Dell XPS L502x - Instant shutdowns

[Pumpy74]

Hi,

Just joined because I saw so many helpful posts from people in this community. I thought I might have some luck narrowing out a problem on my son's laptop. He has had it quite some time now (I wanna say 2.5-3 years) and it has always run well for him. Recently, he has been experiencing instant system shutdowns at completely random intervals. I have downloaded temperature reporting software to his system and watched it closely and it appears to have no bearing on when it decides to shut down. any thoughts ?

 

[Tmagic650]

It is really difficult to have to depend on temperature reporting software for this type of problem. You could try to perform a "factory restore" before taking the laptop in for repair. The thermal pads or paste may need replacing

 

[Pumpy74]

I did a bios update the other day and that improved some performance things but it still shuts down. I have taken the computer completely apart and redone the paste. It was definitely sub-par and really stiff/brittle on the original paste. I used top end arctic silver paste on the cpu gpu and the third (I believe) on-board gpu where the original paste had degraded. That seemed to make little if no difference. Still random complete shutdowns. This laptop does this regardless of what I'm running or load on the system.

 

[Tmagic650]

The motherboard may be causing this, so it is your decision on what to do next. New laptop prices have come down so a new one might be better than fixing this one

 

[Pumpy74]

I'm starting to think so as well, but would really like to keep this running as his commuter computer so he could invest in a higher end desktop. Is there some way to diagnose a motherboard specific issue ? Perhaps a piece of software that systematically checks motherboard functions ?

 

[Tmagic650]

Motherboards are under $120 on EBay. Check the part number on the bad board to be the same as the purchased one. You will use the old CPU and memory. There is no real way to check the motherboard other than replacing it

 

[Pumpy74]

Good to know ! I'm pretty sure I will ultimately end up replacing it. Thanks for the help here. I used to build systems for people a few years ago but I haven't done much with that old knowledge. I steered way clear of laptops for years as they had so many issues that were specific to the particular manufacturer/model. I think things are improving some in the way of making the parts more standardized but there is still a level of specificity that is enough to muddle things up. I really appreciate your correspondence.

 

[Tmagic650]

No problem I used to repair all kinds of electronics including desktop and laptop computers. I moved to another State last June and my repair business hasn't really started up still. Word of mouth is what I used and it is hard to get that started in a new area

 

[bazz2004]

Laptop batteries need replacing every now and again so check yours before you buy a replacement motherboard. Just in case.

 

[Tmagic650]

You can also pull the battery out and run the laptop on the AC adapter for a while and see if the shut downs stop. If they do the battery is bad