Beeping/shutdown power/battery issues.

[smarky67]

Hi there,

I have an Optimus 17.3 inch laptop and recently (over the last few months) it has started leaping intermittently and then shutting down. More recently it has been bleeping on start-up, not necessarily shutting down, but different amounts of beep so I can't really apply them to any particular error code.

I contacted PCSpecialist but they weren't particularly helpful to be honest, saying it might be the temperatures or the motherboard and to send it back which might take up to 2 weeks. I explained that because of my disability I use my laptop for practically every form of communication yet they said they couldn't do it any more speedily.

I read somewhere else that it could be something to do with the battery/power lead and followed some instructions to drain all power from the laptop. I then tried using it just with AC power (with no battery installed) and it worked fine like that. This brought me to the conclusion that I needed a new battery, which I ordered and received the next day (surprisingly). However, upon placing the new battery into the laptop it started doing it again. I then tried removing the AC power to try running it just on battery but everything went off completely.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated please. Thanks in advance…

 

[ubuysa]

The first thing to do is to ensure that your new battery is good. You know that the laptop runs just fine on main power alone (are you absolutely sure of that though?) but not on the new battery. Check the pins in the laptop that the battery connects with, are any of them bent, blackened through arcing, or otherwise not as they should be? Get a soft dry cloth and polish the contacts on the new battery to ensure there is no dirt, grease, or other material covering them and preventing a proper contact.

Then insert the battery carefully, making sure is fits in smoothly and clicks home fully. Plug in the charger and leave it on charge for 24 hours with the laptop shutdown and powered off for the whole time. Do NOT use it at all during this 24 hours.

After the 24 hour charge remove the mains charger and switch on the laptop on battery power alone. If it doesn't start at all then the battery wasn't properly charged. This could be because you were unfortunately sent a dead battery but it could also be because your mains charger is faulty and cannot provide enough power to charge the battery, or because the charging circuits in the laptop have failed and the battery is not being charged properly. This is what PCS meant by suggesting it could be the motherboard.

If the battery doesn't charge properly you'll need to call PCS and it probably will have to go back (with the mains charger too).

That all said, this could all be a red herring. An older laptop that shuts itself down is almost always overheating. The shutdown is a panic measure designed to prevent permanent damage to the CPU/GPU. If you can run it on mains power alone for an extended period and under load does it shutdown then? If it does it's overheating. In any case it would be wise to eliminate overheating as an issue, so download HWMonitor (free) from https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html, install it and use that to check the temperatures. What is your idle temperature (CPU and GPU) and what are they under load?

 

[smarky67]

Hi, yes I'm sure the laptop runs fine on the power alone and I purchase a brand-new battery from PCS so I know that is all fine.

Have run the temperature monitor programs (initially suggested by PCS) and they were fine.

Update: beeped and shut down again today, and now it cannot locate one of my internal hard drives.

 

[ubuysa]

Hi, yes I'm sure the laptop runs fine on the power alone and I purchase a brand-new battery from PCS so I know that is all fine.

Have run the temperature monitor programs (initially suggested by PCS) and they were fine.

Update: beeped and shut down again today, and now it cannot locate one of my internal hard drives.

You don't actually know that the new battery is good, only that it's new. Whilst unlikely, it's far from impossible that your new battery is also dud.

What were your temperatures at idle and under load?

If it runs fine on power alone then the issue is either with the new battery or (more likely) with the charging circuitry on the motherboard.

Did you check for arcing on the charger plug and socket? Did you check the battery pins in the laptop? Did you clean the battery terminals? Did you leave the laptop off and the battery on charge for at least 24 hours?

 

[fancellu]

My Optimus-VIII from 2017 was doing just this. Overheating, beeping, then shutting down

I took out the battery, after reading this threads, just mains, then fine, no overheating

Is this a known issue with these laptops?