Does my laptop turn itself off when I stop typing?
Does my laptop turn itself off when I stop typing?
Hey, here is a quick summary of my laptop situation: My model is an Acer Aspire A515 running Windows 11. About a week ago, something weird started happening to my computer. It won't turn on unless I keep hitting the keys all the time. If I stop typing and wait, it shuts down after about three seconds (sometimes a few seconds more or less). No matter what I do with the power button—it's not helping at all. Neither putting the cord in nor taking it out makes any difference; it turns off no matter what. This problem shows up even when I check the BIOS settings. When the computer is on, it doesn't feel hot like a normal one would. So, here is my question: could someone tell me what might be wrong with this laptop and how can we fix it? Thanks so much for your help. The Cats Mobo
Hey, try taking out the battery. Then take out the BIOS battery too. You should measure it with a multimeter and see if it's okay. If you get 3 volts, that's good. But if it shows less than 2.5 volts, I think you need to change the battery. Also, turn off all power. Press the power button for 15 seconds to drain any current left in the system. Then plug in just the BIOS charger and connect the motherboard. Try turning on the laptop without a main battery installed and see if it stays on steady. If that works fine, you should update your BIOS with the latest version here: https://www.acer.com/us-en/support/produ...=A515-51;0. Check again after updating. Before I do that, I suggest charging the battery first so it has a good charge. If you try to update while the battery is out and the laptop shuts down during the process, you can damage the BIOS chip. You'd then need someone in the shop to manually reprogram the chip for you.
I tested this out, but nothing changed. The extra keyboard could type, yet the computer didn't start up and stayed off—only the laptop's own keys worked again.
Late thought: Will my laptop stay on after booting into safe mode? If it turns off constantly, maybe the keyboard isn't working right or is broken so hard that it's telling Windows to shut down even when I don't press anything else. Check out this guide for a shortcut key to shut your PC: https://www.wikihow.com/Shut-Down-Your-P...ortcut-Key Another chance could be if some bad file started up by itself and caused the same problem. If the issue doesn't go away after resetting Windows completely, then I think we'll need to fix the laptop or keyboard.
Turning on my laptop in safe mode also turns off the computer if no keys are held down. After that, I did a clean install of Windows a few days ago, but nothing changed anyway. Does this mean it's a Windows problem when it happens during boot from the BIOS? I even tried running AutoHotkey to see if any buttons were being pressed automatically, and none worked like that.
I believe it has something to do with hardware and heat. A 3-second delay before turning off sounds enough for the computer to shut down because of the heat. There were some short circuits made in the past, but they only happen when no keys are pressed right now. The electricity is being sent to parts other than the broken one instead. Once there are no more keys hitting the screen, that short happens and it heats up a part, which causes the laptop to stop working. It could also just be random voltage changes ending in a shut down. If anyone had a chance to take the laptop apart at a shop, they might find signs of heat damage that would tell them exactly where the problem is or what part is broken. To fix it properly will need the wiring drawings (schematics), testing every single part, and probably some reverse engineering. Maybe starting with figuring out how voltage gets regulated. That sounds way too hard for me since I already went far beyond my limits anyway, so I'll wait and ask the electrical engineers to dive deeper into this.
I tried it with HWInfo and overheating is the real problem. The temps go up between 70 and 90 degrees celsius and hit a peak of 100 before it shuts down. I'm still figuring out how to fix this, so please share any other tips if you have them. Thanks everyone ^_^