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Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
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west Texas
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Dave Taylor
This is a problem I have been sweeping under the carpet and it is now happening daily.
My Toshiba laptop (about 8months old?) completely shuts down of its own accord and turns off for no apparent reason. Kind of aggravating but you get used to saving stuff to the hd regularily. (because of our summer tz's this is not a new trick for us to learn)
So I let it sit for a while and then restart it and carry on. When I restart there is never an error message, no blue screen of death or anything. All is normal.
This happens when one program is open or 4, when I am online or not.
It is not associated with any one program. The unit gets warm but the fans are turning and the ducting appears clear. I am always on AC. My wifes (recently fixed) Dell is on the same receptacle and hers never does it.

How on earth would you troubleshoot something like this? Until I get it fixed, I am Mr Backup Man.

(WinXP home, Celeron, ATI graphics, SuperG Atheros 802.11)

PS the brand new Ipod Shuffle my wife got free on some deal arrived yesterday... completely dead in the box. Where is my #2 phillips and 4lb sledge, I gotta open it up.
 
First isolate it to a hardware or software problem.

How long is the restart cycle? Seconds or minutes like a cooldown would be? Is the time from power on to shutdown roughly the same?

Turn it on and do nothing. Power switch on then just let it sit. No programs running, no typing, no internet, no nothing. If it crashes, try booting from a floppy to the classic DOS c: prompt and see if it crashes. If it crashes then, it's likely hardware related, if not, it's likely software. That's a start point.


P.S. We're going to start charging for this... There's a fortune to be made at your house. :D
 
If the unit has any "engery conservation" settings, and just about all laptops do, try turning them all OFF.
 
forgot to mention the current and active AV software and firewall. Weekly scans never reveal anything. Looking for energy save features, thanks.
 
Don Jones said:
I gotta say it Dave, man your hard on equipment, lol
Don
Click to expand...

I use stuff.... but I handle it all pretty gingerly I think. I believe I have a jinx going on! And I fervently hope; a temporary one.

I try to buy quality stuff. I usually buy the long term warrantee whenever I can. I read the manuals and keep up on maintenance pretty well. How many people actually do those 3, 4000mi services on their vehicles.... and on time? I have a reminder to check them all the 30th of each month. I am always opening up the airplane at times other than annual to have a looksee.

BTW, I had some success with my wife's Ishuffle this evening, got it going after 3hrs of downloads, reinstalls, reboots and "resets" and "restores"!

This too, shall pass.
 
Dave it sounds like your toshiba is having a heat problem. The sudden, unexplained shutdown, regardless of the workload at the time, is usually heat related.

Troubleshooting this one...I'm not sure. With a desktop I'd say install more fans but...

Does your system have any internal heat monitors that you can check? Some custom software added by Toshiba to let you monitor the heat?
 
Greebo said:
Dave it sounds like your toshiba is having a heat problem. The sudden, unexplained shutdown, regardless of the workload at the time, is usually heat related.

Troubleshooting this one...I'm not sure. With a desktop I'd say install more fans but...

Does your system have any internal heat monitors that you can check? Some custom software added by Toshiba to let you monitor the heat?
Click to expand...

I concur. My Laptop is a piece, and anytime I did anything graphically intense, it would shut down without warning.

My fix for a while was to have a roomfan, sitting upright, with the laptop sitting on top of it. That worked, but now I just don't do graphically intense work on my laptop.

It really is a piece.
 
Okay. I have delt with these problems on a daily basis and there really is no quick fix, it can be so many things.

The very first thing you need to do like someone else mentioned is determine if this is software related or hardware.

There are a couple of different ways you can go about doing this. One good way to do it if you have a cd burner is to download memtest86 http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip Just burn that ISO and boot off of that. Once it starts just let it run. I'd usually let it run overnight to see if anything odd happend reboot, lockups..etc.

If that runs for 24 hours without a problem we can say one thing. It's not memory (memory is the first place to start with odd unexplainable problems). The next thing I would do is download a program called Knopixx basically it's a completely bootable operating system (linux) off of a CD. It will not hurt or effect your data or windows operating system. http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V4.0.2CD-2005-09-23-EN.iso Play around in it for awhile and see if it acts up. Now from here we can go a few ways:

1.) If the memory test had errors. Buy new memory good chance problem = fixed.

2.) If it was locking up in Knoppix.. I'd check and make sure all the fans are functional.

3.) If it didn't in either. It's possible it could still be hardware but not as likely. One thing I would do is boot into safe mode and run a program called CPUburn basically it beats on your processor and if it's gonna overheat this program will do it http://pages.sbcglobal.net/redelm/cpuburn4.zip

4.) If none of those at all cause a problem. I'm saying it's software related. Figuring out the cause of this could be quite difficult without experiance in doing it. Some tihngs you are going to want to check are the Event Viewer. Start -> Control Panel -> Adminstrator Tools -> Event Viewer. Look for things that are red.

Hopefully I've provided enough information for you to have an idea of where to start.. Make sure hte fans are working... All of these programs I mentioned are completely free so feel to do whatever you'd like to do with them. Any questions just ask :)
 
Thanks for your time.
I looked at event viewer and lots of errors (daily) on all three: Applications, Security and System.
No known heat monitors.
As often happens I am getting busy with other things right now and will have to put it on the back burner er... ice chest?
Thanks again.
 
For my laptop, I have a nice little aluminum stand with a pair of fans underneath. I don't actually use the fans much (they are powered by the USB port!), but the combination of the metal acting as a heat sink and open space under the laptop to allow for better airflow make a BIG difference.

SkyHog said:
I concur. My Laptop is a piece, and anytime I did anything graphically intense, it would shut down without warning.

My fix for a while was to have a roomfan, sitting upright, with the laptop sitting on top of it. That worked, but now I just don't do graphically intense work on my laptop.

It really is a piece.
Click to expand...
 
Dave, I also had a recent Toshiba laptop which had a similar problem; it would suddenly shut down (and when I say "suddenly," I mean light-switch sudden, not "Windows-shutting-down-sudden"). The screen would go instantly blank, and you could hear the hard drive stopping and the heads parking all at once.

It turned out to be that one of the connectors on the back (sorry, cannot recall whether it was the USB or the DC in) was just about shorted to an aluminum frame/shielding piece- to ground- and the machine waslosing its DC all at once when the DC shunted to ground.

I was able to demonstrate the problem by poking and prodding around said ports with the computer on, and you may be able to as well.
 
SCCutler said:
Dave, I also had a recent Toshiba laptop which had a similar problem; it would suddenly shut down (and when I say "suddenly," I mean light-switch sudden, not "Windows-shutting-down-sudden"). The screen would go instantly blank, and you could hear the hard drive stopping and the heads parking all at once.

It turned out to be that one of the connectors on the back (sorry, cannot recall whether it was the USB or the DC in) was just about shorted to an aluminum frame/shielding piece- to ground- and the machine waslosing its DC all at once when the DC shunted to ground.

I was able to demonstrate the problem by poking and prodding around said ports with the computer on, and you may be able to as well.
Click to expand...

That is a common problem I've seen before.. Usually not on Toshibas though.

The ones I've seen were always the USB port
 
I tried manipulating all the ports and no shutdown. It did shutdown, like light switch dead, just a few moments ago and I was not even touching it.
It is pretty hot on the bottom. I notice the fans on this are not typical on/off. They seem to surge and have done so since purchase. The fan will speed up for a few seconds then wind down a bit then slow way down... for a while then back up again. Since it happened since new I figured it was like the variable speed household fan.. new technology or something.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I tried manipulating all the ports and no shutdown. It did shutdown, like light switch dead, just a few moments ago and I was not even touching it.
It is pretty hot on the bottom. I notice the fans on this are not typical on/off. They seem to surge and have done so since purchase. The fan will speed up for a few seconds then wind down a bit then slow way down... for a while then back up again. Since it happened since new I figured it was like the variable speed household fan.. new technology or something.
Click to expand...

Well, Dave, on my Tosh (big honkin' wide-screen one M35X-S309), the fans do as you have described, start up, speed up, slow down- they sound like hydraulic motors moving flaps around on a 727. that's normal (irritating, but normal). I think it is time to go for the warranty (should be one year on Toshiba, IIRC).

By the way, you still gonna be around next weekend?
 
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