Is it an overheat or power supply problem?
 

At first, my 3 year old Inspiron 1150 started to have blue screens
with kernel_data_inpage. After a lot of trial and error and some
diagnostics, I replaced the hard drive. No more blue screens! Now my
laptop sometimes suddenly shuts down with absolutely no message. It's
almost like I press and hold the power button for a few seconds to
force it to shutdown except it doesn't have the short squeak sound the
force shutdown has right before the actual shutdown (not sure how to
describe that). It just silently powers off. The event viewer has
nothing. Before the shutdown, there's no warning. The only pattern I
can find is, I think it does this more when it runs CPU intensive
programs for a while, watching video, installing Oracle software, etc.

I just installed the wonderful i8kfan program (http://www.diefer.de/
i8kfan/). I'll try forcing the fan to run faster while I try to
install Oracle again. If it's not a temperature problem, could it be
the power supply? Any tips are appreciated.

Yong Huang
yong321 @ yahoo.com

Is it an overheat or power supply problem?
 

"Yong Huang" wrote in message
...
At first, my 3 year old Inspiron 1150 started to have blue screens
with kernel_data_inpage. After a lot of trial and error and some
diagnostics, I replaced the hard drive. No more blue screens! Now my
laptop sometimes suddenly shuts down with absolutely no message. It's
almost like I press and hold the power button for a few seconds to
force it to shutdown except it doesn't have the short squeak sound the
force shutdown has right before the actual shutdown (not sure how to
describe that). It just silently powers off. The event viewer has
nothing. Before the shutdown, there's no warning. The only pattern I
can find is, I think it does this more when it runs CPU intensive
programs for a while, watching video, installing Oracle software, etc.

I just installed the wonderful i8kfan program (http://www.diefer.de/
i8kfan/). I'll try forcing the fan to run faster while I try to
install Oracle again. If it's not a temperature problem, could it be
the power supply? Any tips are appreciated.

Yong Huang
yong321 @ yahoo.com



Buy a can of electronics compressed air and blow out/clean all the fans,
vents and heatsink. Your situation sounds almost surely like thermal
shutdown from overheating.

If the system has a (desktop) P4 CPU, this is likely the case. A few other
Dell models (and maybe non-Dells as well) with desktop chips are prone to
exhibit the same issue.

Is it an overheat or power supply problem?
 

Hi!

Now my laptop sometimes suddenly shuts down with absolutely
no message.

This is a thermal shutdown. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the Inspiron 1100
line is famous for this very problem.

However, it's not that straightforward. I've seen evidence that these
systems can shut down because of a defective sensor. So even when the system
is working fine, it might just *poof* and power off. If yours has this
problem the only cure I know of is a new motherboard. Which may have the
same problem down the road.

You might get lucky if the system is really overheating. This can be proved
by running the CPU up to 100% utilization and watching for a failure to take
place. By doing this a few times you can establish a pattern. From there you
can look at what happened and see if the shutdown is really due to thermal
reasons. Use a program like Prime95 (which has a testing mode that works
really well for this purpose) and get the system good and hot. See if it
shuts down.

Should you find that the system is really overheating, you can do something
about it. On many laptops, the fans inside blow through a radiator-like
structure instead of an actual heatsink. Heat pipes are used to connect the
hot running parts to these radiators. Over time, these radiators plug up and
lose a lot of efficiency (and effectiveness). If you can find the ones on
your computer, use a fairly high pressure, clean air source to blow
backwards through them. Chances are you will see a LOT of lint come out.
Keep doing it until no more comes out.

If you can figure out how to safely remove the fan from the computer, you
might clean it as well. (That's not for the faint of heart, although Dell
does provide service manuals that are pretty well written.)

To give you an idea, you might find the following page useful:

http://12.206.251.215/d800fanrepair/ (broadband connection suggested)

It's about my Latitude D800 and the noisy but seemingly undocumented
secondary fan inside it. You can see the radiator like structure that the
fan blows through, and how it can get plugged up.

Power supply problems can cause abrupt shutdowns, but you're more likely to
notice the supply itself malfunctioning (the little light on it goes out
unexpectedly, or you hear bad sounds like sizzling), or failing to charge
the battery. In really bad cases, the system won't power up at all, or
claims that you aren't using a genuine Dell power supply.

Good luck!

William

Is it an overheat or power supply problem?
 

Thank you both. That's very good information. I'll follow your
suggestions.

Yong

Is it an overheat or power supply problem?
 

The Inspiron 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150, and 5160 all have thermal issues best
managed by keeping fans and ventilation areas clear of all dust and dirt and by
using i8kfangui to force the fan to cut in at high speed at a pretty low
temperature, say somewhere in the 120's Fahrenheit.

Dell settled a class action lawsuit on 5150 thermal issues by extending system
warranties and replacing system boards.

Despite the fact that these computers used mostly desktop P4s and some desktop
Celeries, they are pretty decent when allowed to run cool. Toshibas and other
laptops of the era all often used desktop P4s... Ben Myers

On Sun, 11 May 2008 22:47:58 GMT, "William R. Walsh"
m wrote:

Hi!

Now my laptop sometimes suddenly shuts down with absolutely
no message.

This is a thermal shutdown. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the Inspiron 1100
line is famous for this very problem.

However, it's not that straightforward. I've seen evidence that these
systems can shut down because of a defective sensor. So even when the system
is working fine, it might just *poof* and power off. If yours has this
problem the only cure I know of is a new motherboard. Which may have the
same problem down the road.

You might get lucky if the system is really overheating. This can be proved
by running the CPU up to 100% utilization and watching for a failure to take
place. By doing this a few times you can establish a pattern. From there you
can look at what happened and see if the shutdown is really due to thermal
reasons. Use a program like Prime95 (which has a testing mode that works
really well for this purpose) and get the system good and hot. See if it
shuts down.

Should you find that the system is really overheating, you can do something
about it. On many laptops, the fans inside blow through a radiator-like
structure instead of an actual heatsink. Heat pipes are used to connect the
hot running parts to these radiators. Over time, these radiators plug up and
lose a lot of efficiency (and effectiveness). If you can find the ones on
your computer, use a fairly high pressure, clean air source to blow
backwards through them. Chances are you will see a LOT of lint come out.
Keep doing it until no more comes out.

If you can figure out how to safely remove the fan from the computer, you
might clean it as well. (That's not for the faint of heart, although Dell
does provide service manuals that are pretty well written.)

To give you an idea, you might find the following page useful:

http://12.206.251.215/d800fanrepair/ (broadband connection suggested)

It's about my Latitude D800 and the noisy but seemingly undocumented
secondary fan inside it. You can see the radiator like structure that the
fan blows through, and how it can get plugged up.

Power supply problems can cause abrupt shutdowns, but you're more likely to
notice the supply itself malfunctioning (the little light on it goes out
unexpectedly, or you hear bad sounds like sizzling), or failing to charge
the battery. In really bad cases, the system won't power up at all, or
claims that you aren't using a genuine Dell power supply.

Good luck!

William

Is it an overheat or power supply problem?
 

Hi!

charter.net

Ben, you might want to know about:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05...er_and_nebuad/

temperature, say somewhere in the 120's Fahrenheit.

My Latitude D800 at 100% CPU utilization can make 159 degrees (F).
It's only ever shut down when I left the lid closed overnight. (Long
story...it was running a backup at the time...)

Despite the fact that these computers used mostly desktop
P4s and some desktop Celeries, they are pretty decent
when allowed to run cool.

I hope they weren't P4 Prescotts! If they were, I'm going to cringe. I
know how the huge fan in my Dim8300 could get to simply roaring on a
hot summer's day (and that was in a lightly air conditioned room).

William

Is it an overheat or power supply problem?
 

Not Prescotts. Northwoods. FSB for the previously cited Dell Inspirons was
either 400MHz for the Celeries or 533MHz for the P4s.

www.charter.net UN-enhances my browsing experiences and sucks totally. I am
contemplating leaving Charter for Verizon DSL, and often read my web email at
mail2web.com instead of Charter's sucky web interface. There are beaucoup other
problems with Charter, who have a monopoly on cable TV and cable internet in our
town, a tribute to the stupid politicians who legislated the gerrymandering of
cable TV on a town by town basis, with cable internet coming along as an
afterthought... Ben Myers

On Fri, 16 May 2008 11:26:34 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Hi!

charter.net

Ben, you might want to know about:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05...er_and_nebuad/

temperature, say somewhere in the 120's Fahrenheit.

My Latitude D800 at 100% CPU utilization can make 159 degrees (F).
It's only ever shut down when I left the lid closed overnight. (Long
story...it was running a backup at the time...)

Despite the fact that these computers used mostly desktop
P4s and some desktop Celeries, they are pretty decent
when allowed to run cool.

I hope they weren't P4 Prescotts! If they were, I'm going to cringe. I
know how the huge fan in my Dim8300 could get to simply roaring on a
hot summer's day (and that was in a lightly air conditioned room).

William