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My cousin has a Sony Vaio (model: pcg 71911m) laptop, and recently it started shutting down for no reason. At first I thought it might have something to do with the power supply, so instead of using the battery, I took it out and used just the power adapter. No results. It doesn't give any error message or BSOD after that, and I noticed a pattern.

It shuts down. I turned it on the next morning and was able to use it for ~7 minutes before it shut down. I immediately turned it on again, and couldn't even go past the Windows loading screen before it shut down. The next time, it took even less time to shutdown. But after leaving it for a couple of hours, I was able to use it for 6-7 minutes, again.

I'm guessing it might be an overheating problem. I took the body off and noticed that the fan was running for the first 10 seconds, then it stopped. Is a laptop fan supposed to do that? Could it be a fan problem? The computer is at least 3-4 years old.

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  • If you suspect overheating, use a program of your choice, to measure the temperature.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Aug 23, 2015 at 22:51
  • laptops don't have a power supply....
    – Ramhound
    Commented Aug 23, 2015 at 22:52
  • I ment power flow
    – Lukas
    Commented Aug 23, 2015 at 22:54

1 Answer 1

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The fan should not stop spinning. The only thing that should change is the fans RPM's. The change in RPM's is not easy to notice with the naked eye, but you can some times hear it ramp up in speed. If the fan stops spinning, it will stop cooling the heat sink that pulls the heat away from the CPU. Therefore the CPU eventually gets too hot and automatically shuts down to try and prevent damage.

You can try replacing the heat sink to see if that solves the problem.

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  • Thank you for advice!! I think I will try replacing the fan first, since its not integrated to the heat sink :)
    – Lukas
    Commented Aug 23, 2015 at 23:49
  • By replacing the heat sink, do you mean remounting it with fresh thermal paste or buying a new one?
    – fixer1234
    Commented Aug 23, 2015 at 23:50
  • @Lukas: Blow out the fan to remove dust, but if it runs when powered, replacing it probably won't help. As long as it is functional, it will run when powered. If it runs and stops running, it's probably due to something else.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Aug 23, 2015 at 23:53
  • @fixer1234 I've had heat sink fans that would spin up at the boot and then stop a few seconds later. After replacing the fan, it worked good as new. I don't know why it would spin at first then stop, but replacing it did solve the problem. If a second fan does the same thing, I would say it's probably something with the connector on the motherboard.
    – DrZoo
    Commented Aug 23, 2015 at 23:58

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