Laptop Instantly Shuts Down While Working

[MacLindroid]

My Acer e625 eMachines laptop has an AMD Athlon TF-20 1600 Mhz CPU which usually runs very hot. Over the past few days, I have experienced that the machine will instantly shut down while I am working. I have noticed that CPU temperature sometimes exceed 90 degrees Celcius. When on Powersave at just 800MHz, it already runs at 78 or more degrees Celcius. Obviously, the cooling fan is always running.

Is overheating the probable cause for these unplanned shut-downs or should I consider other possibilities?

OS: Linux Mint 17 32x Cinnamon up-to-date. I also have MATE installed and can use that if I need to.

[all41]

Got any lint build-up or dust bunnies blocking the air flow?

[MacLindroid]

Got any lint build-up or dust bunnies blocking the air flow?

No, it is fairly clean. I know that these CPU's run hotter than Intel but this is hectic, or should it be expected?

[all41]

only beaten when I admit defeat---so true, so true

I have done temperature runs on a few laptops which I considered running too hot for comfortable lap useage.
When I do this I measure the exhaust air temperature at the vents closest to the heat exchanger fins,
after a full charge, flat on a table, with the lid perpendicular, and on a cold start after being turned off overnight to stabilize the unit to room temperature. I keep a log for comparison.

one such instance:
HP dv7-Win7 Pro
I measured temperature at 121 F at the two hour mark. You can bet the average temperature inside exceeded that--this was uncomfortable on the lap. Next AM I repeated the test but booting to Mint live (Petra at that time) being careful not to disturb anything physically, and the results dropped to 106 F at the two hour mark--still uncomfortable for laptop use. (the ambient starting temperature was 70 on the first run and 71 on the second)

Searched it out online and found dozens of too hot reports for this model.
This was a rather powerful laptop for it's time--hdmi, dual 320Gb drives, etc. Would have made a decent desktop, but when confined, and with limited airflow--heat is the nature of the beast.

[MacLindroid]

only beaten when I admit defeat---so true, so true

I have done temperature runs on a few laptops which I considered running too hot for comfortable lap useage.
When I do this I measure the exhaust air temperature at the vents closest to the heat exchanger fins,
after a full charge, flat on a table, with the lid perpendicular, and on a cold start after being turned off overnight to stabilize the unit to room temperature. I keep a log for comparison.

one such instance:
HP dv7-Win7 Pro
I measured temperature at 121 F at the two hour mark. You can bet the average temperature inside exceeded that--this was uncomfortable on the lap. Next AM I repeated the test but booting to Mint live (Petra at that time) being careful not to disturb anything physically, and the results dropped to 106 F at the two hour mark--still uncomfortable for laptop use. (the ambient starting temperature was 70 on the first run and 71 on the second)

Searched it out online and found dozens of too hot reports for this model.
This was a rather powerful laptop for it's time--hdmi, dual 320Gb drives, etc. Would have made a decent desktop, but when confined, and with limited airflow--heat is the nature of the beast.

I just opened up the little beast and was surprised to find how clean it was inside. An insignificant amount of "dust" even in PC terms, but I have put a spacer underneath for better breathing. I am saving up for a new laptop http://www.comx-computers.co.za/Buy-Not ... -92493.php and it will cost me about US$1,059 when using 1TB hybrid drive, Haswell i7 Quad CPU and 16GB RAM. I was also contemplating a small SSD as I won't need more than 128GB but I am still weary of SSD's. The existing machine has to last until the money is right.

[SJLPHI]

That Acer is designed horribly. My friend and I had the same model, both started overheating crazy so we tried to modified a little bit. In the Center of the motherboard they stuck the HDD and that's also where the "airflow" is on the casing. No modification could be made. [Without drilling a hole through the HDD]

In short, In any decent laptop, they have air intake at the bottom, back, side (and/or) and one air out vent on the left side, this one only has workable air outtake on the left side and the vent in the back is covered by the laptop screen when you open the lid.

I've also decided to keep away from Acer computers and AMD cores because every single acer computer with amd core died on me within 2~3 years from the time I bought them brand new. I switched to Lenovo with Intel i5 cores. I can't complain much other than peripherals

[MacLindroid]

Thanks for the advice and for rubbing salt into my wounds........I sold my Thinkpad T61p about 2 years ago. The most stupid thing I had ever done with regard to computers. This AMD is but a temporary arrangement.

I cut up a good rubber eraser last night into four blocks, to better vent the little devil from beneath, Yes, these are horrid machines, never should have been built. Would you mind looking at the proposed one in the link above? Mecer = Clevo made in Taiwan and sold under various other brands as well.

proposed config:

cpu = i7 Quad as per price list
hdd = 1tb ssd/hdd hybrid OR full SSD
ram = 16gb

Overkill, perhaps?

[all41]

And you will see laptop cooling pads with fans powered via usb. Right! I'm supposed to carry that around with me?
Can't fit it in the case. Drain the battery even faster?
Use it in flight? Maybe even someday pay an extra carry-on fee.
Defeats the premise of a laptop to begin with--portability.

[MacLindroid]

And you will see laptop cooling pads with fans powered via usb. Right! I'm supposed to carry that around with me?
Can't fit it in the case. Drain the battery even faster?
Use it in flight? Maybe even someday pay an extra carry-on fee.
Defeats the premise of a laptop to begin with--portability.

You will see that the laptop as above is a 17.3" one. It will remain stationary mostly, with a 12.x" Samsung Note 3 or whatever the latest is, do assume "notebook duties" instead. Why a notebook for home office? Simple: severe space constraints, unless I buy a good used iMac for that purpose and scrap the notebook idea altogether. The iMac can then do Mint with LibreOffice and I will install AndroOpenOffice on the tablet. (Polaris just doesn't make the grade yet.) Tablet has optional Bluetooth keyboard, so travel can be easy.

[SJLPHI]

That computer looks like a beast with quite an impressive specs especially at that price. I've never heard of Mecer, and it really depends on what you want to do with the laptop. If you are looking for home office, i7, with 16GB ram is an overkill.

I use my Lenovo E530, i5-3210M, 10GB ram for "home office" duty. It rarely leaves my room with a cooling pad under (HDD has been on for 290 days and I had this new since June 2013). Also I salvaged old computer HDD with external cases so I have 6 external HDD.

I would say from my experience, i5 (2~3Ghz)//newer generation the better, 6~10GB ram, with around 500GB HDD would do all the work just perfectly. I am yet to see what the fuzz about SSD's are really about, to my understanding; they are very expensive and fast, I think of them as big flash drives. I'll probably look into them in 2024.

[MacLindroid]

That computer looks like a beast with quite an impressive specs especially at that price. I've never heard of Mecer, and it really depends on what you want to do with the laptop. If you are looking for home office, i7, with 16GB ram is an overkill.

I use my Lenovo E530, i5-3210M, 10GB ram for "home office" duty. It rarely leaves my room with a cooling pad under (HDD has been on for 290 days and I had this new since June 2013). Also I salvaged old computer HDD with external cases so I have 6 external HDD.

I would say from my experience, i5 (2~3Ghz)//newer generation the better, 6~10GB ram, with around 500GB HDD would do all the work just perfectly. I am yet to see what the fuzz about SSD's are really about, to my understanding; they are very expensive and fast, I think of them as big flash drives. I'll probably look into them in 2024.

Mecer is a re-branded http://www.clevo.com, an OEM manufacturer in Taiwan.

I tend to keep my laptops for very long, even well over a decade. Overkill now may be just adequate in 5019 years' time. Even so, I think that I should tone down to i5 and 8GB RAM, or 10GB and reserve 2GB for graphics. It is mainly and office workstation but I easily use 3 - 4 different browsers simultaneously, whith many office apps running, crunching a move and writing another to a DVD, all at the same time! It will be used also for making presentations but perhaps the tablet or even the next new phone can drive the projector or big screen. DSP has made it easy; we don't need a thick cable for that any more..

Just as a hobby, I take old WW2 footage and add some story to it after some research and then compile a movie from it, just for fun and I never even keep them, but delete it as soon as it bores me. The fun is in playing around with formats and effects. My own bit of carziness.

My best ever was a Lenovo Thinkpad T61p followed by a Dell Latitude. I was daft enough to sell both. Recently, I gave away an old HP Compaq NX9010 from 2002 and my son now has the MacbookPro, an i5 with 8GB RAM aand 128 SSD. I ditched Mac and am using the old Acer that was lying about unemployed. It seems to be working fine now, but it was the first ever serious issue I had experienced on a laptop, ever.

I also have an old WD HDD used as an external backup device.

Those Thinkpads were magic.