Possible Laptop Battery Problem?

[bayside]

About a week ago I was on my laptop and all of a sudden it shut off for no reason. The battery was charged and I did not know what the problem was so the next day I took it to the Best Buy geek squad and they said it might be a problem with the unit. They took it in to get repaired and I just got it back and it works fine for about a couple hours of the day but it still randomly shuts off and gets really hot on the bottom of the laptop.

Does anyone know how to fix this because apparently the people at Best Buy do not. Please help by emailing me suggestions at KBlink526@yahoo.com

Thanks

 

[tdeg]

Sounds like the processor fan is seized.

Gotta love those Best Buy geek squads... they might be geeks but they don't know how to fix crap.

What type of laptop do you have?

 

[Tedster]

it's generally not a good idea to post your email in a public forum. Spammers have programs that scan for email addresses.

 

[bayside]

I have a compaq presario. What do I do if the processor fan is seized?? I don't know anything about computers as you can tell.

 

[Tedster]

normally I don't recommend end users opening up laptops, but since your repair shop is incompitant, you might have to. Replacing a fan should be easy once the case is opened.
or find another shop.

 

[bayside]

I probable shouldn't open it myself I know I would cause more problems but do you have any idea how much it would cost to replace the fan?

 

[ABAMOTO]

First you need to check whether your fan is running alright. If your fan does run when the CPU gets hot, then it shouldn't be a fan problem. If it just doesn't run at any condition, it might be what Tedster described.

How old have you owned your laptop? Are you out of warranty? Or see if you can purchase extended warranty for your laptop (since it operates alright just shut off randomly, so when they check your laptop it should be eligible).

Laptop fans are usually from $10~$15 i would say (for some Dell model). The hardest part is to find the reseller that sells your model of laptop fan, or a compatible one.

Also, do you think the problem could be associated with HDD (I don't think it is possible but maybe)? Try to go to BIOS and wait there and see if it still shuts off by itself. If it doesn't, it could be a HDD problem as well?

If it is HDD problem, it can be either software or hardware. If you are running on W2K OS and you did not do your updates. You might be facing a worm called Zotob, which does shut down your computer randomly... You might want to take a look on that. In addition, Sassar Worm also may bring similar effect....


Hope this helps.

 

[bayside]

Thanks, well I've only had it about 6 months and it has a warranty so I took it to Best Buy again to see if they can figure out what's wrong with it. Hopefully they can fix it. I won't knwo if the fan still runs or anything until I get it back which will be another couple weeks.

 

[fitzy75]

I have had similar problems in the past

I to have a presario laptop (quite old model Presario 700) and mine kept doing the same thing, when I was watching DVDs on it it would overheat and I looked into it and other people have had the same trouble, so I bought a laptop cooler which is like a thing you put the laptop on top of it and plug it in through usb and it has 3 fans on it to keep the laptop cool, since I have had this I have not had any more trouble with it overheating.

So your problem could be heat related, in my case the fan was not siezed and it just runs quite hot anyway. Maybe you could get a laptop cooler, they are quite cheap on ebay and see if that helps.

 

[bayside]

Thanks, when I get my computer back and if it's doing the same thing I might as well try your idea.