Laptop keeps shutting down

Hi, sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this question. I tried to look around the forum but can't find quite the place to put this question in. If this is the wrong place to put it, could a mod move it to the right one? Thank you.

So I have a 5 years old Sager NP8275, and a couple of days ago it started to turn off suddenly. When it does something like that, the usual culprit is the fan and sure enough the GPU fan died (this is the 3rd or 4th time in 5 years... Is this normal?). But that's not the weird part. The previous times my GPU fan died, the laptop still runs fine as long as I don't run games and overheat the laptop. This time though I can't even go for more than 2 minutes before the laptop shut back off. I've let the laptop cool down for a couple hours. Tried to restart a few times, only once that it even reach windows. I opened a program that show you all the temperature measurements (fan something, I forgot). The CPU runs to the 50s before it shuts off again. It's ridiculous. I understand laptop might automatically shutdown if the CPU reach 70+, but that's far from it. Right now I'm thinking maybe the RAM or power supply. Can't really test RAM right now since I can't even open the laptop long enough to get memtest, and I never dabbled with laptop power supply (I think I remembered reading laptop power supply is integrated to the motherboard? If that's the case... total loss?). I already ordered replacement GPU fan, but it won't be here for 3 weeks. Any suggestions what I can look into? Thank you

 

Moved to Sager/Clevo.

I wouldn't run a system without a working cooling fan at all. This is asking for trouble.

You may have really baked the thermal pad or thermal paste by running without a fan, and now there could be less heat transfer to the heatpipe and radiator. You should almost definitely repaste.

Have you tried taking the fan apart? Often times you may be able to add a little bit of lithium grease, 3-in-1 oil, or some sort of drop of other lubricant to the spindle of the fan in order for it to revive. If it doesn't even move when you apply power, that's another story.

edit: here is a completely unrelated system but I described how I took a fan apart and added oil to it, check out the first attachment
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/asus-u20a-owners-lounge.388199/page-10#post-7635714

 

The sensor is just on the core. Also if the ECU is reading odd values it may shut it down.

 

5 year old laptop it could be anything. Have you checked your bio's clock? It could just be your bio"s battery if your clock is wrong and the year is off.

 

Hi, thanks for moving this into the right place

The CPU fan is working actually, in fact that one never fail in 5 years, unlike the GPU ones. But I do think I need to repaste yeah, the base idle temp is in the 40s and when I ran antimalware/anti virus that uses all its core and a lot of processing power, it goes to the 60s in seconds, it's crazy xD. laptop's back on now after I haven't use it for about 6 hours, base idle temp in mid 30s, but raising by the minutes. The smaller CPU fan can't deal with it I guess. Disabled the graphic card so no additional heat.

I'm pretty sure the GPU is completely dead. It doesn't move at all even when it connected. In the past I had a couple of fan that die slowly (one with bad rotor and make very loud noise when it spin until it eventually died, and another that would work sometimes, and not working at all at other times), at least with those I had time to ordered replacement before it completely died lol.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll check it out now. (What is ECU though, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that) and also thanks Meaker, you've always been helpful when I have questions in this forum

 

60s is not a high temp for silicon, that would be getting into 80-90.

 

The laptop automatically shutdown once it reached 70s though, I guess it's set that way in the bios? I'm fine with that, safer. When the fan comes it will work fine again I hope

 

No, it sounds unrelated to firmware. Throttling doesn't even typically begin until low to mid 90s Celsius. You might have a faulty sensor or electrical problem with it.

 

Oh... I'm guessing sensor is built into the motherboard? Is there anything that I can do about it? Honestly all I can think about is replacing the GPU fan and repasting them and hope that's enough. Hope that would be enough for a year or two before I get my next laptop

 

Check your heatsinks are making good contact with the cards vrms.

 

There are multiple sensors, really. New paste might help, and Meaker's suggestion on the VRMs contact is worth looking into. I've had systems shutdown suddenly in the same temperature range; the heatsink appeared to be bent and the thermal pads weren't making good contact. A little adjustment can go a long way.

 

Ty, I'll check those out once I got my new fan, so I can do it all at once

 

Check the pads have an even impression left in them and that the heatsink has not shifted and really makes that contact (look at the pad sandwich with your eye)