Desperatly need laptop help

[niggles]

I'm done! seriously, I can not figure this out. My A21M IBM laptop just shutsdown for no reason. It might last 20 minutes and the boom, it's gone. I've pulled out the CPU fan because I thought perhaps it's a temperature issue. There doesn't seem to be any temperature gages in this laptop so I don't know if it's overheating or not. Given that I don't see how it would simply shutdown. How would it know it needed to shutdown for a temperature issue if there was no thermometer right? When this first started I could keep it on up to an hour, or slightly more. I have reformatted quite a few times thinking that it might be an OS issue, but the problem keeps re-occuring. I read somewhere that there was a capacitor issue and that in order to make sure the capacitor didn't get messed up it would be necessary to pull the battery and the CMOS battery and hold the power button down for 90 seconds. Well I did that and it didn't work, it still shuts down. Does anyone have *any* insight on this problem?

 

[Abhi]

99% this wont solve your problem, but try re seating your ram.

Also there must be some kind of tmperature gauge on your machine... Is the fan working? Does it stay on for more time than it used to?

 

[3chordcharlie]

Is the battery old?

It might be shutting down due to low/critical battery level; older batteries can really act up in this way.

To see if it has temp sensors, thoroughly explore your BIOS, and then try MBM and see if it can find temps.

 

[GMElias]

bump for you to get some help.

 

[niggles]

Thanks for the thoughts guys... On the RAM question, I've reseated the RAM quite a few times, to be honest it doesn't really clip in properly in the first place. It sits at a 30 degree angle until the cover is placed over it and then it lies flat. Still, the connections are made and it's seated fine. I wouldn't think that is the issue or it wouldn't boot would it? It boots everytime no problem, it's just eventually it shuts down fow what I can see is no reason. There temperature isn't even listed in the Bios let aside from the fact that I can find no utility to verify the temperature. Yes there is a CPU fan, that was the first thing I replaced, but to no avail.
On the battery question, no the battery will not hold a charge anymore, but it was shutting down even before the battery died. I tried running it just from battery, I tried removing the battery, in all three states in would shut down. I don't see how the battery would be the issue based on this process.
Any other thoughts, ideas?

 

[thirdlegstump]

Rebooted?

 

[niggles]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Rebooted?

I'm not sure what "Rebooted" means. Are you asking if it reboots, or simply shuts down? If so, then no, it simply shuts down. Does anyone else have anythoughts?