Pavilion dv6815nr shuts off randomly, won't reboot

[ArrowPlains]

My HP Pavilion Entertainment PC : P/N: KN831UA#ABA (dv6815nr) started turning itself off abruptly and at random.

Now pressing the power button causes it to try and start, but after 5 to 20 seconds it turns off.

I recall that it got very hot a few times since I purchased it in April 2008.

I've read the boards and tried all the stuff they recommend such as removing the battery, hard reset, remove the CR2032 3Vdc RTC battery for an hour then replaced with a new RTC battery, put it in the garage overnight after removing the HDD so it would chill down to about 30 degrees F and brought it in the next morning and quickly installed the HDD and powered on with no change in symptoms. So it can't be an overheat problem.

All the lights and fan come on like normal and then after a few moments, PC goes completely dead. It shuts off like you have the battery removed and are powering it on AC and then pull the plug out of the wall outlet.

I'll continue to search the Internet for clues, tips, hints, etc for quite sometime as I don't want to give up on this PC, I really like it and have used it a lot. I know if I can fix this it still has many miles left on it.

The thing I've noticed most reading these boards is that there are a significant number of laptops within this model category with the same exact issues and HP has yet to do anything about it. Maybe they will if more reports keep coming in.

It is quite obvious that this many laptops of the same model with the same problem is the result of something they all have in common right from the factory, whether it's design, a bad lot of components, etc.

HP really needs to take a step in the right direction by solving what's causing this because once they do they will see that they need to have a recall for these models. This goes way beyond a few random identical failures.

HP: if you're listening....please help.

[Anthony_C]

I agree , I have contacted them on several occasaions and all they say is to send it in , which will end up costing me more than the laptop cost me. if something doesn't happen soon i am going to another manufactor because all i did up to this point was recommend hp and buy hp

[pseadynamo]

I was just recently battling the same problem. It would boot up and run Vista for about 10 min then shut down and not power back on for about 15 min.

The answer is that the CPU is overheating. I installed a program called "Speccy" that monitors the tempurature of the HDD and the CPU. THe CPU would go from a nice 47C up to 103C then the laptop would shut down like someone pulled the plug.

I then tried opening the laptop and applying new thermal paste. No improvement. Finally I started trying the different power settings(click on the battery icon on the taskbar) and found the "power saver" setting was the only one that worked. The Windows Vista default was "balanced" and that runs too hot.

Then I compared the advanced settings for "balanced" and "power saver" and saw that the CPU power settings for power saver were for 50% on both battery and on AC power.

I saw the balanced settings were at 100% for the CPU max power managment. I set it to 80% max... it shut down again. I set the processor maximum to 75%. It kept running! In fact I installed 99 windows updates over 4 hrs without any shut down problems.

So... go into the power options ---> chnage plan settings ---> change advanced power settings----> then adjust the processor maximum state to 75% (or lower).

Hope this helps you out and like I said I have been struggling with this for a month. I even installed Windows 7 and found it shuts the laptop down faster. Now I am back to Vista Business and all is good.

[Anthony_C]

I tried what you said , but once i get into control panel i have limtited time before it shuts down again , then i noitce on start up is shuts down right after bios ?? i'll try it again, it's upsetting that the laptop was practically brand new and all these people are having the same issue which i have been readin about on the internet, when's hp even going to acknowledge this????

Anthony

[Anthony_C]

tied starting it this morning and same issue on for about a minute or 2 then completly shuts down.

[ArrowPlains]

It's a hardware problem with the system board. A computer tech at Office Depot said he heard about this problem with these laptops and that a chip made by Nvidia was made with too thin of a heatsink on it and consequently could get too hot and render it useless.

In consideration of the cost to replace the system board, I purchased a new HP laptop. It's a G62-340US that I paid $350.00 for on sale. I'm going to take the HDD from the dv6815nr and put it in an enclosure and use it as an external HDD.

Good luck!

[G_Lady]

Hi,

My laptop will not boot. So, how do I remove the HDD? or where are some schematics on the motherboard/laptop?

ty

[Anthony_C]

you can remove the hard drive from underneith the laptop , it has two screws on the cover and is a sata srive so it pulls right out

[Anthony_C]

could the heatsink be replaced?

[ArrowPlains]

No it can't because it's an integral part of the chip.