Laptop shuts off after Windows Setup, but before it boots INTo Windows

[murphy55d]

Ok so a friend of mine was going to throw this laptop away, so he asked if I wanted to take it and see if I could get it working. I said sure.

it's a Gateway MD2614U, has a Turion 64X2,. 3GB ram, etc. Decent machine, only a few years old. They couldn't even get it to turn on.

Got a new power cord, it started up. I had a feeling the old one was bad, and I was right. Also discovered that the battery is toast, and holds ZERO charge. Still booted up and stuff just fine on AC power though.

So now, I start to install Windows, and when I tried to install Windows 7, it would blue screen after it got past the loading files and then the spinning windows/color screen part, saying system fault etc etc. I did a little digging and the BIOS version doesn't support win7, so I thought ok, I'll grab my old XP copy. Well, it does the same thing basically, it'll load all the setup files, then as soon as it goes to restart into "Starting Windows", it totally powers off. No blue screen, no faults, no nothing, literally. Powers off.

I did get the Ultimate Boot CD, ran the hard drive diagnostics, and it came back no errors. So I don't think its the drive, my next thought was overheating so I took all the screws out, blew it out with canned air, re-seated the memory, still same deal.

I tried loading Knoppix Live, and after it gets past the "Starting sound" and wants to move to the next part, it freezes up and the screen gets distorted, and it freezes.

What else can I try? Would buying a new battery remedy any of this? I don't want to dump too much money into this for it to be for nothing.

What should my next step be?

Thank you!

 

[jackofalltrades]

Sounds like the old onboard video problem so many laptops in that class had, it will start to a certain point the shut down no errors or anything because as it heats up the broken contacts separate and it shuts down a few seconds later it will start right back up then shut down again.

Some people have success with a heatgun or an oven baking/heating the gpu to reflow the solder I did it a couple of time only suceeded 2 times and it never held up for long 3 months was the max it worked for, then reheating it made it not boot for good, prob warped the gpu chip. Good luck I would part it out and not sink any money into the machine.

 

[murphy55d]

I looked into this heatgun/oven fix and a lot of people suggest wrapping it in some towels, let it run for an hour or two, then let it cool. Same result. I suppose this is worth a shot, I'd rather try that first, before I venture into baking the motherboard.

thanks for the tip.

 

[jackofalltrades]

It has to be able to stay powered on and you would most likley finish off the computer wrapping it in towels it would overheat all the components, I wouldn't even try that because you will fry the cpu hard drive etc..
You would have no control of of the heat, and it would just shut off anyway, your words not mine. If it won't run your plan will fail no heat no work.

 

[D.SKiLL]

I had a similar Gateway computer do the same thing with a client, I found that thier was an option to enable /disable AHCI in the Bios, which solved the issue and i was able to install Windows 7 on it. I initially though that it was the common igp Overheat issue but this solved the issue for me.

 

[murphy55d]

I don't see anything called ahci or anything similar...