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Laptop Randomly Turning Off

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ExpresKeep

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 22, 2001
Messages
316
Hey.. I'll try to be as descriptive as possible.. My friends laptop will turn on.. be verrrrrry slow, and then randomly just turn off.. No error messages, just turns off. I'm thinking hardware issues.. any ideas or anything I should do to confirm my ideas? thanks
 
what laptop make & model?
what EXACT specifications?
any unusual behavior leading up to this?
does the exhaust grill (where heat comes out) feel really really hot when it's running?
how long since he last ran ad-aware?
how long since he last ran spybot: search & destroy?
how long since he last ran either norton antivirus or mcaffee virusshield?
 
you can always try reinstalling OS.. hmm.. it might be overheating or something.. anyways if it's hardware related I don't think there's much you can do..
 
Inspiron 1150
WinXP Home
Service Pack 1
Celeron 2.6GHz
512 RAM (not sure if it's DDR or SD)

sooooo I just started to run a virus scan but noticed it does seem to be blowing pretty hot... seems a lot less likley to just randomly shut down unless you try to open IE.. then it almost instantly shuts down.. I didn't see any weird processes running or an unusual amount of the CPU or RAM getting used.. any more input would be appreciated
 
run norton antivirus, ad-aware, and spybot:search&destroy... this sounds suspiciously like the sasser worm and a ton of spyware.
 
i would do the following in the below order:

1) take off the "door" on the back of it where the cpu is located and clean out all of the dust that is building up on the heatsink/heat pipes/whatever other crazy thing dell has come up with.

2) try booting up knoppix linux to rule out hardware problems as opposed to software problem.

3) if knoppix boots up fine then go ahead and formatt the drive, and install windows xp sp2

4) else, if the knoppix does not work you have a hard ware problem and we can begin trouble shooting that.
 
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