XPS L501 overheating won't boot sometimes

[Parcero]

Hello, I'm David and this is my first post.

I have a XPS laptop from dell which I recently acquired due to a replacement, it has no guarantee.

The problem is that my laptop won't boot sometimes. I have a cooling pad and the laptop works fine with it, however it does get a little hot around the left corner and the touch pad when gaming, nothing so terrible. However, when I shut down the computer after gaming it won't boot the next time. If it miraculously boots it works great and I can do whatever I want with it and as long as I don't play again the laptop starts normally the next time I want to boot it. It won't start only after I've played.

I don't know what to do with it and the laptop has only 2 months.

Here are the specs:
Core i7 1.7 GHz
4Gb RAM
NVIDIA 435M 2Gb
500 Gb HDD

It's not a battery or an AC adapter problem since I have tried with both and it won't start and when it's OK it starts with both.

I have updated all the drivers.

Thank you very much, I appreciate any help!
David.

 

[Mark56]

This sounds like overheating but could also be a hard drive problem.

Download and install this free software to keep an eye on your temperatures, you can set it up to display the temps in the task bar so you can watch what happens.

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

I would also suggest running diagnostics on your hard drive. Follow this guiide.

Identify the make of your hard drive and then use one of the links below to get the manufacturers diagnostic for ISO CD. Burn the image file to a CD, boot the PC with the disc in the drive and run the diagnostics. You first need to set the CD drive to 1st in the boot order in the Bios setup.

If you do not have an image burner use this free software to make the CD.

http://www.isoimageburner.com/


ExcelStor: http://www.excelstor.com/eng/support.php?sub_id=3

Hitachi/IBM: http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/

Samsung: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/downloads/support_in_es.html

Toshiba Fujitsu: http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Path=SoftwareUtilities#diagnostic

Seagate, Maxtor & Quantum:http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads

Western Digital:http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?lang=en

 

[Parcero]

Hello, thank you for your answer. I've had Core Temp since my last computer and I have it on my laptop too. The temperatures have always been the same since I got it and it used to work then. I don't know how to check the hard drive make, I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to this.

Another thing I wanted to make clear is that it doesn't show any signs of life it just sits there and I can press the button as many times I want to and it won't work. Only 2 lights pop and that's when I plug the AC adapter. There just comes the time when I push the button and miraculously all is working and I have no problems until I play again.

 

[Mark56]

You need to remove the hard drive from the case to get the make and model off the label, look on the manufacturers site for instructions on replacing hardware and it will show you how to remove the drive.

Before you do anything else I would make back ups of all your important data just in case the drive fails completely.

From what you have added above it sounds as if the drive is reluctant to spin but it may just be a faulty connection somewhere, simply removing and refitting the drive may cure it if the connection is poor.