I have a Dell Studio 17 laptop, a refurbished model almost 2 years old...It is currently running Windows 7 32-bit, Home Premium. Via a clean install, it is a Vista upgrade machine...A while back, a problem started to develop while running Vista that it would suddenly just turn off. No warnings, messages, anything. It was like I had the battery out, then just unplugged it from the wall. Just like that. Over several months of this happening (or more), I've observed several things...First, it only seems to happen when I'm doing memory-intensive things, such as watching a online video full screen or running many applications in the background...Second, I can tell when it is about to "flip" as I've termed it, when the fan starts running...the computer gets really hot in places...
Anyways, I'm pretty sure this is a hardware problem, because it still exists, even after a Vista-to-7 Upgrade...Is this true? Hardware vs. software?
Is there anything I can do to fix this? Is it just a specific component or what? What do you recommend?
Answer
This is almost certainly a heat related issue - I have an older XPS laptop that after being serviced by the Dell tech he actually forgot to reconnect one of the fan headers. The laptop would work fine as long as I didn't do anything to stress it, but as soon as I fired up a game or something that would push the hardware - bingo! instant shutdown.
Chances are your fans are connected - you can hear them after all, so the next step would be to clean them out. Ideally remove the bottom of the laptop, or at least the various plates on the bottom and sides that you can, and blast as much air into the laptop thus forcing whatever gunk is inside to the outside. I find the canned air has great local pressure, but is only good for cleaning maybe a square cm at a time, if you have a shop vac or something else that can blast a large quantity of air over a larger surface, that is better for clearing out the bigger stuff, then use the canned air for specific local blasts.
It should go without saying: Best to do this with the battery removed and not plugged in.
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