Vostro 1520 sudden shutdown (=cpu fan)

One of our Vostro 1520s shuts down suddenly and
completely. It fails in the memory test; when it
comes up it warns of approaching HD failure.

Something doesn't feel right. I checked the CPU
fan and it doesn't spin.

The 1520 is an awful thing to work inside but the
cpu fan is dead easy. Two screws and it's exposed
and you can power up and see it does't spin.

Replacing that seems to have fixed the thing.

The memory test was just what was causing a heat
flood and stopped it.

The HD failure notice is a mystery. It works
fine.

I wisely bought 3 fans years ago when our first
one failed. So there's one left.

The Vostro 1520 seems to be the model that gives
the most failures, incidentally, not that it's a
high rate, but you notice it if you keep the thing
working for years.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

On Friday, February 26, 2016 at 10:17:30 AM UTC-5, Ron Hardin wrote:
One of our Vostro 1520s shuts down suddenly and
completely. It fails in the memory test; when it
comes up it warns of approaching HD failure.

Something doesn't feel right. I checked the CPU
fan and it doesn't spin.

The 1520 is an awful thing to work inside but the
cpu fan is dead easy. Two screws and it's exposed
and you can power up and see it does't spin.

Replacing that seems to have fixed the thing.

The memory test was just what was causing a heat
flood and stopped it.

The HD failure notice is a mystery. It works
fine.

I wisely bought 3 fans years ago when our first
one failed. So there's one left.

The Vostro 1520 seems to be the model that gives
the most failures, incidentally, not that it's a
high rate, but you notice it if you keep the thing
working for years.
--


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

The sudden shutdown is almost always due to overheating. Most likely cause over all brands and models is clogging of the vents, ducts and cooling fan blades with dust and dirt. Some models make remediation of the problem easy, 'cause one can open up the chassis to expose and even remove the cooling fan, heat pipes and heat sinks. Other models are impossible pains in the ass. For these latter models, the most one can do without a near-complete disassembly is to blast compressed air into the intake and exhaust ducts and watch the dust fly out.

When a computer is on the verge of overheating, all kinds of weird symptoms can happen, like memory errors and false hard drive failures... Ben Myers