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Thu 6 Nov, 2014 10:14 pm
I’ve got a HP ProBook 6450b, running Windows 7 Professional, which I purchased used almost exactly 90 days ago, and which I suspect was a lot of corporate laptops coming off lease that were being excessed. The laptop’s performance in the first 90 days has been nothing less than satisfactory during that time.
In the last 24 hours the laptop has been exhibiting some disturbing behavior. My wife was using the laptop and she described that the laptop just lost power and shutoff – not unlike if it was running on its battery and the battery was suddenly disconnected. When I attempted to restart, the laptop displayed the diagnostic screen which indicated that the laptop had unexpectedly shutdown, with the option to Start Normally, or to run a Repair Diagnostic (Recommended) – which I opted to do. The repair diagnostic ran (for a quite a long time), and then suddenly powered off. When I attempted a second restart, the laptop status panel lights illuminated briefly, the ventilation fan powered up, and then went dark.
A number of hours later, I attempted another restart, and to my surprise, the laptop successfully ran through the Post-Test, initialized the operating system and loaded all the way to the Desktop. A few minutes/seconds after that, the laptop shutoff again.
This series of events told me a couple of things. First, the laptop is able to be powered-up, can run through the Post-Test, and the hard drive is functioning and accessible and capable of loading the operating system, the battery is displaying as being fully-charged, the ventilation fan is running and the laptop is successfully booting up.
So, I’m pretty adept at computer repairs, having disassembled (and thankfully reassembled) successfully a number Dell laptops, and replaced display screens, hinges, hard drives, keyboards, and base units. I have no experience with HP laptops, but I will assume they are of very similar construction and complexity (or simplicity), so I’m willing to undertake repairs in this neighborhood myself. I’m less inclined to engage in speculative repair and parts replacement, however I’m willing to walk down the "repair road" with anyone that can cite having a similar experience or a pretty clear direction to go next.
Any initial recommendations based on what I’ve provided?
@CDobyns,
Yes. Yell at the seller. Start by seeing if they can make it right. They might've given you a bad battery.
@jespah,
Okay, this is one theory (battery) - but in this case, in all likelihood
not the culprit. I was so pleased with this laptop that I invested in an additional, spare battery. But in any event the problem is present with the battery or without the battery (running solely on AC), so the battery was long ago eliminated as the problem.
I think we're narrowing this down to a hardware (or other more obscure) problem, since I thought to borrow an external SATA drive enclosure, and I was able to pull the hard drive - and successfully access the drive and all the file contents. That eliminates the hard drive and any kind of software problems related to not being able to access the drive and to run through the boot-up sequence.
I think the ship has sailed for any kind of return or "making right". My experience with laptops is that only rarely does a significant component actually fail or "go wrong". Consequently, I think that the failure is within the realm of the fixable. Any other suspects to consider?
@CDobyns,
The off chance that the computer went to sleep and was turned back on but a file was opened when it went to sleep. This file might not have been saved and this will cause this type of problem(AKA file corruption) or there are problems with the boot process which will also cause this error on startup. When you restart the operating system senses the hard power off which can cause this. Because the operating system was somehow turned off in the wrong manner, and now if your starting windows normally is offered just click that option and you should be fine. Be cautious about putting it to sleep or into hibernation with files opened! When you restart this is where lots of files are lost because the file was not saved as the computer went to sleep or into hibernation. If there was a problem with the battery it would be plugged in fully charged and there would be a red X on the battery icon with a notice for you to change the battery.
@bigredsshop,
In addition the computer on startup after a bad power off, and the interactive systems of today will want to scan the file structure which is to say that CHKDSK.exe (which is command prompt for check disk) will want to run and check your local disk C drive for any errors before the PC comes up and offers you a login screen. Time it takes is depending on how many files you have is how long it will take!
@bigredsshop,
You have a fleet of most peculiar boats to float. - Noddy24 Bring yer own blue paint. - timberlandko **Howl for Noddy*** Them syreens did this to him. They loved him up and turned him into a h-h-horny toad.
You still got this up about me! lmfaorotf this is 6 years old!
@CDobyns,
If you have a copy of spinrite I would run it first of all on the hard drive and if not I would boot from a live linux dvd/cd to see if the shut down problem occur when the software is not being loaded from the hard drive.
@CDobyns,
It sounds like you are overheating. That is why it would repeatedly shutoff but start up fine a few hours later.
@engineer,
Okay,
this might seem reasonable (and certainly the first thing I thought of . . .), but given that now the laptop will attempt to power-up for 3-5 seconds (and this is
literally 3-5 seconds elapsed time), before it shuts down - something tells me that the heat build-up of the on-board components would need to be nearly instantaneous
and rising to levels in those few seconds that cause the laptop hi-temp sensors to cut-in and signal a shutdown (to protect the on-board components). Since we both know that virtually none of that is happening, I think we can (regrettably) rule-out the high temperature theory, as the cause for the shutdowns. It's something else, but I'm not sure what.
@CDobyns,
Okay, I'm always happy (all right,
semi-happy) when I can answer my own postings. I think we can close this one out - since I finally dropped off the computer at my local computer diagnostic clinic, and spent the $25 to find out that there was a critical issue with the motherboard, that was preventing the computer from booting up past the post-test.
Fortunately, I was able to score a working base unit off eBay for $55, and even though these HP computers are new territory for me, with a little bit of self-learning, I was able to teach myself how to move the working components (hard drive, keyboard, LCD screen, optical drive, memory cards, etc.) to the new base unit, in less than an hour. And even better, the first time I powered the unit up, it booted into the O/S with no problems. It cost me $80, but the computer is working - and I probably received at least $50 worth of "learning" from the experience (for the next time). Overall, a good investment.
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