WHAT? total power fail that fixed itself? Lenovo z570

Turbosaurus

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Jan 25, 2015
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4,510
I'm hoping you guys can help me ID what went wrong for next time- or put me on track to ID what is inevitably going to happen again and save me the heart ache.

Its October 2014, I'm writing a biomedical ethics term paper on apache open office (on my lenovo ideapad z570 win7).
Get error "program had to close, restarting"
3 seconds later the screen goes blank and that's that.
NOTHING will happen, no lights, no beeps, nothing.
The outlet is working, the powerstrip reads fine, the light on my computers power adapter transformer box is lit, plug fits firmly into computer w/o wiggle.

I take it to geeksquad. They try 3 other adapters w/ and w/o battery- nothing- not a single blink.
Tell me they'll have to ship it out, it probably needs a new motherboard, which I would do, except the term paper is due in 36 hours- no time.
I take it to Microcenter's repair desk- they do the same, try a bunch of chargers, w and w/o batter- nothing, not a single light or beep- they tell me its probably my motherboard, it will need to be replaced.
for expedience sake I buy a new laptop, they pull the HD from the old one in order to copy files to new computer. They return the HD to the old computer and give it back to me.

So today, 3 months later, I have some free time. I like to take stuff apart (even if I can't fix it, it aint gonna get MORE broke. Worst case scenario I'll learn what NOT to do next time), so I decide I'm going to try replacing the mobo.

Before I order a new mobo, I start with the basics again, to confirm that it is most likely the mobo by plugging it in again and checking the to see if I get any indicator lights, beeps, or fan noise. You know what happened? that SOB lit right up- I "started windows normally" and it works great. All the files (even the term paper I had to re-invent), all network settings...
Same battery, same charger, even the same outlet and surge protector- so what gives?

I spent $1,000 on new gear, data transfer (and mycloud back up), 12 hours at tech counters, and lost a year of my life due to stress over this stupid paper (got an A+) when all it needed was a 3 month vacation? I know computers can be temperamental, but this is ridiculous!

I'm not a believer in smacking my gear to get it working - this isn't a pinball machine, and its probably only a matter of time before something similar happens again.. ever hear of such a thing?


 

Turbosaurus

Reputable
Jan 25, 2015
2
0
4,510
was playing around with my computer and got a blue screen w error message in dos font. It wasn't up long enough for me to read before windows rebooted-
windows encountered an "undetectable hardware error" If this is the first time you've seen this screen restart windows normally. If.....

and that's where it switched back to the windows start screen