Gateway NV55C turns off after a few minutes

Martell1977

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Oct 26, 2010
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Hello, I'm having an issue with a Gateway NV55C PEW91 laptop. The laptop will shut off after a few minutes. I don't mean that there will be an error or Windows goes into shutdown, I mean the screen goes black and the power light goes off. It's like someone pulled all the power from the unit.
It did this occasionally to at first, but we upgraded Windows 7 to Windows 10 and it became more frequent, so we reverted back to 7, but the issue remained and started to happen every couple minutes.

Here's what I have tried so far:
1) Replaced the power supply, it had a lot of wear and tear so it needed replacing regardless. But was no help.
2) Installed HWMonitor to watch temps. Not overheating, when it turned off it was idle at 50c.
3) Went into Safe Mode and just let it idle. 2-5 minutes later, it turned off.
4) Thinking it might be a Windows issue I tried a factory restore, it got to 39% and shut off, now Windows is totally inaccessible.
5) Tried factory reset with battery out and plugged in, same result, shuts off at 39%.

The BIOS are accessable but very limited with little to no real information beyond the basics. It doesn't even have a system health monitor.

At this point, I'm thinking it is the motherboard. I know RAM and HDD failures will at least give a blue screen or an error, but this is just a complete shut off.

Anyone have any other ideas as to what could be the problem? Other than replacing the motherboard, I'm at a loss.
 
Solution
Hi,

One test you can run with it is by putting the laptop into BIOS and see if will still shut down by itself because if it does it's one indication that the motherboard is faulty. Next is to remove the HDD and test it again if it will still shut down without it because if still does it clearly is the motherboard.
Hi,

One test you can run with it is by putting the laptop into BIOS and see if will still shut down by itself because if it does it's one indication that the motherboard is faulty. Next is to remove the HDD and test it again if it will still shut down without it because if still does it clearly is the motherboard.
 
Solution

Martell1977

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Oct 26, 2010
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Gave this a try and with or without the HDD it shuts off, in the BIOS. Only difference is that after about 20 seconds of turning off it tries to reboot. Takes longer before it turns off as well, but I attribute that to BIOS not really pushing any of the components.

Now I have to try to find a decent price on a motherboard. Thanks for the help.
 

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