Laptop: Random Restarting (even when no HD)

phuschnickens

I've got this laptop... started out with just a bunch of viruses (XP Home). Antivirus Pro 2009 was most prevalent and annoying... So, I pulled out the drive and hooked it to another computer... ran adaware, spybot, AVG, Malware Bytes and cleaned off a bunch of stuff. Too many to remember. Popped the drive back into the laptop to continue the scanning, all of a sudden... the laptop's not on anymore. Random shutdown. So I started it up again and it happened immediately... didn't even get to windows. I ran memtest and it shutdown after 10 minutes or so. Went to sleep, woke up 6 hours later (computer was 100% cooled down). Ran memtest... computer turned off after 5 minutes (maybe 10). Attached drive to another computer and ran seatools "long test" ... drive passed. Reset the bios and ran memtest with no hard drive in... ran for about 10 minutes... shutdown.

I'm going to play musical chairs with the memory stick(s) if possible.

When I plug the cord into the laptop, a light comes on, so there's probably no problem with the connection... I guess maybe the charging unit in the laptop could be bad? Although, that shouldn't affect the computer if it's plugged in while operating.

Are there any other obvious things I'm not thinking of? Or any other tests I can run?

Thanks y'all

phu ta tha schnickens

EDIT: Didn't know where to post this... I'm not feeling very enthusiastic about hardware right now... so I didn't post it there.

phuschnickens

Resisting the urge to reply to my own post ... but, basically, I've tried running it with no battery in (straight off A/C), and with new memory module (new to this computer)... longest memtest runtime is roughly 30 minutes. This b|tch gets HOT quick... So, I changed my mind... I think it's overheating.

I don't want to take it apart.. I'm going to vacuum out the vent(s). Any other suggestions?

phuschnickens

Can of dust-off and it's all good in the hood. I'm monitoring the temp with "FanSpeed" ... hd is 30 ... fan1 (i think cpu) is 64 ... and fan2 (??) is 30... temps haven't risen in the last hour... This is the longest that the computer has been on so far.

I read that the range for a Celeron cpu is 67C - 85C

Laptop has a Celeron M. Anyone know what temps are to be expected?

dentonlt

Sorry to see that nobody got back to you ... :\

I'm having similar issues with my [old] Compaq Evo N410c (Pentium III, 1 gigahertz, 512MB). It randomly resets (powers out, waits about 3 seconds, then powers itself back on). At first I thought my AC cable was busted, but I can't wiggle it into a place that cuts the power.

Thanks for the fan-clearing story - it sounds like that was a good solution. I'll try the same, monitor my CPU temp, research the standard temps, and get back here.

phuschnickens

I might suggest starting a new thread of your own so your post gets more attention. But if it's restarting, rather than shutting down, does it do this only when in windows? or even when running in other applications which run pre-windows? For example, try downloading and running memtest86. Let this run for a while and see if you experience reboots.

I suspect the reboots are happening from Windows only. If this is the case, there is a way to disable automatic restart (it will pause on blue screen error message rather than restarting). The blue screen error message may contain some useful information or, if nothing else, at least you will know you're getting a bsod.

my two cents

dentonlt

I wish it only reset when the OS is up (Xubuntu), but it happens when I'm in the BIOS setup, too. No problem when the computer is just sitting/resting, but it didn't like running the BIOS battery calibration program. After awhile, it just reset.

I vacuumed out the motherboard & cooling fan this afternoon. No random resets since then, and the temperature has been staying reasonable (40-60C). Earlier, it was getting up around 67C ... I imagine it was cutting out at 70C, but I hadn't been checking the temperature before it crashed.

I did a quick Google on Intel CPUs and their running temps. Easy info to find. It seems most Pentium CPUs are happy up to the mid-60's centigrade. Rare to put them in the 70's.

I think that the good cleaning did it for now. Down side is that I think I loosened my motherboard AC jack in the process [oops]. I'll have to pull out an iron and fix that ...

Thanks again for your original post, and the later advice! =)

phuschnickens

Glad I helped. I'd be lying if I said I came up with the info on my own... actually found it from an article about the importance of cleaning that was written from someone right here on icrontic (go figure).

go icrontic!