Hi

I was writing a post and popups came and something went weird, so I
dont know if my previous message was posted or not, so I'm wrinting it
again.

I have a dell insiron 5150 laptop and it randomly powersoff, when
playing games e.g. tom clancies rainbow six or often when listening to
music or watching a dvd.

Its not like a shut down, error, or stand by power off - its like you
have just ripped out the battery or like when you unplug the power
cable from a pc, it also whirrs a little when it does it.

It seems to maybe be linked with the stress on the pc, i.e.
applications etc.  I reformatted my pc and it got a little better (the
pc runs much faster and the random poweroffs seem to be less frequent)
but it still happpens, especially whilst playing games (- could the 3d
graphics card be overheating or something?)

Also, random notice - I reformatted windows and it seemed ok, thought
I may of fixed it, but powered of once in a game as soom as I started
to play it. I switched it on and left it most of the afternoon to see
if it would crash by itself, it didnt. Then, since it seemed to be ok
by itself, I came to reinstall a different version of windows and
crashed everytime in the installation, so I left it switched off for a
few hours then when I came back to it it reinstalled first time.

Does anyone know what could be possible be going wrong with this? -
any help would be most appreciated!

- my train of thought, it seems to be ok by itself until you start
stressing it, i.e. running dvd's music or games, and when leaving it
on all afternoon and coming to reinstall it it kept on crashing until
I switched it off for a while. - Could come part of it be overheating
or sopmething causing an emergancy poweroff?

Also, there seems to be two fans a quite slow one that comes on and
off, and a second loud powerful fan that comes on when it it realley
stressed, i.e. playing a game. (- two fans or 1 fan with 2 speeds,
could be either).  Two things, when it crashes that second fan is
often on, however there has been many times when it has been on and it
hasnt crashed.  Second thing, when that fan comes on the pc really
slows down, for example when playing a game it will come on quite
often, the game will go jerky and is unplayable - the second the fan
goes off the game speeds up to normal pace and is ok.  Is that normal,
or is something wrong?

Sorry for all the questions, i just have 1 more, honest!  I have a
64mb ATI moblie radeon 9000 (I think) is it possible to upgrade to a
128Mb graphics card?  or is it really hard/expensive to do on a
laptop?

Thanks for reading and any help would be most appreciated. 
Unfortunatly the laptop has just gone out of warrenty (by only a few
days, doh!) so I'd be grateful is anyone could help before I spend a
small fortune sending it back to dell.

Thanks, Jon

- Sorry for the long post, I just tried to put explain everything
properly.

Other laptop specs that may help, intel pentium (4 i think - not too
sure) 3 gig, 500mb RAM, 64mb ati moblie radeon 9000.

"Mmm_moo_cows" <mmm_moo_cows@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a68d4d43.0406141337.3d63654b@posting.google.com...
> Hi
>
> I was writing a post and popups came and something went weird, so I
> dont know if my previous message was posted or not, so I'm wrinting it
> again.
>
> I have a dell insiron 5150 laptop and it randomly powersoff, when
> playing games e.g. tom clancies rainbow six or often when listening to
> music or watching a dvd.
>
> Its not like a shut down, error, or stand by power off - its like you
> have just ripped out the battery or like when you unplug the power
> cable from a pc, it also whirrs a little when it does it.
<SNIP>>>>>

It seems to me that your laptop is overheating!
When you see your games getting "jerky" and hear the loud
fan all the time it is because your CPU is overheating - and one of
the safety mechanisms employed on laptops is to slow the processor
down to try to control the heat. If the high workload on the CPU
continues then it will shut itself down - hence your crashes!
When you hear your second fan switch off it means that it has
brought the CPU down to a workable temperature and it the
laptop continues to work OK.

Do you use your laptop on a tabletop with a tablecloth? or on
a cushion - on the couch - on the carpet - on the bed?
You might be blocking the intake/exhaust vents.
Check to see if your intake/exhaust vents are clear - they sometimes
get blocked with all kinds of household fluff and debris! (especially
if you are a smoker of cigarettes!) Get yourself a can of compressed
air and blow it into the vents to clean them.

In your BIOS there should be some kind of setting to control
the power settings - something like "Performance" "Battery
Optimised" "Low Power". Try setting it to the highest level.
You might also have a power control applet in your control
panel. (I deal mostly with Toshibas - and they have the
features I have just mentioned)

HTH

Michael in Glenrothes, Scotland


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Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I use it on a flat wooden desk and the fan
intakes are very clean, so the air flow shouldnt be obstructed.  I
definitely agree with you, I might try and elevate the PC using 2 bits
of wood or something, to give that fan like the maximum air intake and
see if that makes a difference.

Thanks so much for your reply, cheers

Jon