Insipron 6000 : Switches off suddenly without any trace

Hi,
This is one year old laptop. It switches off suddenly and next time windows Xp boots up and does not complain about last crash. I was able to reproduce it twice while trying to burn a DVD. I tried to debug for following

1) Some recent Drive install
2) RAM issue
3) Hard Disk issue
4) Overheating
5) Battery issue
6) OS issue



+ Through system restore i restored my system to Jan 2005 but the problem persists.

+ Reproduced the problem Running on battery alone and on Main alone. So battery is not an issue.

+ Tried the DELL diagnostic, RAM and Hard Disk all tests have passed. Just to be sure i booted from a linux system restore CD and wiped/formatted the Hard Disk. Now windows XP won't install on 15GB C:\ partition. The setup load all drivers and just before installation (where Hard disk partitions are shown) the system crashes. I tried it 4-5 times but the system powers off at the same point.

So i have eliminated almost all issues exccept probably overheating. The Dell diagnostic for FAN and sensors is passing.

So now i don't have any OS on my system and unable to install one. Windows 2000 setup also crashes with power off.

Any idea before i take it for repair. The system is out of warrenty.

Thanks for your time.

 

How long did you turn on the computer before it overheat? have you clean all the vents?

Is it a virus?

Or is it... [this happened to me in my desktop btw (dimension 8400)...]

RAM problem/s,
When Just after the welcome sign comes on it suddenly crash and produce blue screen of death, this does not occur everytime but i would say that it occur A LOT. Then, I tried to ring them up and they ask me to run the diagnostic tool but could not find any defect.

As the months past by (about 2 months) the problem become progressively worst. Just after the Windows XP boot screen comes on it instantly restart itself, this occur more and more until everytime i boot up it occur. Anyway i call dell again and they ask me to run the diagnostic tool, yada, yada, yada.... and it turn out that one of the RAM got a lot of error in it, so they send someone in and replace them.

hope this help

 

My E1505 did the SAME THING when I first got it. Eventually I got Windows to reinstall by disabling BlueTooth inside of BIOS. I don't know if you have BlueTooth, but it's worth a shot. Once Windows installed, I got it stable again by reinstalling all drivers in proper order (Thanks SG!), and flashing the BIOS once it was all done. Then I periodically checked for errors in the system, and as they showed up, I googled them and performed proper steps to clear them. I hope this helps.

 

Thanks everybody for reply..i have n't solved problem the problem yet. however i am able to install windows 2000 and seems to be fine. i will probably open it up and see if i can find problem with cooling system