lappy powering down randomly

glendalf81 · January 23rd, 2009, 04:59 PM

hi a friend has given me her laptop to have a look at as she claims it had a virus on it, now virus removal i have no problem with hence she gave it to me but whats happening is that it keeps switching off i thought it may have something to do with said virus as i think i saw a blue screen error out of the corner of my eye prior to it switching off but cant be sure,
i also thought that it may be something to do with the windows registry being corrupt but it happens while i am in the bios as well
does anybody have any idea what this may be its a toshiba equium l20-197

thanks in advance
glen

Nude_Lewd_Man · January 23rd, 2009, 06:07 PM

Is it restarting or just going off..?

If you think it is restarting due to a BSOD, then you can change the setting to stop it doing this.

If it is XP, the right click "My Computer" --> Properties --> Advanced --> click "Settings" in the Startup and Recovery section. In the resulting window untick the option to "Automatically restart". This means that it will give a proper BSOD, rather than a flicker of one and restart itself...

In Fista it is almost identical, just slightly different wording from the System Properties window - "Advanced System Settings" instead of "Advanced"....

Let us know how it goes...

glendalf81 · January 23rd, 2009, 07:31 PM

hi it is just switching off not restarting it does not even go through the shutting down process just loses power suddenly, i have run some diag software from hiren's on the mobo and cpu and it all seems ok tried to run memtest but it switches off before the test can complete

i have just taken apart, cleared the cmos and rebuilt applying new thermal compound incase it is temp related just powered back up will let you know what happens

darkertint · January 23rd, 2009, 09:46 PM

install speedfan and make sure it's not overheating. Do you have to wait any time before turning it back on?

glendalf81 · January 23rd, 2009, 10:10 PM

no generally i can turn it on straight away but it will switch off after about 5 mins,
after i took apart and rebuilt it lasted about an hour and a half before switching off

darkertint · January 23rd, 2009, 10:22 PM

since it happens in the bios it's definitely a hardware problem, and I would guess maybe a faulty power supply. Unfortunetly hardware isn't easy to get to in a laptop. Only other trick I can think of is taking out the RAM, blowing it off and reseating it.

glendalf81 · January 24th, 2009, 05:35 AM

hi darkertint i dont think its the power supply as it happens on battery as well and i know its a good battery, i am thinking it is overheating as it only does it when it gets hot once it starts from cool it lasts a good while since i put fresh thermal compound on the relevant places