Notebook Power Down Problem

[bdenner]

Over the past 4 days my HP Pavilion NoteBook computer has not powered down correctly. On ‘Shut Down’ it goes through the a normal ‘Save Settings’ routine then displays the ‘Shutting Down’ window and locks up. There is no disk activity but something must be going on in the processor as the fan goes to full speed and hot air continues to expel from the exhaust port – right now the fan is only at idle which is normal.

I have to shut it down by pressing the Power Button for several seconds. There does not appear to be any hang ups on reboot and the machine operates normally. I’ve run routines like ‘Norton System Works’ and ‘TuneUp Utilities – Maintenance’ etc without success.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[cdnvic]

What's the model of laptop and OS?

[bdenner]

What's the model of laptop and OS?

HP Pavilion ze4523ap (a ze4500 series built for the Aust. Market)

Xp Home - SP2 with security updates current to a week ago.

By the way a 'System Restore' to a date prior to the problem did not help.

[ltdknowledge]

I have an HP also which does exactly what your describing and has being doing so for the last year. Fortunately there has been no problems. One thing i did notice on occasion is that it powered down when the PSU was disconnected, running on the battery.

[cdnvic]

From everything I can see this is a big annoyance with several HP Pavilion laptops (cooling seems to be a weak point for them) but not anything that's going to cause damage. Windows generally doesn't wind up the worse for wear in a hard shutdown. In ten years of them since Windows95 I've never had chkdsk find a problem after one.

The manual for the machine has something about resetting the laptop when this is happening:

Resetting the Notebook

Occasionally, Windows or the notebook might stop responding, so that you cannot turn the notebook

off. If this happens, try the following in the order listed. Press the power button to restart.

• If possible, shut down Windows: press ctrl+alt+del, and then select Shut Down > Restart.

If the system will not allow a software shutdown, press and hold down the power button

until the display shuts down (about 4 seconds) and then release the power button. Press the

power button again to restart.

• Use a ballpoint pen or a straightened paper clip to press the reset button on the bottom

of the notebook.

http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~motl/hp-ke.../manual4700.pdf

HP doesn't seem too worried about it.

Just in case, try shutting Norton down completely before you shut it off. It can sometimes cause systems to hang. Other things would be making sure the heatsink is clean and that there's nothing blocking air circulation.

[Gary A]

I read an article sometime back. I think cdnvic hit on the problem. The fix was a partial disassembly and a good cleaning. The unit refuses to shut down when it is overheated until the fan cools it off. The dust and crap that builds up caused the problem.

[bdenner]

From everything I can see this is a big annoyance with several HP Pavilion laptops (cooling seems to be a weak point for them) but not anything that's going to cause damage. Windows generally doesn't wind up the worse for wear in a hard shutdown. In ten years of them since Windows95 I've never had chkdsk find a problem after one.

The manual for the machine has something about resetting the laptop when this is happening:

------

HP doesn't seem too worried about it.

Just in case, try shutting Norton down completely before you shut it off. It can sometimes cause systems to hang. Other things would be making sure the heatsink is clean and that there's nothing blocking air circulation.

Thank you and thanks to Gary A. After some excellant advice from this forum I managed to sucessfully install a new hard drive into my Sony Vaio - after locating the 'Key' screw (take out one screw and the whole thing falls apart). Wouldn't suprise me if this has a similar locking system, after a bit of WEB searching I will have a go at cleaning, my olde HP OmniBook had overheating problems most of it's life without ill effects but for the life of me I could not get into it to clean.

Edit: Just downloaded the link - full service manual and it applies to my machine! Wonderful! Thanks again.

Edited January 15, 2007 by bdenner