Power/Crashing Problems w/ Gateway 7415GX

Hey everyone, I'm new here (and don't even own a laptop) but hopefully you can all be of some help. While I work with computers and love them bunches, I'm stumped on this one. I got my girlfriend's laptop (Gateway 7415GX, standard build, XPHome, build July 2005) when she couldn't take the problem any longer (the good-ole "the problem will work itself out over time" excuse). The problem is that it crashes, almost randomly but especially with heavy loads. I tested it for viruses and spyware w/ no luck (but several crashes). I tested the hard drive temperature and system temperature. While it did have a HD temperature monitor, it looks like this specific Gateway board doesn't have a sensor. All temps were within reason (around 38C). I even ran Memtest86 (both the official and the microsoft equivalent). The computer crashed again one or 2x with these, eliminating the possibility that it was windows because they were from bootable CD's. When I picked it up for closer examination, I literally tripped the root of the problem.

Here's when I started to discover the problem. The AC Adapter is a 3-prong Gateway model 0220A1890 at 18.5V and 4.9A. When the laptop is unplugged from the AC Adaptor charger, the machine is fine for it's approx. 2 hour duration of battery life. When the power cord is plugged in, however, the computer is a ticking timebomb. I've seen the laptop go days without crashing with this, but it's gotten worse. On average though, it'll crash when plugged in within 5-10 minutes. Such programs like Firefox, AIM, Internet Explorer, and Lavasoft's AdAware will more often than not trigger a shutdown. When it does crash, the only warning that will be given is the fan accelerating (basically, winding) for 4 to 5 seconds before crash. No change in temp, CPU performance, or memory usage when this happens. To quell those who may be asking, yes: my girlfriend has dinged the laptop a few times and the AC adapter several more times. Additionally, the concept of "laptop" has been taken to heart, as this thing has sat unventilated on a squishy bed and on her lap before. It's also dusty/dirty as hell, which I'm in the process of dismembering it and air dusting all the crap out of it as we speak. Don't shoot the messenger here folks.

Now, we've narrowed it but here's where it gets tricky. When the laptop is turned off, and the charger is plugged in, the laptop WILL charge, and as quick as it always did. If we remove the AC adapter, start the computer properly, and then plug the adapter back in, then we play the 5-10 minute crash game again. I gave it to a friend to hook it up to a multimeter, and readings are within range (19v). However, I'm not sure if this hookup was accurate, and pointers on the best way to do this would be appreciated. Also, I checked if this crash was due to thermal buildup. I put it in a climate-controlled machine room over a 50 degree vent for a half-hour before starting it, and then started it up on the vent. Still crashed in 5-10.

What's everyone thing, as I'm completely stumped . I haven't yet gotten down to the power input part of the board, but I'm looking to see if the heat and dust may have infused with the solder and damaged the board, or to see if they're anything blocking the air vents. Any other thoughts/suggestions. New batteries and AC adapters can be expensive, so I'd much rather find a solution first (however, if it is the adapter, I hope it's not harming the battery). I bow before your wonderful graces, oh mighty heroes of the laptop repair.

 

time to take this baby apart and perform some serious internal cleaning (fan, heatsink) and while at it, dab in a new thermal paste

cheers ...

 

Tried putting everything back together.... still no dice. Same problems happen (not to mention I don't think I plugged back in her modem, as I had error messages galore about that). Back to the drawing board......

 

Do you hear the Fan blowing when it's plugged? On battery the CPU works at a slower speed so it won't get hot, but plugged it will go full speed and that will bring temperatures high...the fan should blow on heavy load.
Try this:
Charge the battery, unplug (power on) and then go to power settings and put it to Max Performance (CPU will run at highest speed). You can install CPU-Z to check for CPU speed and temperature. Run something CPU intensive (super pi for example) and monitor how it goes.
On heavy load you should be able to hear the Fans blowing on max power.
Good Luck.

 

Currently, the computer is disassembled in pieces (man, Gateway doesn't like you taking apart their stuff), so I can't do anything right now. As for the fan, I had tested the fan to make sure it was at least working with a higher load on the battery mode. While the fan can activate and run properly with a heavier load with battery power, the kind of fan acceleration before it kicked off was the kind you would hear at max or when the laptop starts up. I also still found it odd that when I cooled down EVERYTHING with the computer that it still had the same problem.

However, I'm up for anything that may work. I hadn't' considered the fact that the temp does get hotter when plugged in. Also, I feel silly for not using CPU-Z in the first place (cause it's a great program and I've used it before.... just plum forgot). Thanks for the suggestion, I'll get back to ya when I put all the damn screws back in place to let ya know how it goes.

 

Just FYI, in my MX7515 (very similar to yours):
Battery: CPU is @ 800Mhz (stays cool, Fan barely noticeable)
Plugged: CPU is @2.6Ghz when maxed out (hot and noisy Fan)
If no propper cooling is in place CPU can get hot in seconds.
You may also try undervolting, but that is another animal...
I hope you can re-assemble it again..good luck!

 

UPDATE: So, after a long and frequently interrupted ordeal, the laptop has been disassembled and now reassembled. The results, unfortunately, are not quite successful. After much pain to disassemble this laptop (my first time doing such to a laptop, mind you), I've managed to repair a few things I broke along the way, but not the root of the problem. The modem plug came out of the plastic plug casing, but that has since been glued back together and functional. The keyboard motherboard clamp broke off, and has since been effectively glued to the back of the ribbon cable and also works. The heatsink above the processor (a big sucker too) seemed to be removed too easily when disassembling the system, so I lathered some heatsink paste on it before re-securing it back in place. Also, massive amounts of air dusting were done (who else here has ever seen a dog hair get stuck in under a memory chip?)

Relating to the problem, the physical motherboard itself has no physical damage, no blown/leaky compassitors, and no chipped indications of excessive heat. The only thing I thought that may be causing the problem is putting a piece of non-conductive particleboard (I guess, the real hard plastic stuff that holds up to high temperatures) between the bottom of the chassis near the power supply and the board. My thought was that the chassis (metal part that you can see from the back of the computer) may have been coming in contact with the bottom of the board and caused a short circuit. After piecing the computer back together, the same problem still exist

I'm fortunate that I documented where all the screws go (styrofoam plates are a wonderful thing), and it's back together. I've also tried a couple of other things as well. CPUZ was installed and ran (as ByToR suggested, many thanks) and I was able to watch the processor's output. He was right that 800mhz was approx the running speed when the battory was in. However, a running speed of 1.8-1.9ghz was the max-out speed when plugged in (and running SuperPi). With the battery, no crash with SuperPi.... and still another crash with the AC adapter in. The odd part that I noticed was that (when the AC Adapter plugged in) the processor oscillates between 800 and 1.9 (depending on CPU usage). When the computer crashed, the usage wasn't always on 1.9, but could be on 800mhz as well. Significant?

Also, I wanted to question the "load" issue. So.... I left it on. I cut all processes that are unneeded (AIM, stuff like that) and just left it running. Sure enough, when plugged in, it still crashed. Now, I don't know if this makes it still heat related, but it does show that it's not just a program that may trigger the crash. There was also the question that ByTor raised about the speed of the fan. There is a very distinctive difference between the fan at 1.9ghz max-out and the fans before they're about to crash. I didn't try to run the system when taken apart, but I can almost promise you that the fans will accelerate moreso when about to crash than when they are at max. CPU usage.

I also tried something that I had forgot completely about. For the life of me, I forgot that laptops can run completely on AC (all this time, I've had the battery in while connecting to the AC Adapter). So, out comes the battery, in goes the AC Adapter.... and we still have shutdown. At least it's not the battery, which it looks like at this point I can safely rule out. Colleagues of mine here still think it's a thermal problem, but I'm hoping it's electrical. The one last thing I can check is the AC Adapter block (aka, replacing the power cord) before I throw my hands up and quit on this one. (it's hard when I can't soder or play with anything on the system board to think of an internal solution.

Any more thoughts? I'm open to ideas, and I'll be looking to you guys if you can be of any help. Also, if anyone has knowledge of how to test the electrical in a better way, my ears are open. Thanks a bunch for reading through all this mess.

 

To keep this thread alive (and to ask the tech community for more possible solutions), does anyone know if there's a portable micro thermal sensor that I could use to gauge internal temperature? I have no idea if this exists but since there are no thermal sensors inside other than the hard drive, it may be a good idea.

 

i own a gateway 7415gx too
diff than yours tho
but somewhat the same probs
it use to cut off randomly...but i think i somewhat fixed that
or slowed it down
it still shuts down time to time but
im sure thats caused by over heating

but now i get no power at all
battery or a/c (the LED light for ac power doesn't come on)
I cleared my cmos (by taking the cell (watch like)battery out)
that fixed most of the random shut off's
worked great for awhile

but now the ac box does a "buzz-buzz-buzz-buzz"
and no power at all gets to my laptop im guessing

 

At least I'm not the only one with 7415gx problems. :P How'd you fix your cut-off problems the first time? With software configurations or hardware additions/cleaning? Was this just with clearing the CMOS battery? That actually scares me a little because (with the difficulty I had taking it apart) it sounds like it'd just clear any error logging file that may have been triggered by another problem. I'm all for a quick-fix, but I'd like to think that random shut-offs are trying to tell you something. Of what it's trying to tell you, I'm clueless in my case (and your case, unless I could sit and play with it).

The "overheating" thing bothers me, because a properly (or even reasonably) ventilated laptop shouldn't cause significant longterm thermal damage to a machine for no reason. When I was tearing the thing apart, I wondered how well the ventilation on the outer chassis actually is allowing airflow in (especially if on an unconventional surface, like a knee or a carpeted floor).

Also, when you say "AC box", do you mean the brick-ey AC adapter? I'd like to think that it's not something on the board, but if the battery power is faulty, and the AC power w/o battery is faulty, then that'd probably be the problem. Do any lights turn on when connected (either the blue power light below the mousepad, or the orange charge light on the front outside)? It'd be odd that there'd be absolutely no connection there, but I suppose also not out of the realm of possibility.

Heh, and let me guess: gateway says you're out of warranty and won't give you the time of day without a substantial technical support fee?

 

Hey there everyone, I figure I should keep this thread alive and throw a little update your way. If you've gotten down this far in this, congrads. It looks like I'm veering down a dangerous road where I'll need professional help (well, both). After not seeing any internal damage and without any significant problems with the CPU, I narrowed it to the working-though-not-thoroughly-tested AC Adapter, or the motherboard. I got a new AC adapter in the other day, and spent the better part of the day with a file shaving down the side of the plug. Oddly enough, when I got it, the plug safety rubber area surrounding it didn't match up with the other plug. Additionally, while it WOULD have fit if I hadn't messed with the laptop's inners, the slight board which elevated the laptops chassis made things complicated. Therefore, filing away and getting it down to size, I finally got it to connect and take a charge (I was worried I had a dud AC adapter only after filing a significant part of it off). Surprisingly, it ran fine off the AC adapter for quite a long time (2 hours while idling). GOOD. Then, I put some stress on it, by running the AdAware client and updating it's Window's OS. Crashed..... crap. I tried both independently (thinking I could see if internet connectivity caused a short circuit or something with it being wireless) and it didn't matter.

SO.... Recap: Computer crashed under load (not 100% load either) when AC adapter in, but fine when only battery. Will take a charge when AC in and computer turned off. Not the AC adapter, not the harddrive, not the memory, not a virus/spyware issue, probably not the CPU, probably the motherboard getting a short somewhere. Any suggestions before I have to grovel before Gateway to get them to put a new motherboard in place? (for those of you who don't know, they won't send a new board out to you to DIY, they're picky about that stuff).

 

Hey there, I had a 7415gx and had the same exact problems. It was still under warrenty, and I sent it back to Gateway 3 times with the same problem then they finally replaced it with a mx7515. Now the 7515 is having the same issue. I have notebook hardware control running and it will crash at low or high temp.
low or high cpu load. So the problem is very random. And yes I know all about that high rpm fan sound right before the crash. Almost sounds like the dvd/cd rom drive reving up. Unlike the high fan speed. After reading your tread I just unplugged the ac to see if That keeps it from crashing. if so I can at least run for 2 hours crash free before I need to recharge.

I would have to think with these same problems going on with Multiple computers that Gateway/emachine knows exactly what the problem is or where it lies.But they seem to want to just claim ignorance and let their customers fend for themselves. After I recieved the mx7515 they said that my warrenty was now over and there obligation to me was now fulfilled and I was on my own with the new machine. so I am stuck with it like you. keep me informed if you find out any new info on this problem. and good luck.

 

i was thinking has anyone tried a replacement adapter? my t-1616 apperently runs at higher temperatures. but its alright.

 

I'm glad that my problem is shared by you GlacialHills, thought saddened that we both have to go through it. I usually don't subscribe and post on these tech-sites, but there was so little out there about the 7415GX that I figured either I was a lone voice or there was a silent majority.

Lokster, I did try a replacement adapter. I made sure to find one that was a Gateway (manufacture) brand to ensure the same quality and specifications, but still no avail. The same problems with the crash occur, and the charging is still the same when the computer isn't plugged in. This really bothered me, because it pretty much isolates the problem to the motherboard. I was somewhat scared to take the laptop apart to get to the board in the first place, and it's pretty obvious I tried to "tamper" with it due to my repairs I had to do. So who knows what they'll do for pricing with the new board. That's the way the laptop crumbles?

Glacial, you're very lucky you caught this while under warranty. While I respect Gateway's quick and usually high-quality customer service (at least compared to Dell.... oh no, here I go), we find the fatal flaw in all customer service reps. when a serious problem like this does occur. Needless to say, I got bounced around when they figured out the computer was no longer under warranty, and didn't hesitate to mention their pay-per-minute services. Dell gave me the run-around on the blown-capacitors on my GX280. The whistle got blown on these because they're made for mass-sale in business and education (in my case, I got mine through a university discount). It was obvious that some higher-up knew the problem, because one stat came out that 25-40% of all those models had that problem. Motherboard issues are nasty, especially when the capacitors are acting up. Maybe the bulging on mine didn't end as poorly as some who had the same problem, resulting in the things exploding while the computer was running (forget the motherboard, the question was then "how much of the internals could you salvage). If they had just fessed up, they probably wouldn't have blastfamous posts like this from me being spewed out across the net. After all, they didn't make the capacitors, just contracted with a bad company who substitutes sub-standard materials in them. It's the cover-up that blew my trust (and the "unannounced" recall to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis).

Still, I'm considering paying the more-than-likely $150-200 it may run to repair the thing (after parts and labor) because it's still a decent little laptop that should not have seen it's final days this early. Glacial, if you could Private Message me your name, and maybe trouble ticket or serial number, I'd love to have it as leverage. I can imagine I may get "we've never heard of that problem before, you must have broken it yourself and we don't cover tampered laptops", so I want to be prepared. I'll let you know if I have any news, and hopefully more people will see this thread and realize they're not alone.

 

Hi there!
I just have the same problem unfortunately I'm out of warranty and I am writing to say that.
My 7415GX has the serial number...N304AE1067920

 

I also have a Gateway 7415gx. The serial number is RH43585021424. This morning I was trying to disassemble my laptop which isn't easy as you have described. After struggling with it for a while
I put it back together to access the internet....this is where I found your forum.

I have had this crashing problem for the last 8 months. If you need any more information let me know! I am so frustrated that I think I might buy a new laptop before I get out of school. Something like an apple or a desktop so that I can access everything easier!

 

Could it possibly be ram.

Although noticing that many people are having this issue I doubt it.
BUt i was getting random crashes especially under load on my msi 1029..... Memtested the memory and it was bad.
Replaced it and no more crashes.


Memtest your memory if you havnt.

 

Hi All & Steveo,

I seem to suddenly be having a similar problem too.

Let me first say, I have TWO MX7515's. I have upgraded the RAM from 2 x 512MB to 2x 1GB. I have also upgraded the hard drives in both machines from the crappy 4200RPM drives to 7200RPM 100GB TravelStars.

At first I thought it was might have been the RAM. The reason being, that on one machine, it uses 333Mhz RAM and on the other it was 400Mhz RAM, and the machine with the 400Mhz RAM was crashing. In case you don't know, the RAM that comes from the factory is PC2700 (333Mhz) whereas in the one machine I used PC3200 (400Mhz).

However, I swapped the hard drive from the 400Mhz RAM machine to the 333Mhz RAM machine and got the same problem.

The machine doesn't crash just after 15 minutes though like you.

In my case, the machine seems to want to crash after using a virtual reality software THERE.COM. But when it crashes is rather unpredictable. And for quite a while I had no problems. I could sit there for hours.

Then I started having these random crashes, but not all the time. The problem is I can't be certain WHEN all this started.

Prior to all this crashing, I was connecting to the internet via WiFi card. But recently I have been using a Sierra 3G wireless modem card on the AT&T network.

I don't know if this, or the software it comes with is one of the culprits.
Also, sometimes I would crash while the system was booting up. As soon as I heard the little "baloon" sound that told me Skype had loaded, it might crash.
Or the system might boot fine and crash while I was using Skype.

Well, I don't think the problem is the RAM.

I am thinking that there is something screwy with the software configuration and it is now causing the CPU to cycle up to its maximum and not let go.

My plan is resinstall the OS. I've actually done this recently, but with all the software that gets loaded it's easy for the system to suddenly lose its pristine configuration. I have also recently UNINSTALLED a lot junk. As much as possible, like AOL instant messenger and Skype. The problem SEEMS to have subsided.

Bottom line, don't be so hasty install some new widget! If your system is stable, you might be paying a BIG penalty for some little gizmo free from Yahoo or wherever.

Let's also say that, even though I have run a deep level scan, I am the sort of person who may or may not have installed a few things I've found in newsgroups. And while one of these programs may have passed AVG, there could still be malicious code that wants to blitz the CPU and kill my machine.

My theory is it could even be commercial software I've downloaded such as iTunes. The sad thing is that so many programs now install themselves as a Windows service and just sit there waiting for something to start talking to it on the USB bus. These programs don't really offer you the option most of the time to be manually booted only when needed.

I guess you said you (Steveo) tried booting with a Windows CD-ROM based configuration, but for me, I think there is some very poorly written driver or service which is killing your CPU.

My computer runs fine most of the time (though much hotter than I would like). I'm going to set aside some time and try a clean install and see what happens.

These problems are very baffling.

And the previous generation of eMachines/Gateways had such a problem they actually lost a class action suit over it. I was entitled to collect $400 from eMachines but forgot to get my claim in before the deadline.

I know it seems a shame to give up on an otherwise great machine, but with laptops costing about $600 these days, maybe we shouldn't expect more than a year's worth of service out it. Just replace it each year and forget the rip-off extended warrarty BS.

 

Wanted to check back and see if anyone had any fresh news on the crashes or any fixes that anyone has found.

 

Also, can anyone tell me how to clean to make the laptop run cooler or to take the mx7515 apart to clean. thanks