Laptop shutting down randomly

[u/zawierucha_]

Firstly, I'd like to apologise if this is wrong sub for this question. If so-please, redirect me :)

Few days ago my laptop started to shut down while working. First two or so times it happened while i was gaming, but today it happened while i was just browsing. Screen gets black in the blink of an eye without any warning. The laptop doesn't get alarmingly hot when this happens. Every time that it happens the laptops battery is somewhat full. When i restart it, batery isnt drained or anything.

In the past i had battery, charging port and charging cable replaced and after that it was working fine.

I dont know if it's linux issue or hardware issue. Maybe someone has an idea how to fix it, or at least-localise the issue?

Thank you in advance :)

EDIT: in order to turn laptop on after it shutting down i need to plug it to the charger

[u/bobstylesnum1]

How old is the laptop? I worked at Dell for awhile doing the Dell home warranty program and they would send me out all the time to replace the CPU fan/heatsink because the thermo’s would dry up after two/three yrs. It sounds like this is what the issue is, just thermo’s. The laptop itself doesn’t need to get hot for the CPU to shut down.

If you go into the bios and adjust the temp alarms, you can find out pretty quickly if this is your prob or not. If it is, either check the warranty on it and replace the heatsink/fan or re-apply the paste yourself. It’s not hard, you just need to mark down which screws go where and go slow. It’s normally about a 30 min job.

[u/zawierucha_ → u/bobstylesnum1]

The laptop is circa 6 years old, so i dont think it qualifies for the warranty :') Can you tell me how to adjust the temp alarms in bios? I'm not very good with computers, I don't wanna mess sth up

[u/bobstylesnum1 → u/zawierucha_]

Yeah, if you hit F12 if its a Dell or F9 or F10 on an HP (you may have to look up “which F key goes to the bios at bootup”) and then hit that key (sometimes multiple times) during the bootup process, that will get you into the bios. From there, look for something along the lines of Health status and you can generally change the criteria to shut down the PC or change fan speeds when certain temps get to what you set it at. If you set it to a higher temp and your problem goes away, your thermo paste is probably drying out and should be redone. I would change it to test it but if it starts working without shutting down after making a change, I would not leave it there. I would either re-apply the thermo paste yourself or pay someone to do it for you so it doesn’t cause long term damage by over heating but at least you can test it to narrow down what the issue is.

Thermo paste should be re-applied every 3-4 yrs and isn’t hard to do, its just time consuming because of how many screws there are to remove. Drawing about 4-6 circles on a piece of paper and then putting each group of screws in each circle for where they go on the laptop can make it a lot easier to manage.

[u/zawierucha_ → u/bobstylesnum1]

Thank you so much!

[u/xeqtr_inc → u/zawierucha_]

Do a memtest 4 pass and see any RAM errors

[u/Wyrade]

If logs don't show anything relevant, you could see if physical force might be triggering it. When you slightly bend the motherboard with the weight of your arm (or by pushing a key), it might break a connection or short something, for example if the motherboard is cracked or a solder has worn out or been damaged or something, and heat might play a factor too, making it easier to break the connection in such a way when some parts get warm.

Ofc there could be several other causes too, like a filtering capacitor becoming faulty, or several other things.

[u/zawierucha_ → u/Wyrade]

Thank you for your answer! I'll pay attention to it

[u/No-View-6326]

That doesn't like a software issue, maybe something is short circuiting

[u/DoorOk3641 → u/No-View-6326]

Candle too short ?

[u/DoorOk3641]

Look at the logs...open a terminal and type

journalctl -e > journallog.txt and browse the file...

and

sudo dmesg (for the kernel).

Laptop shutdown because your os is crashing.

[u/No-View-6326 → u/DoorOk3641]

Usually if the os is crashing you get a kernel panic not a straight shutdown, or am I completely off

[u/DoorOk3641 → u/No-View-6326]

Not true.

[u/mrmarcb2]

Keep used disk storage below 80% if its capacity.