Laptop powers off after a few minutes of being powered on.

[eriahers]

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to peek at my issue.

My Asus has had a failing battery for quite some time (never charges past ~40% and it's constantly telling me to replace it) so when my laptop shutdown all of the sudden and wouldn't turn back on, naturally I assumed it was a battery issue. However, after leaving the laptop alone for a few minutes, I removed the battery, plugged the power back in, and it powered on for about 20 minutes or so before it shut itself down again. Trying to turn it back on yielded the same results as the first shutdown; nothing happened.

My laptop is about 5 or 6 years old and overheating became a concern for me a while back, so I have it sitting on top of a cookie rack to allow air flow for cooling. After these shutdowns, the laptop didn't feel any warmer than it ever has in the past.

I searched several of the forum threads with issues similar to this and quite a few suggested a bad battery, bad plugin port for the power supply, or a bad power supply. Since I was able to power the laptop on without the battery, I figured that the power supply and it's port on the laptop can be excluded as the issue. And since the laptop shutdown with and without the battery, that it can be excluded as well.

I'd appreciate any guidance on further troubleshooting to help narrow down the culprit. Thanks again.

 

[boosted1g]

Just because it will turn on with the power supply in no way means that the power supply is completely fine. The adapter could still be shutting off. I am not saying it is the likely problem, but it cant be removed as a possibility. You could always test the plug with a multimeter to find out.

Where you moving the laptop and causing extra tension on the power cord when it turns off? You can have a small crack on the DC jack that will allow it to work until the cord gets tight enough to put enough tension on the jack to break electrical contact.

In reality though I am wondering if it is a thermal problem. Have you ever cleaned the fans out with compressed air? Do the fans still turn on?

 

[eriahers]

Just because it will turn on with the power supply in no way means that the power supply is completely fine.

Good point; I can try to get a multimeter and test it Monday when I get back to work.

Where you moving the laptop and causing extra tension on the power cord when it turns off?

I keep extra lengths of cable pooled under the place where it connects (usb devices, ethernet, and power cords) to prevent that from ever becoming an issue. While it still very well could be the problem, I don't think it was from tension.

Have you ever cleaned the fans out with compressed air? Do the fans still turn on?

I have, but it's been a few months. This will be another Monday task when I can use a can at work. The fans do still work but I'm wondering if they're on more often than they should be (insinuating a cooling issue like you mentioned).

Thinking about it more, the fact that it wouldn't restart immediately after shutting down but would restart a few minutes later could be due to it needing to cool down regardless of how hot or cool I thought it was.

If overheating is an issue, what should my next troubleshooting steps consist of after using compressed air? I'm assuming that it'll only be a temporary solution.

Thanks for taking the time to assist me with this.

EDIT: I did some more research on the possibility of my computer overheating and downloaded HW Monitor to check my temperatures. I found some good advice at this link in these forums and saw that while my idle temps weren't too high anywhere from 42 C at the low end to 52 C at the high end), they were still higher than they should be. Both times my computer shutdown was during a pretty demanding game (heavily modded Skyrim) so I can safely assume that the temps were much higher.

It looks like one more thing I'll be doing Monday is re-applying some thermal paste to my processor to see if that's the culprit (or at least the biggest contributor).

 

[ffg7]

could disassemble the laptop til you can access the cpu heatsink which you'll carefully remove to takeoff the old heatsink compound & put on new heatsink compound. laptop does not have to be fully assembled to see if that corrects the problem as just did that a few days ago on a water spilt laptop that is now working.

 

[eriahers]

could disassemble the laptop til you can access the cpu heatsink which you'll carefully remove to takeoff the old heatsink compound & put on new heatsink compound.

I received the notification that someone had replied to this thread right as I was finishing my update; excellent suggestion as I was coming to the conclusion that the thermal paste might have deteriorated after all these years.

I'll post back here Monday after I've gotten hold of some and let everyone know if that fixes my issue.