Laptop randomly shuts down with a click after the battery has swollen and stops receiving power

[TarasOil]

Good morning/afternoon/evening.

Some time ago, my battery had swollen, so I took it out. After that laptop had trouble booting and would shut down with a click that sounds somewhat similar to a relay.

Apparently, around that time the CMOS battery also ran out of charge, but I haven't had the opportunity to have it changed yet.

Eventually, the laptop managed to boot and has been working fine since then, yet recently the problem has resurfaced with it shutting down spontaneously mostly after idling for a few minutes, but also occasionally during use.

And every time it shuts down it is accompanied by the same abrupt clicking sound somewhere a few inches to the right of the power button that wouldn't let the laptop turn off properly, and usually, after that, it would stop receiving power at all until AC adapter is replugged which may or may not be just a coincidence.

It passed HP PC Hardware Diagnosis all green.

During use, I do not experience any slowdowns, abnormal temperatures, or any other weird noises neither from it nor the AC adapter.

I don't think it is the absence of the battery since I'm pretty sure it is supposed to run without it just fine, and I kind of doubt CMOS running out of charge could cause something of this scale.

Thank you for attention.

[pbroussard · Accepted solution]

Since it is 4-5 years old, I'd suspect the power jack is getting a little sloppy causing an intermittent power loss. Since you have no battery installed, even the briefest of power loss will cause an immediate shutdown. Your main battery is also the CMOS battery.

Check your Power connector port, any looseness, replace it. And get a battery, aftermarket is probably the only battery available, check for a one year warranty, that's a good indicator of a good aftermarket battery.

Your Service Guide is here- http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05493193.pdf  it has the power connector cable list on page 18, and replacement procedures further down.