails on a chaukboard sound of the little harddrive spinning down fast and hard and praying the auto park for the heads really is do just that...

And as time goes on, if you keep at it trying to boot it over and over again the boot sequence, how deep you can get into it seems to get shorter and shorter, to the point of dying just after log in or even before it, a good ways before it now and again even. So there is not nearly enough time to start looking at any sort of screens for feedback or information, no way to run scans or tests, try a repair program and the like.

To me if seems like perhaps it is something related to "Heat" perhaps, so as the computer repeatedly tries to boot it is getting increasingly hotter internally and therefore the shorter time between attempting to start to hard full loss of power like crash. But that is simply my personal thoughts as a best guess so far here.

So could it be some super dirty or faulty internal system safety heat sensor and are there such things inside more modern computers of self protection like a low oil cut off, high heat in auto trans like places? I also start to think of some sort of hard to get out and wiggle, play with weak plug connection, a failing soilder joint, the main CPU or other mother board related to heat intermidant like problems. Although it could be a corrupt early in the boot sequence and all of this is a read herring. Warrentee is shot so its do it myself, paid bench time Dx'ing above my paygrade or time for our daughter to cope for awhile and eventually get her a new laptop at some point if and when the funds are ever around for such a luxury in the near future (Haaaa!!!).

I did play with the placement of the RAM Dimms both in either slot one at a time as well as both together and no difference so it is probably not the RAM itself but instead its the Motherboard or CPU I would guess at this point other than software anyway.

Thanks so much in advance....
Paul

I would agree with the HEAT issue. Here are a couple of suggestions.

1)CPU could be overheating, on restart go into BIOS and see what the temps are running. Is the fan working well, is the heat sink hot?

2)Power supply may be dying. Is the fan for the power supply running? Is the power supply overly hot?

3)Hard drive could be dying. Hope you have a recent backup. While you might get a SMART warning, it could be turned off in the BIOS and not all hard drive failures generate a warning. This is the basis of people sometimes saying put the hard drive in the freezer to revive it. You might try pulling it, putting in a different machine and see if you can pull the info off of it if all else fails.

4)Lastly it could be capacitors on the motherboard. There was a run of bad motherboards from multiple manufacturers that had bad capacitors. Typically around the CPU and they will be bulging in the center, possibly leaking. If you see this, go to ebay and see what another MB will run.

Sudden shut off at random intervals is indicative of a heating problem. I would take Wendell's advice and run RealTemp or CoreTemp to see if the laptop's temperature is high. BIOS temps won't give you an idea of the load temps which may be what is crashing the computer. You could also try running something like Intel Burn Test to stress the CPU to see if it restarts.

The thermal compound that most OEMs use is pretty cheap and almost always applied incorrectly. For example, take the instructions from the Macbook Service Manual:
http://turbo.paulstamatiou.com/uploads/2006/05/MB_applemanual_5_21_06.jpg

That's about 10 times too much. It ends up insulating the processor and is often what makes laptops very warm. I've opened up a few laptops over the years, and it appears to be quite common. Only certain manufacturers on certain product lines get it right.

Yeah, I agree with both of you guys with that theory but again the darn thing barely wakes up before it dies so running a test or look at data program for possible leads is nearly impossible!!! Aaaaaaahhhhh!!!!

So if you guys or gals have any suggestions like the look for messed up caps I'm all ears as well.... Any other thoughts or suggestions gladly welcomed...

Thanks again,
Paul

Look for capacitors that are bulged, no longer cylindrical in shape.

You can also look for hot-spots on the MB - signs would be localized discoloration, 'burned-back' coating, raised traces on the MB.

Keep in mind there are some traces on the rear of the board as well.

I remember my First Class circuit design course; we actually had to build an entire daughter card. design, hand-draw the traces, plating, soldering, socket attachment, board finishing. What an education.

Indy,
I never got as far as you but I used to be tech, stagehand in the theater, TV, Radio who basically set-up, tear down, did some studio design and racks and the like, so I sort of know how to look at a board and look for the real basics including "Following My Nose" as we used to say looking for something fried or starting to get weak, hot, high in resistance or what have you... Spray Pots with "Engineer in a Can", you get the idea....

I have with about 50% success been able to replace minor possibly the culprupt kind of components with my Weller Pencil, Soilder Sucker and a bit of luck now and again...

There was a section at the far rear corner of the laptop that was pretty hot for a computer that was not running all that much or very long per shot. So one of the first places I'm going to try and take a look at in the next night or two is that area and see what parts are there and whether or not the should be normally hot or not...

I was originally thinking something more related to data (RAM or Drive kind of thing) because there were a few BSD recently and one like right before it started to refuse to stay awake and die suddenly. So I was thinking really messed up code from such parts could be the problem. But the more you try to wake it up the time interval does seem to get shorter. But either could be red herring so go know for sure.

But with two young teens both needing computers both for school and some fun now and again, it is sort of important to get her machine back up and running soon... She's in 8th grade middle school, so now she has semi-regular stuff to do on a computer for reports and essays and the like... And by next year he'll be a 7th grader and needing likewise probably... Never ends and they never stop eating either, performing, running, skating and growing like weeds. Heck at 12 he's wearing my pants and things and not much shorter than me already... We're clearly in trouble of the nicer kind for sure....

Thanks Much,
Paul

BTW, as Bert requests and not nearly enough folks respond or follow-up appropriately, so here is my GOOD NEWS F/U.

Yes my daughter's laptop was a half easy to repair HEAT issue. 2 or 3 times now I have opened up one of our laptops and found what can only be described best as an exhaust port wide and tall Felt Pad looking thing clogging said exhaust port, explaining much misadventure and problems, along with screaming fans. BUT, this was the first one that I had found, worked itself loose from the side of the frame of the computer and got sucked back into the small thin fan and it's blades, housing, wrapping one end up to like 3 layers thick, totally stopping the fan from moving at all. So this laptop actually has its fan on at very quiet low speed almost immediately, so without that we were quickly heating up, over heating and the computer was self protecting, shutting itself down, with each restart getting a little shorter every time.

My only problem was that this smallish 14 inch that is pretty thin and light too, was made in layers to some extent and did not have a complete enough bottom plate to remove to get to the Fan, Heatsink assembly to check and clean it out without pretty much having the entire thing apart. So it was a bit of a slow PIA but it went pretty smoothly and immediately was basically its old self and no more Blue Screens of Death either.

Also I support the warnings I have read here and elsewhere on the net to do yourself a HUGE favor and while you are in there anyway, no less removing the heatsink assembly, do yourself a favor and almost certainly clean the top of the CPU and any other chips that might be simiarly being cooled and connected to the heatsink via contact with it, and clean their tops and other parts too if needed and apply a nice, modest, NOT Blobbed on new coat of heat transfer paste while you're at it. This computer's old paste was Blobbed On pretty thick and over running it too, pretty much on the sides of the CPU and a small amount leaked onto the board below too. So I carefully cleaned that all up and re-sat and locked down the CPU itself after a few years of carrying and knocking around. The old paste was not just blobbed on but it was WORTHLESS and all dried up and hard to remove especially from the sided and the board beneth the CPU and socket. It was almost like old dried up gray automotive app'ed silicone sealant or what have you...

So she has been using the computer pretty hard and it is FINE and no issues to be seen or heard from. It even took a nice new program install after Christmas for her new AVID audio interface conversation box and Audio Recording, Processing Program Pro Tools SE which she is loving very much.

So thanks one and all from both myself and my wonderful, creative daughter. Happy New Year....

Paul