Spent a whole weekend on a weird power cycling loop

Got a laptop from a regular customer, a Dell Inspiron 15, that would turn on for about 30 seconds and then just shut off. No blue screen, no warning, just dead. I figured it was overheating, so I cleaned the fan and put on new thermal paste. Still did it. I swapped the RAM, tested the drive, even tried a different charger. Nothing worked. After maybe 8 hours of this, I was about to call it a motherboard issue. On a total whim, I took out the CMOS battery for a full minute and put it back in. Booted right up and has been fine for a week now. I guess the BIOS got stuck in a bad state? Has anyone else seen a simple CMOS reset fix a problem that looked that serious?

2 comments

2 Comments

wadeyoung10h ago

That "total whim" move saving the day is so real. It's like when my car starts making a noise and I'm ready for a huge repair bill, but then it just needs a gas cap clicked tight. Makes you wonder how many complex problems have stupid simple fixes we talk ourselves out of trying first.

charlie_stone7210h ago

Stupid simple fixes we talk ourselves out of trying" is so true... I always used to jump to the hardest solution first.