Laptop turning off after ~20 seconds?

[gumbald]

Don't dabble much in fixing other people's computers these days, but been given one and it's got me stumped at nearly the first hurdle.

It's a couple of year old Advent jobby, turned it on the first time and made it as far as the Windows failed to boot screen, then turned off. So next time I went into the BIOS, where it turned off after roughly the same amount of time. Done it a couple more times since, always roughly the same time before turning off. Which leads me to think it's not overheating?

 

[Scrutinize]

It's a couple of year old Advent jobby,

Found your problem ^^^^





could be any number of things inc faulty power circuit, motherboard, loose connection, dry solder, memory, cpu, gpu and so on….

you could spend hours chasing this round and not solve it or it could be something dead simple but not an easy fix. is there any sign of drop / water damage?

 

[Django x2]

Any beeps during POST?

 

[gumbald]

Found your problem ^^^^

I winced when the thing was bought, knew it might bite me someday.

could be any number of things inc faulty power circuit, motherboard, loose connection, dry solder, memory, cpu, gpu and so on….

you could spend hours chasing this round and not solve it or it could be something dead simple but not an easy fix. is there any sign of drop / water damage?

It's been badly treated, but no water damage that I know of. Screen was replaced about a year ago!

Any beeps during POST?

Just a single faint beep, nothing to indicate fundamental issues (it's a Phoenix BIOS, I believe that means fine?).

I've just spent longer than 20 seconds in the BIOS when testing that, puzzling.

Hard drive doesn't sound too healthy either.

 

[Scrutinize]

You could spend longer and more money trying to fix this thing than it is worth esp if it has had a hard life and could have had drops and water damage or spills over the keyboard.

 

[Django x2]

Spills over the keyboard is reserved for Mac users tbh!