Junoty

My thinkpad a20m automaticly turns itself off. The time its on for before shutting down varies. The fan goes on at startup but once booted into windows i have not seen it spin. Once it turns off by itself i have to unplug power and battery then plug in again to turn on. I would have thought overheating except that i dont see my fan go on while booted into windows and the fact that i have to unplug and replug power to be able to turn on. I also would have thought maybe its a broken fan, but it does go on right when i turn it on and stop once windows has started to load. Any ideas whats wrong?
Thanx

Junoty

anyone? Come on some one has gotta know a solution.

justpassingby

Is the bottom of the laptop very hot to the touch when it shuts itself down ? If so, might be some overheating problem like you were thinking.

Did your laptop run fine before ? Is it brand new ? Could be some temperature sensor that's failing, or a dying Power Supply Unit.

Unexpected shutdowns can also come from faulty ram. But in that case, I don't see why you should have to unplug and replug the power cable. You could still try to burn a memtest CD and boot your computer with it to test your ram. It's a very handy tool you'd want to keep around if you have to troubleshoot any computer that shutdowns randomly.

Can't say much more, I'm not very familiar with laptops

Junoty

Its weird cuz it was running fine b4 its a 2 year old laptop. I dont think its a ram issue cuz it sumtimes turns off even in the bios. As for feeling hot it doesnt even feel to warm at the bottom, what temp is hot for a cpu of this laptop? Thinkpad a20m? Any other ideas what could be the problem?

Junoty

Hey does anyone know a program that i can use to have the fan constantly on for the thinpad a20m i found this http://sourceforge.net/projects/tp4xfancontrol for the t40 i'd like something similar but for a20m does anyone know any programs?

Sgt_Grim_Reaper

you mean, the fan suts itself off? At first it sounded like your whole computer was shutting down and powering off by the way you described it. If it's just the fan that's shutting off, that's OK because it's supposed to be variable. When it gets too hot like when doing heavy processing it will turn on and then slow down to be barely audible when you're not doing anything CPU intensive.

Junoty

My whole system does shut off.
Im just thinking it may be an overheating so i might aswell try to kepp my fan on all the time. The weird thing is i think it is over heating b/c i felt the processor but the fan never turns on! The only time it does is at bootup before xp loads. Once xp loads i havent seen the fan go on.

Sgt_Grim_Reaper

ah ok. I would download a utility to monitor the temps to see what it is before it shuts down; likely the BIOS is set to have it shut down at a certain temp so you'll need to go into BIOS to see what that setting is. Just to ensure it's not clogged with dust take a can of air and blow it out also. Also I used to think my fan turned off also but it turns out when I put it up to my ear I could barely hear it going. It's almost completely idle when tasking is low. But then it should spool up when the CPU gets warm... Check the BIOS for the shutdown temp first.

justpassingby

Yep, as Sgt said, check the bios for a cool 'n quiet feature or something like that. If you disable it, your fan will be on constantly and that should tell you if the fan is involved or not.

Junoty

my bios doesnt say any shtdown temp infact t doesnt talk about fan speed at all

TheMatt

Download MobileMeter and post the temps. It will also tell you what the shutdown temps are in the BIOS.

Junoty

The laptop is turning off at around high 60 c to mid 70c fan never goes on once bios is loaded though. I read around and it seems as though alot of other ppl had almost the same prob wih a21m. Their lappy would boot, fan would turn on at bios and once the bios was loaded the fan would turn off thus their laptop overheating and shutting down. Once their lappy was shut off they had to unplug power and batery. My symptoms are exactly those and the people who solved that issue said the way they solved it is by installing a new motherboard.

As a workaround i think im gonna make a power adapter for the fan and plug the fan into that. That way the fan will always be on and i dont have to replace the entire motherboard.

It says this on the fan; DC 5V O.21A . So basicly i have to get a power adapter with those specs i think. Anyone know where i could get one hat either plugs into a electricity outlet or where to get that power from the laptop itself. Also is DC 5V O.21A the max so if i put that much into it will it run fullspeed? Can i put more electricity? Any help with this would be appreciated aswell as any diffrent ideas or suggestions.

Thanx again

justpassingby

You could try to update your bios to the latest version. Check first what version it is : enter the bios (tap del or F1 or search for a message telling your which key to press during the startup), and search for a version number (vx.x) in some corner of the screen.

Is your version prior to 1.11 ?

Junoty

It is currently the latest verion 1.13

Junoty

bump :)

TheMatt

Try setting the power scheme to Portable/Laptop and see if that helps.

Junoty

Nop doesnt work

TheMatt

Try testing the power connector on the motherboard with a multimeter. See if it is producing any voltage.

Junoty

checked. It produces voltage before the biosloads but once bios is loaded doesnt produce voltge, any ideas?

TheMatt

Generally, the fan turns of after the start of the POST because the CPU is cool. Does the fan spin up when you first turn the computer on?