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[Closed] Laptop dropped - now random shutdown
My laptop keeps shutting down randomly, after it was dropped a few weeks ago. It can boot up into XP Pro as per usual, and sometimes will keep going fine while plugged in or running on battery. But sometimes it just shuts down while plugged in or running on battery.
Can anyone offer any thoughts? Other than kaputt, I hope.
how does it shut down? just instantly switches itself off, or do you get a BSOD or any other on-screen error messages or anything?
could be a few potential causes; not necessarily totally kaput but it may need components replacing (HDD/memory possibly).
also, if you can boot into Windows you could try to check the event logs to see if it gives you any info regarding the cause of the shutdowns (via control panel/administrative tools/event viewer).
Could just be the ram stick has come a little loose, there's probably a panel somewhere you can take off and see.
I dropped mine and the harddrive kept failing...it wouldn't reliably boot up and kept complaining about bad sectors.
If it's shutting down after being running for a while, can you hear a fan?
It'll shut down suddenly if it's getting too hot...maybe dropping it has damaged the PCU fan.
Try going to the command prompt and running CHKDSK, if the HD is spinning when it is dropped the spindles can come into contact with the armature, and be flakey. Some HD do have a "park" function if it senses an above normal g-force which is handy for the replacement !
Instructions
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265
Take a full backup in case the HD suddenly fails and wont boot up