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Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

3 edits

Thordrune to koam

Premium Member

to koam

Re: [WIN7] Computer shut down unexpectedly


Wear level from original battery (Feb 2006)
I'd say the battery's hosed. The designed capacity is reported by a chip in the battery and should remain static for the life of the battery. That chip is tasked with monitoring all of the cells, recording past discharge performance, calculating current discharge performance based on the first two, and reporting that to the PC (more info here). If it's reporting numbers that far off in multiple programs, that would be the first thing I'd replace.

I haven't looked for batteries for that model, but I was able to get a replacement battery for my Dell last year on eBay for about $50. It appears to be an actual Dell battery, and so far it's wearing excellently. I can't say the same for the 12-cell batteries I've bought for my Eee PC. Those have awesome capacity at first (~15 hours with minimum brightness, no WiFi, on a first-gen Atom netbook), but by the time they're a year old, they're a paperweight.

Edit: I didn't see the link that norwegian See Profile posted above. Even cheaper than I thought .

Edit 2: I've attached a picture of my original battery. You can see how the reported designed capacity is exactly the same as the new one, while the full charge capacity has dropped as a result of cell wear and subsequent monitoring/calibration results. Surprisingly, it had 40% charge left when I popped it in. It's been sitting in a drawer since June 2011. Awesome battery .

koam
Pink Pecker
Premium Member
join:2000-08-16
East Puddle
·Shoreham Telephone

koam

Premium Member

Thank you all. Yeah I guess the battery has serious issues. That's not too big a deal. It's strange that the "Designed Capacity" is so misreported. It's an original Dell battery.

Earlier this year when my other computer died on me, a few things started going at once. Suddenly the hard drive was corrupted in addition to what seemed like hardware issues. It was very confusing and I never recovered the drive or the computer.

So when I saw the issue with the system drive after running diagnostics I was really worried about this computer. Still am a bit.
koam

koam

Premium Member

Click for full size

CPUID Hardware Monitor Jan 26
Today, the same computer shut down to black screen while using it. The power supply was plugged in and the battery in, fully charged, 100%.

Restarting it gave the same Windows warning that Win 7 had shut down unexpectedly.
It's the same old battery, but it has been performing OK, just has a short life when unplugged.

The event image above is when it happened. The same event, 41, has happened 2x before in Jan. 4x in Dec. 5x each in Nov, Oct, Sep. 6x in Aug, 10x in Jul.

My original post in this thread documents the one time I saw the computer crash unexpectedly. The other incidences of the 41 error may correspond to when the power drained down, such as the plug came out (falls out easily) and computer was left to wind down on its own. After OP I changed some power settings to try to get a more orderly power down under low power levels. Today was the first time I've seen an unexpected black screen shut off since my OP on Dec 3. Today is Jan 26.

While I know the battery is old and sub-optimal, the power cord was plugged in this time and the computer should have continued working even if the battery had an issue. As soon as it went black I checked that the power cord was plugged in. As soon as it restarted, the battery was at 100%.

CPUID Hardware Monitor run about an hour after restarting.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

1 recommendation

norwegian

Premium Member


Looking over CPUID, I'd almost say it was shutting down to save over heating. All those temps are high, not excessively, but still very high.

koam
Pink Pecker
Premium Member
join:2000-08-16
East Puddle

koam

Premium Member

Thanks. I wondered if it was the internal heat because it was sitting on a blanket. However it was in a very cool house, and sitting on a blanket is a frequent use. Would Event Log show a heat alert notification or Event?
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune to koam

Premium Member

to koam
Nothing in those screenshots indicates any overheating. Temperatures in the 60s C is relatively cool for a laptop. I've pushed many up towards 90 C with no issues.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member


Not yet, but it at that temp and sitting in a blanket it would suggest reviewing the habits of where the laptop sits to help diagnostics - just to eliminate over heating.

koam
The error for kernel-power rebooting only tells you it did it and really doesn't give any insight, maybe an event log prior to shut down will show something, but generally if there is a hardware/bios level issue you may not see a log in Windows when the system shuts down. Worth a look at events prior to shut down though all the same.

koam
Pink Pecker
Premium Member
join:2000-08-16
East Puddle
·Shoreham Telephone

koam

Premium Member

Thanks. I have been trying to find the right "view" on Event Viewer...i'm no expert.

Yesterday when I was searching through Event Viewer, I located an Event 37 Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Processor-Power, which may have been prior to the shutdown. Googling that I found that it could be a heat thing where firmware shuts down a processor (not sure).

Today, I can't find the same error in same time sequence, but that may be due to my inability to correctly use Event Viewer (there are a lot of options to select on the left side.) Any suggestions?

Also, today I dusted out the fan vents with canned air.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member

said by koam:

Thanks. I have been trying to find the right "view" on Event Viewer...i'm no expert.

When you open the Event Viewer, expand Windows Logs and you will see Application, Security, Setup, System and Forward
ed Events
. You need to concentrate on System, but Application may or may not show events at the time that may help.
said by koam:

Also, today I dusted out the fan vents with canned air.

That would definitely help.
said by koam:

I wonder if there's a tool that will log temps prior to shutdown.

There are many tools out there that monitor temps. Core Temp, Real Temp, SpeedFan, to name a few. CPUID which you have already. Just leave it open and keep an eye on temps while working.
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune to norwegian

Premium Member

to norwegian
Fair enough .