Random hard shutdowns and lockups

I'm running a Toshiba satellite L655D with windows 7. A few months ago the hard drive went and i had a service plan on it so i just sent it in to get it replaced. when i got it back it worked fine for a while and then it just did a hard shutdown. by itself. like it would if you pulled the battery out. i didn't think much of it. between then and now, it has become more and more frequent. to the point of where it happens up to 10 times a day. and now, sometimes the screen locks up, stays looks up for about 15 seconds, then goes to either a white, black, or green screen. and to fix that, i have to do a hard shut down and turn it back on. otherwise it runs fine. but i want to know how i can fix it. i asked the IT teacher at my school what he thought as i walked by him in the hallway one day and he doesn't think its the hard drive that's causing the problem. any input would be great. thanks. Oh and i didn't know what to put this under as a problem because i don't know whether its software or hardware so yeah.

 

Hi Sherman. Welcome to Computer Help Forums.
I thinking this could be a heat problem and the system shutting down to prevent damage.
Download "Speccy" free and check the temps as close to the time of shutdown you can judge.

http://www.piriform.com/speccy/download

Eliminate this possibility first.
How long since it has had a good blow out to remove dust buildup?
Do you play games on this Computer?
Can you hear the fan startup on boot?

 

I agree with a thermal issue as DSTM has said, that is also my first impression. It is not impossible that they dislodged the fan connection when replacing the hard drive.

If the system is still under the service plan I would not open it up. I would send it back in.

 

I will download that program and try it out. I myself have never cleaned the dust out. Its not east to get apart. I do play games and i run autocad abd it crashes alot then. And yeah. The fan runs during boot and during use. Now looking at that, i should've thought of heat. Ill go download that program.

 

under normal operating conditions ,after running for a few minutes with only chrome open, the processor was 56 degrees C and the mother board was 53 degrees C. running a game for a few minutes, processor was 72 degrees C and the motherboard was 68 degrees C. then i opened every program on my desktop and covered the exhaust vent to see if it would crash but it did not. the processor heat peaked at 93 degrees C and the motherboard 83 degrees C. after closing all programs and letting it cool itself, the processor dropped down to 65 degrees in about a minute.

 

It does appear that there may be an issue with heat. What was the game you were playing? When you say you covered the exhaust vent, did you cover the vents around the CPU usually found at the bottom of the case. Are you using the laptop on a hard surface and not on (for example) your bed when this occurs?

There are a few things you can try without violating any warranty or service contract that you may have.
First get a can of compressed air and shoot short bursts trough all the vents. (Do not use prolonged spray as that can cause some real problems.) That may dislodge any dust accumulation.

Check your power settings. If it is on eco or other power saving options change them to balanced and if that does not work go to high performance. This may cause the fans to start a bit sooner.

Otherwise I would have it serviced since it is a daunting task to take a laptop apart.

Just how long have you had this machine?

 

it does it anywhere i put it. and when i said i blocked the vents, i blocked everything. i wraped my laptop in a sweatshirt. i always run it on high performance. and it just locked up a few minutes ago and it wasnt even running hot. and ive had it for about 2 years. maybe a little more.

 

Have you been keeping up with windows updates. I see where your replaced your HDD a few months ago which means that windows had to be reinstalled. How was that accomplished? Did you have an image or was it done from scratch as a new install?

I would also check to make sure that your drivers are up to date. I agree with your IT teacher that the HDD itself is most likely not the cause from a hardware sense but that does not mean that your system is up to date and properly installed with all proper drivers and updates.

 

well the hard drive totaly crashed to disuse. so they put a new one in and started me from scratch (toshiba replaced it, not me) and i updated windows yesterday.

 

Were there any windows custom updates relevant to your Toshiba?

 

i dont know. what do you mean? how do i check that?

 

Lets take this is steps: Go to your control panel and select "Windows Updates" does it show any updates available for you? Just to be sure go to the left side and select check for updates and let it do its scan.If there are updates download and install them from that page.

If that is all up to date we will then deal with the driver issue.

 

Oh. Yeah i did that yesterday. I thought you wanted me to check if i had any special updates for Toshiba or something.

 

Next go into your device manager (you can simply type device manager into the search box on the start menu) and see if there are any warnings showing next to your devices.

 

nope. no warnings that i can see.

 

Just to go back a few posts BeeCeeBee (post 12) mentioned about the drivers.
The white, black & green screens you mention as well as lock ups may be pointing to issues with your Graphics driver install, the green screen and lock ups especially make me think something is off with the driver , I'd try reinstalling that again next.

Firstly you'll need to download & install Driver Sweeper - http://www.techspot.com/downloads/4266-driver-sweeper.html
Next download the latest Graphics driver from the Toshiba site here - http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/download_drivers_bios.jsp

Now using Driver Sweeper uninstall AMD/ATI Catalyst (assuming the right graphics card for the laptop is a Radeon HD 4250) and restart the PC, then once restarted install the graphics driver you downloaded.

 

okay. and today it did a white and blue vertical stripes. lol. its gettin worse and worse every day. ill try what you said woodyblade

 

theres a bunch of NVIDIA drivers too. should i do anything with those?

 

i did what you said. removed the driver and reinstalled it. ill see if that worked. i'll report back to see if it does.

 

it didnt work. it just locked up and then went to a black screen. but the weird thing was, that it locked up, and then i punched the desk next to it, and then it went to a black screen. so could a wire be loose somewhere or frayed or something?