Laptop keeps going dark, not sure if it's windows or a hardware problem

The HP in my sig keeps shutting the screen off and deactivating wireless and speakers. It usually seems to happen after I bring it out of standby or wake up the monitor after it shuts off to conserve power. It also happens sometimes when the computer is starting windows.

The screen usually just shuts right off while the capacitive touch icons for the speakers and wireless go orange (deactivated). Sometimes the speakers make a scratching static noise for a few minutes after the screen shuts off. One time while I was in windows, the screen flickered and scrambled a bit before it shut down.

Does anybody know if this is something I can fix, or does it sound like my laptop is ready to give the ghost?

 

I assume you are running win 7, do you see any errors in event viewer? There are some suggestions here: HP dv6 + windows 7 = not waking from sleep mode - HP Support Forum - 223624
If you use hibernate, I would disable it and reenable it as mentioned in the thread. If nothing here is helpful you may want to reload windows just to rule out a S/W issue
RIP another ASUS.... my G73 is headed where your Z81 is LOL

 

Ok, I got home from work, turned my computer on, went to the bathroom, and when I come back the monitor is shut off and the capacitive touch buttons are orange. After I restarted and after it got past the HP splash screen, It gave me the option of starting windows normally or "startup repair" (something like that). I picked startup repair, and the screen shuts off again. Restart, pick startup repair again, and left the room to do some things. When I came back it must have finished and it put me in the HP support assistant and where I had a number of additional options (back up files, system restore, reformat, etc). I restarted my computer and so far I haven't had any troubles. It's only been about 2 hours, so I will keep you posted.

Haha, I'm never buying another Asus again. First thing I had to do when I got it was flash the BIOS because it was overclocking the VRAM. I had to search for the solution myself because my reseller had no clue what was going on, and only a few Z81 users were experiencing it. Then about a year later, the wireless card started shutting itself off and windows wouldn't be able to detect it. Tried troubleshooting with my reseller and again he had no idea what was wrong and told me to send it in for repair. By some chance I discovered that going into the BIOS when booting and selecting "load setup defaults" would get the wifi card working again ( is this a** backwards crap?). Then finally after a year and a half, the gpu fried itself. I opened it up and the heatsink on the card (an Nvidia 6800go) was made out aluminum.

 

The shut-downs have been getting more frequent since they started, maybe about a month or two ago. So far I haven't had any of the shutdowns since I did the startup repair a few hours ago. This is a good sign.

 

Have you tried reinstalling windows? A good test would be to load Linux, like Ubuntu, on it.

Beyond that, you can try hard drive tests, memory tests, and cpu stress testing. Also try some online virus scanners, just in case your virus scanner missed it.

 

Ok, so it happened again when I got home. Opened the laptop and before I could hit "resume windows" it went dark. And then it did it again after I restarted while windows was booting up. Looks like I have a little work to do.

 

Ok, I swapped the HDD for a fresh one and I'm still having the blackouts.

None of the diagnostic/repair programs I ran found anything wrong with the CPU, GPU, RAM or HDD. Last time I had to switch a defective HDD (had identical blackouts, the vast majority during boot), nothing was detected either. So I took a leap of faith and assumed that it was another HDD problem.

If anything the blackouts have gotten worse. The majority still happen while windows is booting, but I've had two happen while I was in the middle of using it.

Assuming that the new HDD, isn't also defective, what would cause these random blackouts (the vast majority during boot.)?

 

if youve checked diagnostics then temps are next.
when was the last time you cleaned the fans and vents out with compressed air and what sort of temperatures are you getting for your cpu/gpu/hdd.

 

Have you tried a different power supply? I've had a desktop that once after 30 seconds of booting would boot into a black screen (replaced 3 x mobo, RAM, CPU, reinstalled OS like 6-7 times, turned out to be a bad power supply).

 

On the DV6000 the video chip would get too hot, and had solder problems. So what GPU temps are you getting? Have you tried updating the bios, as on the older model that helped as the fan ran more?

 

I game alot on this machine and it can get pretty hot, but I've never had any of the crashes while gameing. Wouldn't that rule out overheating issues?

 

The chip maybe fine, just the solder joints. Getting the gpu temps might give a better idea.

Any patterns to when it happens? Does it ever happen when you haven't been gaming?

 

It never crashes while gaming. The vast majority are during startup or after I open the lid to bring it out of standby. A few have happened randomly while I was using firefox, but those are very rare.

 

So do you mostly cold boot, or use standby or sleep modes? If it happens more with one or the other, there could be a clue.

Might try reseating your memory, or try eleminating memory sticks by using less.

Does it happen more when moving the lid/display? Have you tried an external monitor?

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