Spontaneous Shutdowns ! ! !

I have had my HEL80 for a couple of months now. Until recently, I have experienced two or three spontaneous shutdowns. In the last couple of days, I get at least one every day.

Is anyone else having this issue? I usually have several programs open when this happens. 1st time this morning it looked like a windows issue,but I am not convinced of that yet.

 

Have a look at the temperature of the processor. Perhaps it is too high, and the motherbaord is deciding to shut the system down, to prevent any damage. Did any errors come up when the computer decided to shut down, or was it a simple turn off, without any notice what so ever.

 

It just shutdowns without any notice.

What is the best way to check the temperatures?

Thanks,

Doug

 

You could also check the fins where the fan blows out. If it becomes clogged with dirt, it will get hot and then the computer will shut down.

 

Definitely check your fan. The cooling guide is a great resource for information about keeping it clean.

You can check HD temperature with Notebook Hardware control. CPU temperature can be monitored with RM Clock or Core Temp. And GPU temperature can be monitored with Riva Tuner.

 

When you say shut down are you talking about a Blue screen, or does it turn totally off without going through the Blue screen?

 

Donald,

It just shuts down to a black screen - no warning, no error messages - just total frustration (sorry - had to vent a little).

 

Check your event logs (Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Event Viewer). Also, I remember having issues with Windows automatically shutting down on bluescreens. I don't remember whether I actually saw the blue screen or not, so I don't know if this is what is happening to you. Maybe don't rule out that kind of problem though.

Heat related ones are fun too. I had that problem once on a desktop. Popped open the case, and there was a veritable carpet of dust over the heatsink. It was a solid mass. Kinda cool, really.

 

What exactly am I looking for in the event viewer? There are numerous entries.

Where can I find out what the event numbers mean? I have looked at the ones near the crash times, but they do not really help???

 

Suspicious looking things -- mostly red circles with white Xs. Google tends to have lots of comments about the different event IDs. It may be that nothing in the event viewer is relevant to your problem. I've had good success with it in the past though.

 

Hard shutdown to black screen usually means it is either a hardware auto shut down due to overheating, or some other hardware failure.

The first thing to do is open up the bottom cover for the CPU (see the picture of the open bottom). You may well have that carpet of lint that l33t_c0w is talking about and it is blocking the cooling system. Blow it out with a can of compressed air.

If that doesn't work...call your vendor's tech support for help.

 

Donald,

I opened the bottom cover as you suggested and it was about 99% clear & clean. I blew it out, so now it is 100% clear.

I will call you guy's (I purchased form Power Notebooks) if it happens one more time. So far, it has been about two/three times in the last month or so. This week it has been three times. Once on Wed & twice on Thursday. No problems yesterday. Hopefully this trend (lol - one day) continues.

 

BTW - I have been monitoring the CPU temperature since it was suggested. All day yesterday, both cores were in the low to mid 40 degrees C. I downloaded and am using Core Temp to do this.

 

Just let us know if it continues (call our 24/7 Support Team).

We will be there to resolve it for you...ah yes, don't you just love your warranty?

 

Definitely give Donald's team a call. That warranty sure is beautiful. I'm glad I have the same one .

 

I am having the same sort of problem on a week old system from Velocity Micro. I have had four shutdowns to black screen in a five day period. Then last night Windows would not shut down correctly. I'm contacting the vendor this morning.

 

I just called Power Notebooks tech today to report the same issue. I've been suspecting my fan wasn't running 100%, and it would get very hot when it would shut down.

I pulled the cover, pulled the fan and blew everything out. It was clean enough not to be dust related. But I fired it up with the cover off and watched the fan. It would shut completely off, and only spin up (half speed) every now and then.

They thought it may have something to do with my bios version (115b) and wanted to escallate it and also check with a tech running vista there on the HEL80. It's been intermittent, so we'll see.

Definitely like the warranty and support!