Solved! Could no fan speed cause a laptop to shutdown at 60c?

Oct 12, 2020
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My sister sent me her laptop to fix. Sony Vaio SVP1321M9EB. I don't do laptops, hate them, they should all be destroyed.

It's going in to thermal shutdown at 60 degrees C but I'm struggling to think of a common sense reason why it would. It's not a Windows problem because it happens when I'm not in Windows. It does it when in the bios or USB diagnostic programs. There's nothing in the bios related to this happening. I know it's shutting down at 60 because I put my 21 inch desk fan on it then slowly moved it away until the laptop shutdown at 60 every time.

There was a problem with the fan which, according to the Sony forums, happens with this model frequently and Sony did free repairs. They didn't do one on this and it's galaxies outside the warranty. Her boyfriend tried putting in a new fan and that's all I know. They don't communicate well.

I've taken it apart and the new fan is not spinning, ever. Either the new fan is broken or it's a motherboard issue. Given the machine is going in to thermal shutdown at the low of 60, I was wondering if anyone had heard of this being a hardware trigger? Could it be the motherboard detects the fan is not trying to spin so shuts down at this very low temperature?

I've not encountered this on any of the desktops I've ever built or worked on, but given laptops are designed for profit it seems plausible. Although pointless, I did reseat the CPU. It still shutdown at 60, so that was a waste of common sense and thermal paste. My ideas are:
  • Motherboard damage?
  • A bios setting I've missed?
  • Will Sony hardware safety shut down at 60 if it detects no fan, so it needs one?
- I disconnected the fan to make sure it wasn't a bad signal, didn't seem to make any difference and still shut down at 60
- I can't see anything on the heatsink which would cause this, it's still registering temps correctly and is seated properly

I've read about people taking these to Sony who seemed to replace the motherboard as a fix. That's very much an Apple bad business solution; charge the customer an insane amount for a quick fix instead of taking the time to diagnose it. At this point it would be better to part it out than risk a motherboard replacement which may not fix it (if I can find one cheap enough).
 
Solution
If the fan does not turn on that is an issue, with a new fan the fan header on the motherboard could be the issue. 60C is not really hot enough for a system to shut down due to too much heat, you need to get to over 90 for that for a crash. I've seen many laptops run into the low 90s or higher and not turn off or crash.

Maybe time to replace that system, a used working one of the same speed would be maybe $200. To buy a new motherboard for that system is not worth it.
Oct 12, 2020
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Happens with both. Tried with the battery connected, battery connected + plugged in and (its current state) plugged in with battery removed. I couldn't be bothered to put it back in.

My experience with desktop fans is that they only ever seem to have 2 wires connecting to the PSU or motherboard. The fan on this laptop has 4 wires, which makes me think the motherboard might be expecting a signal back which is causing it to shut down?

Seems wishful thinking that it's something so basic. There must be something on the motherboard which tripped but I don't have any hardware diagnostics beyond my eyes. Maybe Sony put some anti-tamper on there to stop sthird party repairs?
 
If the fan does not turn on that is an issue, with a new fan the fan header on the motherboard could be the issue. 60C is not really hot enough for a system to shut down due to too much heat, you need to get to over 90 for that for a crash. I've seen many laptops run into the low 90s or higher and not turn off or crash.

Maybe time to replace that system, a used working one of the same speed would be maybe $200. To buy a new motherboard for that system is not worth it.
 
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Solution
Oct 12, 2020
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Thanks for the help. It's been nearly 2 weeks and she hasn't responded to my questions about so I guess she doesn't care that much. Just trying to give me more headaches.

It's a good laptop but it's not worth wasting money on. There aren't many spares for it on eBay (UK) so hopefully she can part it out and get some decent money. Then stop buying laptops!