Notebook randomly shutdown, mostly when idle

danznokaze

Estimable
Oct 23, 2014
5
0
4,510
I have a Asus Notebook here, with an i7 procs, 4Gb RAM, ATI mob Radeon HD5470, and 500Gb HDD.

It's starting to shut down itself, without notification, like when the power is cut off and the battery is pulled out.

First, I browsed abt it and some gave me clue if the procs was overheating, and suggesting to clean up the dust and reapplying thermal paste. Done, everything works fine, with max core temp at 60-70 Celsius, GPU temp almost the same as CPU, while I do some heavy gaming. No more sudden shutdown.

But recently, I noticed that it still shutdown instantly at any random timing, while I do nothing (idle), or just doing some light stuffs like browsing, chatting, watch low quality vids, etc. I tried to monitor the temperature, shutdown could b happened even the temperature is only 50 Celsius. And even when I started my notebook at the morning, it sometimes shutdown while at Windows loading screen, even it's very rarely, just twice until now.

I did some experiments:
1. Adding extra cooling fan doesn't help at all, still random shutdown, especially when I DON'T play any games which will consume lot of resources (VGA, CPU, and RAM).
2. When I played some moderate-heavy games (Dragon Nest Online, L4D2, RE5, etc), it almost never shutdown randomly, eventhough temperature reaches 70C.
3. But if I quit the game, and just do some light stuff (browsing, chatting, etc), it will shutdown, sooner or later, after the game is closed.
4. If I do those light stuffs and at the same time opening my game I mentioned above then alt-tab, it's almost never shutdown randomly.
5. Haven't tested if it's on battery power.

I don't know what terms I should enter to find answers for my problems, so I am posting this here.
I do really have no idea what problems here, why the random shutdowns ALMOST NEVER happened if I opened my games and just let them be without playing them.
Any suggestions based on similar experiences are gladly welcome here. Thx.

PS : It's not a built up PC, it's a Notebook. About 3-4 years old already. First 3 years worked pretty fine, eventhough it's hot (not a good quality cooler and heatsink inside here) but it never shutdown randomly like this. Now, almost 4 years old, random shutdown is starting to appear from nowhere.
Point number 3 and 4 is my biggest clues I had at the moment, if you've ever had it too.
 

Abmario

Estimable
Oct 1, 2014
34
0
4,610
If you have resolve the CPU & GPU temperature, that's fine.

try monitor ram usage with Task Manager> Performance... there maybe some programs running in background you may not aware of, it happens no worry, but if memory usage is full then you have to closed some programs.

See if you system file if there's error, try this:
sfc / scannow:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833
 

danznokaze

Estimable
Oct 23, 2014
5
0
4,510


Nope, task manager is showing a fine space of available RAM.
I am wondering, why shutdowns always happen sooner or later, after I closed my games. RAM at idle is 27% used only, CPU 0% to 3%, but always BOOM, my laptop's off instantly. Only after I closed the game, sometime 5 minutes after closing, or sometime 1 hour after closing. Weird...
 

Abmario

Estimable
Oct 1, 2014
34
0
4,610


Have you tried sfc /scannow?
 

danznokaze

Estimable
Oct 23, 2014
5
0
4,510


Sorry, I hadn't been online for some weeks.
It's not a Blue Screen. So without any messages or anything, just died / power off right away.

I'm guessing about temperature problem. But on what hardware it's still mystery for me, as my CPU and GPU were only at 50-60 C degrees range when the sudden death occured. It's super rarely happened when I played some decent graphic games.
 

danznokaze

Estimable
Oct 23, 2014
5
0
4,510


Ah, yeah sorry I forgot to mention about that in the starting post. I never used battery power, so it's always plugged with the charger, whether with battery installed or not, no difference o_O
 
If it is not the battery then it could be the charger. As it is always pluggled in, it coud be that the charger is worn our. Does the charger get very warm when it is charging? But this is most likely due to age as I have said. When a laptop is old, it get alzimaires disease and can be a bit over optimistic. Let me know if it is the charger. Otherwise get a new laptop.
 

Asphalt45

Estimable
Nov 19, 2015
1
0
4,510


I've been having the same issue too...
I have a lenovo y550 ideapad, around three years old. It started acting up lately. The battery has reached the end of the road so i run it off ac power. I have been using it plugged in with no problems for over six months but now this issue has started up.
Its as if the power circuitry onboard the machine gives up suddenly.
Someone on a forum gave this explanation...
Idling processors will occasionally throttle up (or increase performance). When that happens more power is drawn. Now if the capacitor(s) in the power circuitry are worn out, thats when the entire system meets a power crisis and shuts off.
Capacitors basically smoothen out power supply and compensate for immediate demands in current. Of all the answers out there, This one seems to be the most logically correct one. And it fits the case pretty well. If i have to do light work on my machine i usually let a cpu burner run in the background. Its the only way i can keep working for a long time, until i fix this.