Strange Hangs and Failed Restarts on NP8170

Hi guys, it's been a while, I got questions regarding what happened last night...

You see, I was moving some tabs around in Chrome last night when suddenly the screen turned black for a moment and then my screen return to normal except that my wallpaper became black. It appears to want to show me a pop up bubble stating that my Nvidia driver has crashed and restarted.

But instead, I can only move the mouse and all tabs and buttons on the screen are not responsive to mouse clicks. So, I decided to just Ctrl-Alt-Del. I got the usual Windows menu and clicked on "Task Manger". The Windows menu then disappeared, supposedly to switch back to my desktop and open Task Manger, but instead it only disappeared without switching back, showing a blue screen with Windows logo.

After 10 minutes of non-activity, I decided to just hard reset my computer. I managed to switch off my laptop, but when I try to power it again, the orange and white LEDs will light up for a moment with the power button, and then switch off by itself again.

Here's the strangest part: I had to remove all connections (e.g. power adapter's USB cables, Ethernet) and remove the battery for a few seconds, then put only the battery back and power up the laptop to get it working again. I shortly reconnected everything back and everything returned back to normal.

Funny part is that this is the first time it happened this year, the last time this occurred was in July 2015. Closest I can think of so far is overheating, but why would then this be fixed only after removing the battery? My idle temps are about 50 C, highest I seen so far is 85 C.

May I know what should I look out for to prevent such issues? Or is it really time for me to start getting a new laptop?

Thanks!

 

If this is the first time you experienced this in a long time, then it is safe to say that you don't need to worry just yet. It may have been just a background task taking up too many resources or just a Windows hang. But if it happens again in the near future, then something software or hardware may be off and needs to be looked up more. Your temps are normal so this is probably not your issue.

I had a weird incident myself yesterday where my P651SE just hanged in Windows. Figured that my undervolt was too much, no big deal. Then I went to hard reset the PC with the power button but for some weird reason, it went to sleep instead with the power led flashing and would not come out of there or shut down. I only managed to shut it down and reset it only when I opened up the back panel and removed the battery. Sometimes when lockups happen I guess the EC and BIOS have a hard time and you are stuck until all power the PC is off.

 

Sorry to hear about your issues, but i would assume it was just a minor hiccup in the operations on the machine and most likely won't affect the long term productivity of it. Sometimes they will just run into little issues that removing the battery fixes because it resets everything. It shouldn't happen frequently, but if it hasn't happened since last year, and it doesn't happen again till next year, you should be fine

 

Sounds like a software issue to me.

As for getting a new machine, there are faster machines out there but if yours is still doing what you need then no.

 

Thanks, this is why I started this thread since this has happened a few times, but quite sporadic though.

Thanks, I try not to worry that much but still...

Thanks, I may want to do a reformat once I am done with this (final!) semester of school just to be sure. And I am considering getting a new machine only because this machine is way too heavy. I am holding back only due to wanting to get more money first and also wanting to see how Pascal/Polaris pans out before making a decision.

 

Also, will changing the BIOS battery (that button battery) help?

 

Not really. If the CMOS battery was low, the BIOS would notify you during POST. Also these batteries rarely need replacement and have never had to change one on a laptop before. In my opinion, it is a lot of work that will have no benefit.

 

I see, point taken, won't change CMOS battery and also going to rule out bad CMOS battery as a possible cause too

 

The CMOS battery could be removed during operation and the machine should continue to operate normally, it should not be causing issues like that.

 

Yes, but one probably shouldn't try (not with power running to the system).

 

Well yes, you could remove a toe and still walk if you had to, but I would not recommend that either

 

Gee, I don't dare to do that with a desktop PC already...

 

Erm, this issue is back, this time round just the failed restarts though.

Laptop was running before I shut down to clean its fans. After that, it was running properly, but I used the Fn+1 command to make the fans run faster to check that they are working. After I shut it down (was about to change its thermal pads as explained in another thread), I heard that "hard shut down" sound (Piyuun?) instead of the usual silence. Then the laptop was unable to restart; all LEDs lit up for a while before shutting down by itself and showing only a flashing green LED at the AC/battery LED.

I tried at least a few more times of restarting with and without battery and/or AC power; sometimes this happens again, and other times the computer seems to boot up with normal looking white LEDs but no screen. Finally, after a while, it booted up properly (with the usual Windows prompt about forced shutdown). Thereafter, it can boot up properly as many times as desired.

Now I am getting kinda worried...

 

After trying to change the thermal pads as detailed in another thread, I managed to recreate this problem, forcing me to go back to default configuration (i.e. old thermal pads) and then a few more hard resets with or without battery to resume normal operation.

I am starting to suspect that all these are heat issues; too much heat on the chips of the GPU to be exact (since these are where I used the new thermal pads). Strangely, when the computer boots up but does no show display, upon entering the computer via Teamviewer, a black screen is shown with the mouse pointer. The part of the screen around the mouse pointer will then be revealed, but ultimately the computer is unusable even over Teamviewer.

 

It could be the GPU is on its way out and needs replacing.

 

Oh dear, let's hope I can last 'til the new laptops come to the market...

 

Using new thermal pads now, the problem seems to be not occurring for now. Should I look into upgrading the VBIOS of the card too?

 

If your games are running fine then don't worry about vbios modding now (it's only for overclocking). Getting the thermal pads right is very important when replacing them, too thick and you get overheating of the core and PWM, too thin and the chips are not making proper contact.

 

Ah I see, let me test out a little by photo editing and see if the temp issues are still there...

 

I just want to mention to not rule out a bad power supply cause intermittent issues like this can be because of unstable power input.

 

Hmm... Not sure whether this is the case since using only battery may cause this too.