Zepto 6024W - Unexpected Shutdown

For some time I have been experiencing occasional (once per week or two) unexpected shutdowns of my Zepto 6024W. Yesterday morning was the third in the space of two weeks and then I had another one later in the day.

They seem to always happen when I am away from my computer: I come back and it is off. After pressing the power button I get a BIOS message about unexpected shutdown and then the BIOS spends a minute or two counting to 100 and checking if everything is OK. It evidently happens suddenly and Windows isn't able to log anything.

Has anyone encountered anything similar? (Google turned up this thread). I ran Memtest last night and it didn't find any errors.

John

 

How old is the machine, and do you have it plugged in when it happens, or on battery, or does it happen either way?

 

~ 7 months old (July 07) and plugged into the mains.

I had another shutdown within an hour of making the post and have reverted to an older BIOS (005e) to see if that has any effect.

I'm starting to wonder whether power transients might be a cause. The problems seem to happen in the office where the power system isn't very good. However, a properly working notebook power system should handle such transients (and the battery is OK).

John

 

This has happened once that I'm sure of, and possibly 3 or more times
in the last 2-3 months. Everything is fine, I walk away from the computer
to find it completely shutoff when I return.

Using bios 011 for last 2-3 weeks and hasn't happened since but it's so
rare that it's hard to say at this point anyhow.

 

I just had another unexpected shutdown. This time I was at home and working on the computer. It just went off.

It looks as if I need to get it back to Zepto for attention.

John

 

I am experiencing shutdowns as well (on a 6224w though) and Zepto thinks it is related to heat.
However I am not convinced of that, since my temperatures do not differ a whole lot from other 6224w owners readings.

 

My shutdowns have occurred when the computer has been idle or under light load and the CPU temperature never gets above 60C. Where I was working recently the ambient temperature was getting up to around 28C but it is somewhat cooler at home, and I still got a shutdown.

John

 

28C damn u have it warm in your homes, we have like 20C lol

 

Alright.
My shutdowns have happened while the computer has been under heavy load.
I wouldn't think it was something related then, since not alot of other users are reporting the problem.

 

Not my home - that was an office in India with the outside temperature getting up to around 35C recently. I decided to put the air conditioner on set for a more comfortable 26C.

John

 

My 6024W has been taken away by UPS so I'm using my Samsung X60 plus (which I hadn't got round to disposing of). The bigger screen is nice and the contrast seems better (it's a glossy display) but I've had to fiddle with the font sizes to get the text readable.

John

 

My 6024W arrived home on 25th April with a new motherboard. Zepto were unble to replicate my problem but did the swap. However, I only unboxed it a few days ago because I was away (it came back in a different box with the computer stuck to a piece of cardboard with heavy duty cling film which may be fine for reducing the amount of packing but leaves me without proper packing if I ever need to ship the computer again).

So far, after 4 days use there have been no unexpected shutdowns but I won't declare the problem definitely fixed for another couple of weeks.

Something I have just noticed is that the power drain when on battery is lower than it used to be. I had previously struggled to get below 15W but I can now see less than 13W. Perhaps something was previously leaking power. I have just put in a Fujitsu MHZ2320BH HDD which has below average power consumption and might account for part of the reduction, but not the full 2W. RMClock is also letting me run in SLFM mode at 600MHz which might also save a little power.

With light usage, a dim backlight and a good battery I might be able to get the 3.5 hours that Zepto claimed. The attached screenshot is with my first battery which is hardly used. The normal battery only offers about 38WHr capacity.

John