Aspire 5520 shutting down. NOT overheating.

'Afternoon, folks.

This is my first post here. I'm in the repair field and I've got a customer's Aspire 5520 that was brought in for overheating. The machine had gone to Iraq, and the customer has indoor dogs..so yes, the fins on the heat pipe were very clogged. Got it all cleaned out, and the machine is still shutting itself off after between 10 minutes and 30 seconds of use.

Now, the machine isn't overheating. SpeedFan and a few other CPU temp utilities are showing the CPU to be around 45*c when the machine is randomly shutting down. 45c is not what I'd consider hot for a Turion x2.

It's not a RAM issue, I've replaced the CPU and am getting the same symptoms.

Anyone got a clue? I'm leaning toward a malfunctioning sensor or something.

 

Hi ramp4ge, and welcome to the forums!
Just off the top of my head, but can an overheating hard drive cause an ACPI thermal shutdown?
What about the integrated GPU? Does HWmonitor show it overheating?

 

I thought about ACPI thermal issues as well so I pulled the HDD and it still turns itself off. Whether it's sitting in the BIOS, booted off an ERD disk or anything, really.

GPU, when I was in Windows, was reporting a steady 60*c, which is warm, but it's an nVidia GPU and they run warm anyway..In Safe Mode (where it didn't have to render Aero) I was getting teh GPU down to around 40*c. Still turning off.

As far as a HWmonitor, this particular bios seems to be devoid of such. I'd rather see that then the 3rd party Windows apps to view the temps, but it's not there, and I'm not going to flash the bios with it randomly turning itself off.

 

hey not sure if this would help but here's a thought.

I had this same type of issue on my asus f50 and after clearing the fins, checking temp sensors and the hdd anything i could i decided to take a look at the power button itself, which in my csae was the problem as either through poor reassembly or if there was something stuck between it it caused my laptop to randomly turn off during use, so i took it all apart cleaned it(replaced what looked like it needed and carefully reassembled). When i was talking to the tech on the support line he also mention that it might have also been the sensor(switch/magnet) for the lid itself. In your case those are probably good places to start. Keep us updated on what happens! Good Luck!

 

Power button was a good idea (especially after having replaced power button/power board assemblies on numerous other Acers) but nojoy. Still doing it even with the power button being pressed manually and not by the large button on the bezel.

I may just do a complete teardown and rebuild and see if I see anything at mainboard-level, but it's starting to look like a faulty mainboard.

 

Socket S2 AMD CPU. Probably a TL-50? Most likely Thermal Diode death onboard the CPU. Replace it, try again. If not, this unit uses the nVidia MCP67 Chipset (Unibridge Version), and BGA Failure of the Unibridge causes this issue commonly. If available, reflow it. If not.. Well. Replacement time.