Random laptop shutdowns.

T

tgabe213

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Aug 27, 2007
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Was working on the sister in laws laptop this weekend. Her husband re-installed windows wrong, norton wrong, blah blah blah. it was a hunk of junk, so I was going to just copy their files off of it and wipe it clean.

Well, I got the files off, made sure they were backed up, and popped in my Windows XP Pro disc. The blue setup screen loaded, I deleted and formatted the partition. Selected the new partition to install Windows to, and before it ever made it to 'Installing Windows', the thing just randomly shut down. Hm...Ok, weird! So I repeat the same process. Delete partition, format, start to install (still on the blue setup screen, probably loading setup files?), and it shut down again!

Ok, so I figured it was maybe over heating? Took it apart, cleaned the chunks of dust out, reassembled, and booted back up. It kept doing the same thing, except it wouldn't make it as far. It would start to load the Windows XP disc, and then just shut down completely. Whether I selected to boom from disc, try to get in to the bios, etc. After a few seconds it would just shut down. I tried each stick of ram in each slot, same thing. Tried it without the cd drive, same thing. Tried without the hdd, same thing!

I cleared the CMOS hoping that would help (was running out of ideas). Well, when I went to remove the battery, the unit that holds the battery came right off of the board!!! (Cheap compaq!). Ok, no big deal. That won't prevent it from booting.

I got a call today that she spoke with a 'friend' who 'builds computers for a living' who said it 'probably just has a virus'. Ahm, the HDD has been wiped already.Twice. It's shutting down without a hard drive. She's taking it to him cause I clearly have NO idea what I'm doing. My suggestion was that there has to be something wrong with the motherboard. HE told her it wouldn't boot at all if there was something wrong with the mobo.

Any ides what could be the culprit? Are BOTH sticks of RAM dead?
 
Unless you test the RAM with memtest and report results, we don't know.

Does the laptop boot with no RAM installed? It should give you some error beeps. Unless you run diagnostics and or have components to swap in and out, it'll be hard diagnosing the issue.

It sounds like a mobo problem. Mobos failing are very common with laptops. Yes, systems still boot with faulty mobos. :rolleyes: It sounds like the other guy has less of a clue than you. :p
 
enginurd said:
Unless you test the RAM with memtest and report results, we don't know.

Does the laptop boot with no RAM installed? It should give you some error beeps.

It sounds like a mobo problem. Mobos failing are very common with laptops. Yes, systems still boot with faulty mobos. :rolleyes: It sounds like the other guy has less of a clue than you. :p
Click to expand...

I didn't try booting with no RAM. Never really thought of it. I can't test the ram with memtest because it won't stay up that long, and I can't try other memory because the laptop is old enough that is has regular DDR 333.

No shit, right? :rolleyes:
 
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