My laptop keeps turning itself off

Its not overheating. I have already taken my laptop in to a repair shop and they assumed it was a virus so they reloaded my Windows. Its only 2 years old and I use Kasperski antivirus. When I took it back to the repair facility, the laptop worked fine with no issues. Made me look like I was crazy. When we got it home ten minutes later, it powered on and lasted about 5 minutes and turned off. For about an hour all we could get it to do was come on for a few seconds and turn right off. Never even completely started. It has already been determined that it is not a heating issue, this computer runs ice cold. Before I take it back for a third time does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this? It happens if its plugged into the wall too. Could there be something wrong with the battery that is causing this? My daughter is disabled and uses the laptop for her school assignments. Its a Dell Inspirion. Please, any help would be great.
 
Hmmmm. It could be a battery problem among other things. To test to see if it's your battery, I would take the battery out and just power the laptop with the charger. If the laptop stays on and runs normal using just the charger as power. I'd say it's safe to say your battery is the culprit.

Since the problem happens before the machine even boots into windows sometimes. I'd say it's probably a hardware related issue. Usually, it's almost always overheating in situations like this. You say it's not overheating, but, can you provide actual temps for us to confirm that.

Idle and load temps will give us the best idea of the situation. I would also check your RAM. Do you know how to run a memtest?
 
The first start it goes about ten minutes and shuts down. After the initial shut down it takes an hour to start completely again. If I attempt to start it right away, it doesn't even power up. As far as temps, my house is kept at 75 and the laptop is cool right after a shut down. It never even gets warm. Never heard of a memtest. Sorry, I can do the basics.

When I took it back to the shop, it ran perfectly. We opened ten tabs with games, videos, music, everything we could think of. It sayed on and stayed cool. Im just going by what the repair place told me. They are the ones that said its not a heat issue. At home, since it is used primarily for my daughters classwork, it is kept on a desk. Once I got it home, it wouldnt even power up.
 
Even if the laptop doesn't feel warm to the touch, it can still be overheating.
Download this program: HWmonitor
Once it's installed, I want you to take a screenshot of the temperatures and post them here. This way we can confirm if it's actually overheating or something else.

I'm not very confident in the advice the repair shop gave to you. Repair shops are notorious for telling you anything to get you to pay them for some sort of repair. The fact that they said it was caused by a virus seems very suspicious. A virus usually won't affect a machines ability to power on. It kinda defeats the purpose of infecting it.
 
Those temps are hot, I would suggest that you both Tammy and Ken, get your laptops serviced ASAP. If you wait, you may fry the motherboards
 
Tammy, those temps seem fine, I know I used to have a computer where the temperature sensor would short out every so often, and the laptop's CPU temperature would be cruising along at 40-50 degrees, and suddenly, it would spontaneously jump up to 125 degrees C, which is insane, and it would shut down on thermal protection. It never even got near that hot, but it would last for about 5 minutes. I found out that the BIOS doesn't actually shut it down unless it's in an OS, so I booted it up into the BIOS setup and left it there overnight, and it was still on when I woke up. Thinking it was fixed, I exited config, and during Windows bootup, it crashed on thermal overload.
 
My laptop keeps on shutting down too. This is the screenshot of HWMonitor
 

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Ksssy, I assume when you say shut down you mean it just crashes (no prior notice, just a sudden black screen crash?) Is there a certain amount of time before it crashes? If so, keep an eye on HW Monitor and keep an eye on the temps. Maybe, you could turn it on, run HW Monitor and record a video with a camera of the readings. If it spikes or slowly grows out of control, then you have a cooling issue
 
And Tammy, I'm sorry. I must have misread those temps or something, they are actually pretty hot. Ken, if you feel comfortable opening computers and understand the risk of voiding the warranty or breaking something, I'd open it up and clean the heatsink. Please refrain from just blowing compressed air in backwards, it works, but can get dust in places where it shouldn't be. There are guides on iFixit for most computers in case you can't figure it out. I'd suggest taking pictures through the process, and keeping all of your screws on a piece of white paper with the edges folded so they can't fall out.
 
Check the cpu temperature if is to HOT the laptop won't turn on until it cool off or check memory/
 
Plz check the fan or if you get to any repair shop get it check, as I recently had this problem and waste so much time on other things and at end it was the matter.
 
Hello!
Just joined this as doing some research into why my laptop is turning off. Just installed HMWonitor and my temperatures are around 55, just wondering is that def too high?

Screenshot of HWMonitor
 

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Hello there everyone, I have read and just decided to budge in to your conversation. Tammy, Ken and Ksssy the advices you got are genuine. Please take heed and service your machines. Like the other tech was saying, most repair shops will do anything to get money.

I also think, from what you guys wrote, you need a thermal grease to replace the old one, but first clean your machine off dust bunnies from fans and the heat zinc. NB: Your PC MUST be kept clean at all times and cleaning can be done at least on 3 months intervals and done by a qualified technician. It does not take an hour to do it but just 30 minutes is enough to do the job.

To re-grease the CPU, you also need a tech to assist you.

Best regards,

GCS Inc.Ltd
 
Hello!
Just joined this as doing some research into why my laptop is turning off. Just installed HMWonitor and my temperatures are around 55, just wondering is that def too high?

Screenshot of HWMonitor
If your laptop is sitting at 55 degrees idle it isn't ideal but it shouldn't create performance problems. However, if it does get a lot hotter under load then I can see it causing some issues. When does your laptop shut off? Does it do it while using applications or just sitting idle? You'll probably receive better assistance if you created your own thread. People generally don't navigate to old threads.
 
Hello sabinastefanova, it is true that if your laptop is sitting at 55 degrees when idle, it is supposed to create any performance problems.

If it does you can do the following:

1. Listen to the CPU fan sound when switching it on, they all have kind of gills (air outing spaces) by the fan for it to breath out with, if you are not sure it is running, do the check its hotness immediately on the keyboard but advisably on top of the side the CPU and CPU fan are located.
2. If the FAN is not running, it is just dirt within it and probably needs to be cleaned or maybe the machine driver because it usually automatically installs driver updates then finds some not updated and mis configures other drivers like for the CPU Fan. In most cases if you changed the OS or maybe ran an APP that it warned you with before installation.

I just want to know; What are your machine Specs, brand and did you or did you not install a different OS from the manufacturer's?
 
Hi,

I've got a similar problem for my laptop (acer aspire 8930g)
When I boot up the laptop on just the battery it boots up fine and I can do whatever I want but as soon is I plug in the AC it cuts out (dead without a warning or following the shutdown process). If you wait a few seconds the laptop automatically turns itself on again but cuts out again when you see the windows logo for the first time. This process will repeat it self until you take the AC adapter out, then it will stay off.

in short, the laptop works with just a battery but doesn't work if you have the battery and ac plugged in and doesn't work when just the ac is plugged in.

It looked like I had a bad AC but I've tried 2 other ac's from friend who use the same laptops but neither of them works. I've taken apart the whole laptop and looked for broken resistors etc and found one which has been replaced now. This however made no difference.

It can't be a heating problem because there is no dust left on the heatsinks/in the fan, the fan is spinning and the problem only occurs when you boot the laptop with the powercable plugged in.

Any ideas on what it might be? which parts on the motherboard would I have to look at? I've checked the voltage on the motherboard where the power from the ac comes in to but this all seems fine. I thought about relaing the wires to where the battery plugs into the motherboard but I can't do this as for some reason the voltage is different (ac = 19v and the battery is only between 3 and 4 volts...)

Any help would be appreciated!
 
Hi,

I've got a similar problem for my laptop (acer aspire 8930g)
When I boot up the laptop on just the battery it boots up fine and I can do whatever I want but as soon is I plug in the AC it cuts out (dead without a warning or following the shutdown process). If you wait a few seconds the laptop automatically turns itself on again but cuts out again when you see the windows logo for the first time. This process will repeat it self until you take the AC adapter out, then it will stay off.

in short, the laptop works with just a battery but doesn't work if you have the battery and ac plugged in and doesn't work when just the ac is plugged in.

It looked like I had a bad AC but I've tried 2 other ac's from friend who use the same laptops but neither of them works. I've taken apart the whole laptop and looked for broken resistors etc and found one which has been replaced now. This however made no difference.

It can't be a heating problem because there is no dust left on the heatsinks/in the fan, the fan is spinning and the problem only occurs when you boot the laptop with the powercable plugged in.

Any ideas on what it might be? which parts on the motherboard would I have to look at? I've checked the voltage on the motherboard where the power from the ac comes in to but this all seems fine. I thought about relaing the wires to where the battery plugs into the motherboard but I can't do this as for some reason the voltage is different (ac = 19v and the battery is only between 3 and 4 volts...)

Any help would be appreciated!

Hi Frank,

I have acer aspire 4736z laptop and I have exactly the "opposite" problem as yours. I.e. when my laptop will run on AC power but will abruptly shut down on battery. On AC power it works fine, but the moment the AC power is switched off, the laptop will run for a few minutes (random time, but less than 10-12 mins) and shut down without any warning etc.
I thought the it was some problem with the battery, hence got a new one. But realized that with new battery too the same problem remained. Took my laptop to a local repair shop, they reinstalled the OS. But the problem remained. It works on the battery in the BIOS setup mode or even on the windows Safe mode, but the moment the OS is loaded it shuts off on battery.
It is not related to heating issue as it runs perfectly on AC power, it is only on the battery that this problem comes.
I visited another repair guy and he said that it was some hardware issue. But I am yet to decide whether to give my laptop to him for dissection.
If you have come across some solution or have got your machine repaired kindly advice on the course of action.
Thank You
 
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