System Shuts off Randomy

**infamy2** · February 4th, 2015

Hello all,

My system RANDOMLY powers off. When I say "powers off", it does NOT go through the shutdown process. It IMMEDIATELY goes from being on and logged in to off. I don't know why this is happening, but help would be appreciated.

NOTE: I *have* checked the CPU temperature, and it's at 70-75C. It never goes higher.

Thanks in advance for any help!

**lukeiamyourfather** · February 4th, 2015

This sounds like either overheating CPU on an older machine or a power supply problem. I say older machine because newer machines just throttle the CPU instead of shutting down. How old is the machine? What model processor? Made any hardware changes lately like installing new devices? Have you cleaned out the dust with compressed recently (or ever)?

**infamy2** · February 5th, 2015

The laptop is a Sony Vaio (unsure of exact model anymore). It's only 2 years old now. How do I find what model processor I have? I know it's an Intel Core i7. That's about it. Thanks for your reply.

**raptir** · February 5th, 2015

If it's only 2 years old it should be throttling rather than shutting down, and if it did get to the point where it had to shutdown it would typically give you a BIOS error message before doing so.

Does it occur with equal frequency whether you are on battery or adapter power?

**infamy2** · February 5th, 2015

It seems to happen either way. I have 2 models of the same laptop in the home, and I tried the other battery AND power adapter. It still seems to happen. And it occurs sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes after an entire day. It's unpredictable. I can be using the PC while it happens, or it could be idle on screen saver.

**lukeiamyourfather** · February 6th, 2015

Probably not the answer you're looking for but it sounds like a hardware problem with the laptop. Sometimes manufacturers will include a special partition with diagnostic software that will run checks on all the sensors, memory, stress the components, etc. If your laptop has one of those utilities I'd run it to see if it finds anything. I agree with raptir, the hardware is modern so it would throttle itself instead of shutting down, older processors like Pentium 4 era would simply shutdown without warning if they got too hot (throttling wasn't a thing at that point).

**infamy2** · February 7th, 2015

I had the laptop checked out today. The troubleshooting technician said he could find nothing wrong with the laptop. Are there any other possibilities, or maybe someone else that might know more about this? Has anyone heard of this happening to ANYONE else at all?

**Pumm4** · February 7th, 2015

Hi infamy2

I had a similar experience few weeks ago...

If you go to BIOS and just leave it running there for some time; Does it shuts down as well?

**infamy2** · February 7th, 2015

You know, I haven't even thought to try that. I will try that when my earliest convenience is at hand. Thanks.

**infamy2** · February 11th, 2015

I have found the issue. The system ONLY does this when I have a screensaver set to take over. I disabled the screen saver, and it has not happened even once again. Thanks to all who've answered!