I hate laptops!

[Drew]

Help me pleeeeeeeease!

I have a friends laptop here (Acer Inspire 5100) and the damn thing keeps turning itself off.

It takes a couple of minutes... but after them minutes, kapow! It's off.

It's had a new HDD (this problem was there before I replaced the HDD before you start...) and it kinda makes it hard to reinstall an operating system if it keeps stopping

Making me very sad boy

I don't have a huge amount of experience with laptops (barely any in fact) and ANY help anyone can give would be MOST appreciated.

[FuzzyPlushroom]

I suppose the obvious culprit here is heat. What's the BIOS say that your CPU/chipset temperatures are? Are the fans spinning? Does it feel hot? How hot?

Failing that, I'd be looking at a power issue, either the external "brick" or the DC-DC board in the laptop itself.

[moon111]

Real easy to break an AC jack. Do we know the battery has/is getting power? If the battery is fully-charged, it'll be something else.

[SgtM]

*edited title due to content*

[Drew]

Sorry about the title, I didn't appreciate that it may be offensive.

I think the battery itself is fine... it does exactly the same with the battery removed (and running on AC).

The BIOS gives me no temperature readings anywhere at all (it seems to be a very basic BIOS).

The fan is spinning... it does feel pretty warm (bear in mind I'm used to desktops so high temperatures are a bit alien to me) - I don't know how warm it's meant to get.

I'd say the temperature was probably well at the upper end of normal but I can't see any way of improving the cooling except putting it on a cooling platform (and besides, it hasn't always done this and as far as I am aware the environment of the laptop han't changed).

Might a dust and crap build up result in enough of a heat build up to make a computer shut itself down?

*edit* It's done it again, and it feels stone cold.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[Drew]

Solved it.

Half a dog between the fan and heatsink fins.

Dirty bird.

[Snowman]

That will definitely do it. I recently took my laptop apart and cleaned three years of dust out of it and it runs somewhat cooler but i am used to a warm lap I have a desktop replacement that I used in college

[Eclecticos]

Solved it.

Half a dog between the fan and heatsink fins.

Dirty bird.

What the hell does that mean?

[Drew]

Solved it.

Problem sorted. Computer working as new.

Half a dog between the fan and heatsink fins.

Large amount of dog hair trapped against the cooling fins leading to a lack of airflow and hence a heat build up around the CPU leading to the BIOS shutting the laptop down to prevent damage.

Dirty bird.

Owner is a minger, and needs to be rid of the damn dog (I dont' like dogs).

[FuzzyPlushroom]

I'd figured it was a combination of dog hair and bird dander. We've got a cat, a dog, and three birds, but none of them come in here - and thank God for that, as I run my case with the side off.