Lenovo T61 Shuts Off Randomly

[Crism]

I'm at a loss for ideas honestly. The laptop will just randomly shut off. It's happened both plugged in and on the battery. It averages probably 1 time a day or less. Otherwise it works terrific. I get no errors from Windows XP. It just shuts off completely with no warning. Screen black, no power, and hard drive off.

I've worked with it for a while and haven't seen this before. Started randomly.

The only part that isn't Lenovo on it is the battery, which might be causing the issue. Got an el-cheapo replacement which works great and holds a good charge.

My only guess would be that something is short circuiting somewhere once in a while. But as to why...I have no idea.

 

[Brainonska511]

Is it overheating?

Nothing in the event viewer of XP?

 

[Crism]

I don't think it overheats. The fan runs normally and it's not too hot to the touch. Nothing in the event log.

 

[HiME]

Try isolate the problem by determining whether if the battery is causing the issue. Take out the battery while plugged in to see if it still shuts off randomly. If not, run some system stress tests on the CPU and memory system.

 

[Crism]

Battery is out and so far it's working. I'll be leaving it out and leaving the laptop on tonight. Will post results tomorrow.

 

[-Slacker-]

Does it make a "click" sound just before it shuts off?

 

[C1]

Got involved helping a friend with an HP DV6000 series (AMD) that had a similar problem, but it used VISTA. I finally stopped the issue, but Im not exactly sure what was causing it as I messed with many things & the problem was hard to duplicate (ie, being a time dependent intermittent). Things I messed with which I suspect might have been involved were the Power setting Options (lowered these) & I cleaned the CPU Fan/Heatsink. (Battery & power adapter were eliminated as source of original problem.)

 

[Crism]

Hmmm. I've taken the battery out for about a day and it didn't happen. Put the battery back in and within a few hours, it did it again.

No click really that I notice (I'm assuming your getting to the hard drive parking).

 

[corkyg]

Hmmm. I've taken the battery out for about a day and it didn't happen. Put the battery back in and within a few hours, it did it again.

Looks like there's your answer. Get a good battery.

 

[C1]

If the unit runs normally (time wise) on a fully charged battery only , then my guess is that the battery is fine.

Before buying a new battery, plug the unit in & charge up the battery fully (eg, over night). Now run the unit without the battery til the power adapter gets to full temp. Note how warm the adapter feels. Now add the battery back & with it plugged in, run the unit & feel the adapter. If the adapter feels noticeably warmer then there is additional evidence for replacing the battery (under the assumption that the battery has acquired too low of an internal resistance).

This procedure will provide more testing time for gaining confidence/insight.