Posted on 08/30/2015 11:13:31 AM PDT by Maceman
Back in May or June, after my Dell Laptop crashed and a month of tech support from Dell proved ineffective, they they sent me a new (i.e. refurbished) E6540 laptop (running Windows 7) which I've had for about two months now.
All of a sudden, today for the first time, the E6540 has started shutting down randomly for no reason. When I start it up again, it gives me the message about having shut down incorrectly and an option to run Windows in safe mode.
This has happened a few times today. I'm running Microsoft Security Essentials, which says the system is protected and doesn't show any infections. I don't know if this could be a virus, or a glitch that might be fixed by setting a restore point to an earlier date.
Has anyone run into this problem? Anyone have any (productive) thoughts or suggestions?
Will converting to Windows 10 be a possible solution? (I'm really not in a hurry to do that at this point.)
As always, I'll much appreciate any help my fellow Freepers can provide.
Thanks in advance.
I work Tech Support for TxDOT which has bought thousands of these POS...
#29 Good information. People forget that dust can get in or figure they can not disassemble the laptop like a desktop pc to clean. My desktop pc was like the inside of a vacuum cleaner until I bought these vent filters.
Thermaltake Magnetic Fan Filter Cooling AC-004-ON1NAN-A1 Black http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KHO0I6K?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00
Download Speccy to get the temperature. https://www.piriform.com/speccy
Check the following Power Options and change to these settings. When Windows does updates they can be changed back from want you changed as Microsoft thinks they know best. Sleep mode and Power buttons and lid can be the cause.
Control Panel> Power Options> Change plan settings> select never for both items seen then click on Change advanced power settings
A dialog box pops up:
Hard disk> Turn off hard disk after - Setting <- change this to a high number like 2000
Sleep> Sleep after: Never
Allow hybrid sleep> Setting: Off
Hibernate after> Setting: Off
USB settings> USB selective suspend setting> Setting: Disabled
Power buttons and lid> Power button action: Setting Shut down
Sleep button action> Setting: Do nothing
Display> Turn off display after> Setting: Never
I’ve had good luck with the Dell XPS line. What brand do you recommend?
thanks!
“I think you need to run the full diagnostics routine Dell provides on a disk partition. I think it is the f12 key during boot. Test everything. That should eliminate hardware issues. Do that first.”
Absolutely! Start from the ground up. Don’t waste your time with booting Windows until you know the hardware is solid.
Like several others, my first inclination is to think you’ve got a severe overheating issue. That would be the first thing I’d check for.
Bump for when my lapdog jumps down...or something like that. :D
I usually set my laptop on a book smaller than the laptop, so there’s about an inch of space between laptop and table, all around the edge, and the fan vents are unblocked.
When I forget and the computer gets hot and starts panting, the quickest way to cool it off is to hold it upside down for a minute.
I take it apare every 6 months or so to keep the fuzz from blocking the airflow.
I see not one person has asked the most important question, “Are you logged in?”
With laptops a lot of the times it’s a heat issue affecting the cpu. The easiest way is to unplug it, take the battery out, and try to clean it out as much as possible by using compressed air to blow out dust. Try to get to any fans...if the dust has accumulated on the fan blades it will make it less effective.
That solution is all over the web. For me, it was uninstalling windows OS update KB3035583.
Thanks, I did that and it worked. The popup only bothered me because Microsoft took advantage of my allowing them access to my computer.
You need to respond to someone,
I had a problem with my Dell, sounds like the same thing. I noticed Microsoft Silverlight had loaded itself on...I removed it and it is fine now. Someone else on a forum had a similar problem and it was a program named DropBox that was causing it.
Possibly check for any newly loaded programs you didn’t load.
Several have already said it, HEAT...
Same for desktops or laptops, heat is always an issue, especially if you don’t clean out the dust bunnies now and then.
Dust acts as a blanket and holds heat in, it also blocks the air intake ports, so the fan can’t cool the CPU well.
Check the link someone else already posted, here it is again
http://www.myfixguide.com/manual/dell-latitude-e6540-disassembly/
Check the air intake, you’ll probably see dust there, first thing to do is clean it out.
Malware will not often cause sudden shut downs, if it just suddenly shuts off and you get the bad shutdown message, it means it shut down without going through the normal shutdown process, which can cause problems.
Check for heat problems first, then look at other possibilities.
Could be faulty power supply or possible heat problem. Sometimes the cooling fans go bad or get clogged with dust. Not likely to be the OS.
Ha, so the KB install I removed re-installed back onto my puter, but the popup is longer there.
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