So I've been using my desktop for the most part recently. I left my laptop sitting on for a few days. When I went to use it, trying to transfer a movie file to it, because it's mostly a glorified DVD player, it didn't work. The fan was still on, but the screen would not come on. I restarted by holding the power button. It sounded like it was starting, but no screen came on, no beep, nothing. I restarted again. It started, but said it has just recovered from a critical error. It seemed to be working fine otherwise. I transferred my movie just fine and shut it off.

I moved it out to my living room to hook up to my TV. I tried to start it, but got the same sounds of firing up, but no actual start. I could hear the fan, the CD drive, the hard drive, the startup light came on, but it never went anywhere. No startup screen. No blinking cursor dealy. Nothing. I had it hooked up to my TV which also showed nothing. I tried several times with the same problem before it started fine. I thought it was maybe just a fluke so I went ahead and started my movie. A couple minutes in everything goes dead. The fan is still running. It sounds like it's working, but seems to have gone dead. Several more restarts and it starts up finally only to die 5 minutes in when I tried to put the screen down. Eventually got it to start again, but after a few minutes of playing, I moved it and it freaked out. It didn't totally go dead this time. Just about, but the TV still seemed to be getting a signal of noise. Nothing coherent, but SOMETHING none the less.

I should mention that one time while trying to start it in the midst of this crisis it froze on the blinking cursor (at top left of screen) just before the bios readout dealy. Just stopped right there. I also went back a week on system restore after starting in safe mode (it prompted me to do this on one startup). No help.

Any idea what could cause this?



Incase it's needed the specs, as far as I can remember are:

-Sager model 5600D (that's the original manufacturers number. i think Sager actually calls it a 5680 or something)
-40 gig 5200rpm HD (been replaced once since I bought the computer, had blue screen of death problems)
-P4 2.4
-Mobility Radeon 9000 128 using desktop drivers (if it matters...)
-256MB ram One stick, I think.
-1600x1200 uxga screen

Ummm, that's all I can remember off the top of my head of anything that would seem at all important.

Put it in a room, all alone, off for a few days. Sometimes things like this happen from heat damage. Let it sit and maybe things will sort themselves out bt if not Id say RMA it if possible.

Unfortunately it's past it's 1 year warranty period, but Sager has been very good about that type of service in the past. I may end up doing that. I would rather hear that it was a bad stick of ram or HD so I can just replace it.

It did sit on my bed once while on, which blocked the air intake. it got hot enough to warp some of the plastic around the exit vent. That was 6 months ago though, with no problems since.

Maybe it does just need some personal/cool off time.

Do you know if the Radeon 9000 is a separate "card" inside? It might have gotten loose. If you are willing to risk opening it up you might want to check. It happened once to my Dell laptop after a long bumpy car ride.

Otherwise I guess heat as the culprit as well. Let it sit for a while.

I'm almost entirely sure the card is integrated, because I remember looking into upgrading and not being able to. It sat about 14 hours. i just started it. it ran for a minute, then shut down and didn't want to start again.

What would the heat have damaged? What would need to be fixed?

Does it actually turn off or just crash? If it turns off it might be a faulty sensor thinking it's overheating when it's not. See if you can get into the BIOS and turn off anything that looks like temp sensing. I would also check the CPU and any other fans that it has, some machines will shutdown if they arn't spinning.

I pulled it apart at work today with a co worker. He's going to give it some new thermal compound, because whatever was once on there is toast.

I couldn't tell if it was totally shutting down or freezing. Once today it froze with screen on until I slapped it, when the screen went off. Otherwise the screen (and external TV) would just go dead.

The fans always came on and it always made noise like it was trying to start-up, but I am not sure if it was starting and just not displaying or failing to process at all. I never heard the start-up "beep" while the screen was out.



The internals did show some signs or over heating.

Yeah, for all laptop users out there, make sure to clean out the areas where the fans blow the air out at least once a month. I had one of mine clog up and actually started smoking.

Posted by Magical Trevor Yeah, for all laptop users out there, make sure to clean out the areas where the fans blow the air out at least once a month. I had one of mine clog up and actually started smoking.

Smoke is the laptops way of telling you that you would be better off with a stick in the dirt and smoke as wireless messaging.

Same thing JUST happened to my laptop 2 days ago. I tracked down my problem as a corrupt MBR and had to do a fresh install.

PS. I blow out my cooling fins once a week to keep things cool & I set mine on a 2 fan laptop cooler as well.

I went through and put new goop on the processor. The old stuff was, well, non-existent. There were some signs of heat damage inside, but it can't be from anything recent.