Dell Inspiron 8000 powers down automagically

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Hello,

Our trusty laptop (Dell Inspiron with 256M, 60GB, WIN2k) has incurred
a malfunction of late: It suddenly powers down on it's own without any
reason for it to do so. I have set everything to "never" in APM and
also in the BIOS. FN+SUSPEND still powers the computer down. The
battery that is installed will not hold a charge so we run it on AC.
We removed the battery and it powers down. We swapped AC cords with
someone else and it still powers down. We removed the DVD ROM (LG
8080DRN) and it still powers down. I tried to remove APM from the
device manager but WIN2K doesn't give me any easy way to do that.

Can anyone reccomend another action I can try?

Thanks,
Tony

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:24:37 -0500, arnb <arnbRemoveThis@Arnb.org>
wrote:

>Perhaps it's overheating, check the cpu utilization. Does the cooling fan work?
>Try this utility
>http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/

Thanks for that link. It looks like the machine is overheating. I'll
take it apart this weekend and clean, perhaps lube the fan (if
possible).

Much appreciated!

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 07:37:17 -0700, "Quaoar" <quaoar@tenthplanet.net>
wrote:

>Do not lube the fan. Remove any fibers, etc, from the shaft but do not
>lube the fan unless you can find a libricant that is specifically
>designed for computer cooling fans.

Fortunatley, I couldn't find any oil to do it so it wasn't done.
Thanks for the tip. We're looking for a laptop cooler right now. We
downloaded the app in the link that was posted and overheating is the
problem for sure. We watched the temperature rise from 65 degrees C to
95 degrees C before it powered down. The fans are both working but on
high, they run at about 7800 RPM's max. On a machine identical to this
one, we where seeing the average temp at about 51 degrees and the max
fan speed was about 8200 rpms. Could our fan assembly be wore out?

Thanks,
Tony

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On or about 1/16/2005 11:04 AM, it came to pass that Tony wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 07:37:17 -0700, "Quaoar" <quaoar@tenthplanet.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>>Do not lube the fan. Remove any fibers, etc, from the shaft but do not
>>lube the fan unless you can find a libricant that is specifically
>>designed for computer cooling fans.
>
>
> Fortunatley, I couldn't find any oil to do it so it wasn't done.
> Thanks for the tip. We're looking for a laptop cooler right now. We
> downloaded the app in the link that was posted and overheating is the
> problem for sure. We watched the temperature rise from 65 degrees C to
> 95 degrees C before it powered down. The fans are both working but on
> high, they run at about 7800 RPM's max. On a machine identical to this
> one, we where seeing the average temp at about 51 degrees and the max
> fan speed was about 8200 rpms. Could our fan assembly be wore out?
>
> Thanks,
> Tony
>
What's running on the failing machine. Does the other machine fail with a
similar work load? What's running on the failing machine and is it video or cpu
intensive?

Take a look at this link also try blowing out the fan ducting with compressed air.
http://www.notebookreview.com/foru [...] FORUM_ID=4

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:14:22 -0500, arnb <arnbRemoveThis@Arnb.org>
wrote:

>What's running on the failing machine. Does the other machine fail with a
>similar work load? What's running on the failing machine and is it video or cpu
>intensive?

It seems to overheat on just about anything that is disk intensive but
the HD seems to be ok. I thought it was the cpu but I just put some
heat sink compound on top of the dye in hopes to improve the thermal
coupling. I don't think it was ever an issue though because the
performance hasn't changed. I'd like to try the mod that you posted
below next.

>http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/post.asp?method=TopicQuote&TOPIC_ID=3035&FORUM_ID=4