Laptop shuts off after post.

Terry

As per the title.
I've checked the RAM, and that's not the problem.
Also removed the HDD and the cd drive just in case. Still no joy.

Any ideas?

STEINBERG

does the fan come on? Could be a fan issue or more likely its overheating, has the laptop too a Knock lately?

Terry

I was thinking it might be overheating.
Gonna reapply thermal paste as soon as I find it.

Kinet1c

Reseat the CPU and apply fresh thermal paste.

aligator_am

Terry wrote: »

I was thinking it might be overheating.
Gonna reapply thermal paste as soon as I find it.

Can you get in to the BIOS? if so, does it shut down while in the BIOS?

Have seen on PCs before that a faulty hard drive or CD drive will cause the machine to reboot, I'd assume the same is possible on laptop too.

Orion

It would hardly have time to get that hot if it's shutting down after POST. Does it give any error or beep code?

Terry

Kinet1c wrote: »

Reseat the CPU and apply fresh thermal paste.

I've ordered a new heat sink and fan.
Only because I couldn't find any thermal paste, and I have a few quid in my paypal account.

aligator_am wrote: »

Can you get in to the BIOS? if so, does it shut down while in the BIOS?

Have seen on PCs before that a faulty hard drive or CD drive will cause the machine to reboot, I'd assume the same is possible on laptop too.

It doesn't stay on long enough to get to the BIOS.

Orion wrote: »

It would hardly have time to get that hot if it's shutting down after POST. Does it give any error or beep code?

No error or beep.
The Samsung logo shows up, and then it just shuts off.

aligator_am

Terry wrote: »

I've ordered a new heat sink and fan.
Only because I couldn't find any thermal paste, and I have a few quid in my paypal account.



It doesn't stay on long enough to get to the BIOS.



No error or beep.
The Samsung logo shows up, and then it just shuts off.

If possible, see if you can remove both hard drive and CD drive, I doubt it's heating up that much in such a short space of time (I could be wrong though).

It sounds like the motherboard could be faulty but it'll likely be a process of elimination to find out what's causing it.

Either way, hopefully it gets sorted for you soon

unkel

Terry wrote: »

I've ordered a new heat sink and fan.

Anyway you could cancel your order? Buying / replacing those parts is a waste of time / money.

As others have suggested, even without any thermal paste / heatsink on the cpu, it wouldn't overheat in the 5 seconds it takes for the logo to appear...

Do you have any spare memory you can try? If not, if your laptop has 2 memory modules, try one at a time. Also try booting without hard disk connected

Most likely though, your motherboard is faulty like aligator_am is suggesting. How old is your laptop? If more than a couple of years old, it's not really economically viable to have the motherboard replaced, unless you can pick up a cheap(ish) motherboard and do the job yourself

Anyway, best of luck and keep us posted

Orion

Terry wrote: »

No error or beep.
The Samsung logo shows up, and then it just shuts off.

It's not posting then. It's shutting off during post not after. On a desktop I'd say it's an unseated graphics card - on a laptop not likely. Is there a keypress to get rid of the splash and show what's actually happening - you might see an error then.

Terry

Replaced the heat sink and fan.
Seems you were all right.
The motherboard must be borked.

As suggested, I did swap out the RAM, and used different slots.
I even got some new RAM the other day, tested it, and it didn't work, but did work afterwards in a different laptop. Yes, it was the same type of RAM.

Thanks for the help, folks.

ETA:
I can get into the BIOS, and should have known after that, that it wasn't a problem with overheating.

johnnybmac

Sounds like the GPU could have unseated from the motherboard due to overheating.

I've read about "reflowing" the solder connecting the GPU to the board to fix this.

In one extreme case, a few years ago (laptop was going to the dump anyway) I tried one of the "methods" involving an oven :eek:.

Needless to say, it still went to the dump :rolleyes:

Would be no harm looking into it though, if you find someone with the proper gear, it might be worth a go...

unkel

Nah, not a GPU issue. PC starts, logo shows and then shuts down in 5 seconds. Even if it was a GPU issue, reflowing is never gonna be a good solution.