laptop randomly powers off - cmos battery also dead - strange problems !

[Grant]

a friend has an old acer travelmate 5310 she asked me to take a look at.

it keeps randomly shutting down - what i do know is the cmos battery is dead (along with main battery)- date & have to be reset every time on startup.

i have also attempted to disable all startup items, however, once in safe mode after entering "msconfig", as soon as i hit the "enter" button, the machine immediately shuts down.
i have tried to access this via her user account as well as the default admin account - same result every time.

any ideas ?

 

[Drake2007]

Could be overheating.

 

[riscbroker]

+1 for overheating. Dig the fan out and have a look.

Edit: Service manual here I think:

https://archive.org/details/service-manual-acer-travelmate-5710-5310-extensa-5610-5210

 

[Grant]

Could be overheating.

does not appear to be getting hot, opened it up, fan runs normally, no excessive dust etc clogging cooling fins etc.

the odd thing is the shutdown as soon as you hit the enter button when trying to enter "msconfig"

 

[...kRiLLin...]

I seem to have a similar issue, windows 7, not overheating.

PC dies and when it boots up it says "windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown"

RANDOMLY

 

[Grant]

so i have opened the thing again, removed the fan & heatsink - it needs new thermal paste tho.

however, it is running very cool (finger on heatsink while running) & shutdowns persist.

i have formatted the drive (externally) but at varying times while trying to install the os it powers off completely, bios is set to defaults.

I have also tried using a known good power supply.

any other ideas ?

 

[riscbroker]

Can you boot to a Linux disk/USB and see if it runs for any reasonable period?

Edit: Sorry posted this before seeing your post #6

 

[Grant]

tried hirens.

laptop boots from hirens disc but programs on the disc fail to load.

booted my macbook pro into windows to check the hirens disc, all programs on the disc run perfectly from within windows (7)

 

[riscbroker]

I guess it could be a RAM problem but I don't suppose it will run long enough for you to test it. Can you swap out for known good RAM?

 

[Grant]

I guess it could be a RAM problem but I don't suppose it will run long enough for you to test it. Can you swap out for known good RAM?

and therein seemed to be the problem.
pulled out one of the chips, started up, now 50% copying setup files - never even got to setup before.

 

[Grant]

and therein seemed to be the problem.
pulled out one of the chips, started up, now 50% copying setup files - never even got to setup before.

spoke to soon - shutdown again !

 

[riscbroker]

Best would be to try with known good RAM from another machine, if you get the same result then you'll have to suspect the CPU/motherboard.

 

[Electric]

Could be a faulty mobo.

 

[Grant]

Could be a faulty mobo.

it's looking that way -

good memory made no difference

changed power supply - no difference

not overheating

even shuts down when in bios

 

[Electric]

Same issue I had just the other day with my PC.
Random reboots that escalated to continious reboots every minute.
Couldn't format, couldn't even use the windows repair without it rebooting.
Eventually it stopped rebooting and wouldn't turn on.
Tested all the components separately.
Motherboard blew when I tested the PSU mobo combo.
Everything else including the psu still works perfectly.

 

[Grant]

so, pulled the hard drive, formatted again (on a mac) put it back in, started up, installed windoze, installed acer drivers - all seems well (for now) !

 

[sajunky]

so i have opened the thing again, removed the fan & heatsink - it needs new thermal paste tho.

When contact is poor, radiator will be cool. Clean old paste and apply a new one. Second priority is replacing CMOS battery.