Last ditch question

Hi, I've been having the same problems with my laptop (Sager NP8275) the last few years and it might be time to give up on it and get a replacement, but thought I'm going to give it one more try. Perhaps someone out there know what actually went wrong and offer a working solution. Thanks!

So it has had what I'm guessing to be temperature problems the whole time I've had it. In the five years I've owned it, it's been through 4 or 5 GPU fan breakdown. My last gaming laptop that I owned before this for around 8 years had it's GPU fan changed only once. So I don't know if I was lucky with my last one or this one just being troublesome.

Anyway, I think what's happening now has to do with temperature also but not sure so I'll just tell you what I've done and observed and give you my process of elimination.

The symptom: the laptop auto shutoff after 30 seconds (varies by a few seconds, but always shuts off around that mark). It shuts off whether it's in Bios or if it manage to get to windows in that 30 seconds, which seemed to me eliminate software as the culprit.

I've cleaned the laptop, repaste both CPU and GPU heatsink, twice and it changed nothing. The CPU heatsink is warm to the touch when I tried to restart the laptop (and they'd last the whopping 30 seconds) which seem to suggest they worked just fine (beside how much heat can it generate in the first 30 seconds, really).

I've checked the memory sticks, trying them one by one, and swapped them with my old ones that worked fine for years. Nothing changed, so that ruled out memory problem.

The autoshut off happened at the same 30 seconds mark whether the laptop's plugged in, or on battery, so... That rules out power supply?

I've unplugged the cmos battery to reset the bios. I'm thinking about getting a new battery to replace it, but I don't know how to do it. I googled and from what I read, these batteries aren't meant to be replaced as the connectors are soldered on to the battery and I've never use a solder before so that's more likely to end in a disaster. Also from what I read, the worst thing that can happen if your cmos battery is dead is that it can conflict with Windows, but since the laptop shut off even when it doesn't reach Windows, I think removing any software base problem seems reasonable

I'm thinking the problem is strictly hardware. Something happened in that 30 seconds that cause it shut itself down (if it managed to reach windows it would shut off the monitor, run the hard drive for a couple extra second like it's being shut off. In bios, after around 30 seconds, it would freeze then shut off). I'm thinking that maybe the CPU temperature sensor is faulty, and even though it's still at very low temperature, it read it as high so it shuts off? If that's even possible. Something about how it uniformly shuts off after 30 seconds bothers me. Could it something else in the MB? Maybe the CPU itself? Such a shame because even as a 5 years old gaming laptop, it still run most new games well at high details, was hoping it would last me another year or two.

Oh well. Any suggestions that I can try is much appreciated. Thank you

 

Yes, sounds like a hardware issue. And you're also correct in that the cmos battery is not really necessary for it to keep running.

See if you can install a portable version of HWiNFO and make it autorun on boot. Either copy/paste from a usb stick or remove drive and prepare it on a different system using a SATA adapter. You should then have sufficient time to read all temperatures and rpm values.

 

I'm afraid I can't even do that. The laptop shuts off after about 30 seconds no matter what. I'm thinking of disassembling it to remove the MB from the case and try the "baking" method. I never tried that, but it's also on its last leg so I don't have anything to lose. Do you know where I can find the how-to for disassembling this particular model?

 

That's why the portable version might just do; add to usb stick and run ' Sensors only'. Force fans to be on by hitting Fn+1 (not F1) during boot; only then will rpm report show up. Not seeing one of the fans or either of the temperature measurements would point out the faulty component.

You can download the service manual from here (P170SM):
P150SM/P151SM1/P157SM/P170SM/P177SM Series

Before baking the entire board; the usual culprit would be the graphics card. Since this is a switchable system try running it on iGPU only by removing the MXM card.

 

Oh alright, ty very much, I'll try those suggestions. I'll try removing the GPU first then, since I have no other computer and will need a library computer to make a bootable stick

 

Doesn't have to be bootable; just copy/paste the portable version to the stick, attach to usb port and make sure to run it right after booting.

 

Hi t456, you were spot on, it was the graphic card xD. I took it off, restart and it worked fine. I installed it back, hoping it would work again, and it did! I guess it was just loose connector, which is weird since I never touched it before. Anyway thank you so much! Now I don't have to spend more money on a new laptop until next year. Btw, if the date under your name is your birthday, dude we got the same birthdate. Awesome! Thanks again, hope you have a good day

 

Haha, it's not. But your birthday makes for a good omen:
Voyager - Mission status

 

ohhh xD dang. That's the one with the earth civilization record right? I thought they're supposed to be out of reach soon?

 

Yeah, one of Sagan's brainchilds. Bit of an afterthought to the mission, but there you go; different era.

There's still some power left to gather and send data up to 2025. After that it'll be pretty lonely, carrying a bit of Beethoven and Mozart even when we've destroyed our civilization, Earth will be devastated by volcanism, a meteorite impact or when, inevitably, the planet will incinerated by the gravitational collapse and expansion of the sun. A comforting thought, I'd think:

 

Eh, human civ would end much much earlier than any of that stuff would happen lol. Most people can't see (more like don't care really) that we're a very young species and so far our habits have been pointing toward our own destruction. All our advancements have come from the select few and the rest of humanity just use it and we breed faster than the catastrophe that we created. That's how we are still surviving. But one day that will...

Wait, how did we get here? I thought we were talking about broken laptop that's now fixed? So dark.... ayyy...

 

Look up thermal creep, as connectors heat up and cool over use the cable/PCB can slowly move out of a socket.

 

That makes sense.

Your birthday; now you know NASA is keeping track of your age. Quite an honour, really.

 

It will be something they will have designed for in that probe Certainly for long term installations it means everything has to be clipped in.