Compaq Presario V4000 - spontaneous shutdowns, no error message

My Compaq Presario V4135 has been spontaneously shutting down lately. Some days not at all, sometimes 3 times in two hours. No warning at all, just silently and gracefully goes black. When I power up, it starts up Windows as if nothing ever happened.

There are no error messages, no BSODS, no events reported in the system log, nothing.

The only other symptom probably related is that the computer won't respond to modifications in the power schemes anymore. So I'm thinking, is there a driver I can disable/restart that might reset the whole power configuration and maybe knock it back into place? I don't see anything labeled "Power" in Device Manager.

The machine is still under warranty and HP told me to send it in, but I want to try everything else first to avoid that annoyance if possible.

a) Has anyone experienced similar issues and found a solution?
b) Anyone have any ideas how to disable/restart whatever driver controls the power settings?

Many thanks. And oh - OS = Windows XP Pro.

 

the battery might be loose. DO you have the adapter connected or is it while on battery

 

Is it overheating?

 

Working on a/c power, but the battery isn’t loose. This has been mostly a "stay-at-home computer" even though it is portable, so it never had a chance to get banged around .

I did a hard reset (tried that several times), but it didn't change anything.

Overheating is what I am wondering about too. But there is no clear indication. Whenever it happens, I check by touching the area above the hard disk – under the left palmrest. Sometimes it is quite warm, but sometimes it is positively cool to the touch, so there is no consistency that would give an absolute answer. The problem did begin after I replaced the hard disk with a new one (Hitachi) that definitely runs hotter and noisier than the previous one (Fujitsu). The replacement was sent by HP, under warranty. They offered to send another, but couldn’t guarantee that it would not be a Hitachi again. The techs I talked to are in one place (India, naturally), and the parts warehouse is halfway around the globe (Mexico? not sure). I can’t fault them, they were quite ready to help, but their operations are so dispersed that it's understandable they can’t pinpoint exactly which brand of replacement will be shipped.

I always have the laptop placed on a laptop cooler. With the old hard disk, the laptop was always cool to the touch. With the new one, sometimes it gets quite warm, even with the cooler’s fans. But the shutdown problem has occurred under both conditions, so I don’t know what to think. The disk passes all the diagnostic tests on HP’s website.

Maybe I will just have to send it in and deal with living without it for however long it takes .

Thanks for replying. Appreciate that you took the time.

 

Hitachi is usually more reliable than Fujitsu. I think you were just unlucky. I favor Seagate and Hitachi drives.

Your CPU heatsink is probably clogged with dust by now. Get the service manual from hp.com, follow the instructions for changing the CPU just far enough to get to the heatsink, and clean the dust out with compressed air and tweezers. Don't forget to remove the battery before cracking open the notebook. Unfortunately HP doesn't make such necessary maintenance easy.

It wouldn't hurt to verify that temps are getting too high using a program like HWMonitor.

 

Also, while I certainly agree with the above instructions, keep in mind that following them will void your warranty, since you stated that the machine was still under warranty.

 

How hot is it getting? My computer does that sometimes (now that my crappy targus cooler pad wire broke).

You'll eventually hurt your computer bad if you keep letting it overheat.

 

Guys,

I too had this issue, but then luckily I hit upon this software called Speedfan 4.28 - This software monitors the temperature of your CPU and regulates the fan speed accordingly.

I used to see my CPU temperature shooting up whenever I used to watch movies online (buffering). Now with this program running, I observe that the temperature doesnt rise beyond 35 degree C.

Make sure you put this in your startup folder.

I also bought a 'Xpad Non-slip Laptop Cooler & Heatshield' from amazon which has helped avoid the heat from building up!


Regards