Laptop shuts off when moved

Hi naturalTAN,

I will suggest you to run the hardware diagnostics to check the hardware functionality. The steps are:

• Shut down and restart the computer.
• Press the F12 key immediately when the Dell logo appears. The Boot Device list appears.
• Select Diagnostics and press the Enter key.

Also, as the issue occurs when the system is moved; you may check the functionality in the system BIOS.

Boot to the system setup screen and then try moving the system to see if the system turns off even in BIOS.

• Shut down and restart the computer.
• Press the F2 key immediately when the Dell logo appears.

Keep me posted with the results. I will be glad to assist you further.

I have the same problem Naturaltan, I have been thru all the online & phone tech support, I live in country South Australia & its a Substitute character removed as per TOU>

I ran the hardware diagnostics with F12. Everything had a green check next to it except for the hard drive which had a blue circle. Could this be the source of the problem?

I also  went to the setup screen with F2 and moved the computer around for a few minutes, shifting it on my desk and gently picking it up and placing it back on my desk and the laptop did not shut off. I'm not sure if the fact that it remained on means anything because sometimes I can move it with no trouble, but lately it shuts off much more frequently and I'm losing information.

Hi ms_julie,

I would like to apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

At times it becomes difficult to diagnose and eliminate the cause for the issues occurring. It could be that reason for which the system was asked to be sent to the depot for repairs.

You may share the system's Service Tag and Owner's/Company's Name with me via private message (click my username and then click Start Conversation) and I will check what best can be done.

Keep me posted with the information. I will be glad to assist you further.

I would like to add to this issue.

I have a Dell Inspiron 15R (N5110 Canada) model.

It would shut-down from any type of movement or shock. I've confirmed it's not the hard drive as I manually replaced the hard drive with a 2.5" Samsung EVO Pro 256GB SSD and it still shuts down.

I think it may have something to do with something in the motherboard that is loosened from the heat of the laptop. Perhaps something that is glued onto the motherboard or a loose wire connected to the power supply.

I replaced the hard drive with an SSD because it was out of warranty. I'm using a MacBook Pro for work now, so all the Dell laptop is good for is a stationary gaming laptop. I might take it apart to see if I can fix the issue myself instead of paying for repairs at the cost of a new laptop.

Best of luck.

Hi Found this thread with similar problems with a HP laptop. My sister gave me this laptop recently because she couldn't get it to work. Started with a black screen. What I have learned about the start button, once you try it and nothing or little happens, wait 15 seconds before trying again. If the start button gets to the point of not lighting at all than hold it for 30 seconds to clear the capacitors When I had finally got something on the screen it would shut down and I would try again but wait 15 seconds before hitting that start button. I read that the problem could be the cord so I tried another outlet. I eventually got it to boot up but eventually it would shut down just as soon as something appeared on the screen. But over time the screen would stay on a little longer.  It ran so-so for two days than it took two days of hitting the start button. But I would try for an hour or so during the day when I wasn't doing something else. But anyway, the first thing I learned was that the sleep mode was active with hitting the start button so I made changes to that. The next thing, it seemed like it was shutting down on any sleight movement with the laptop which is what brought me here. After two more days of fail-starts I decided to go to safe mode because someone here said to hit f12 and do a diagnostics and that led me to doing a system restore. But before doing so, to make sure, I rapped the laptop and sure enough it shut down. Did something that did a search for bad files in adobe files, Microsoft visio and other updates including some security files that said these files needed to be deleted and then the computer went through a system restore and presto, it works! I can now rap it good and it doesn't shut down. I created an account just to share this results. I thank those who helped. Leon  

hai kuldeep 

  i too have the same problem that naturalTAN has and i dont think that it is due to the malfunctioning of HDD ,and the problem is not  showed  while charging, i am sure that the problem is in the connection between battery and mother board

Hi

My laptop continued to have problems after my last post. Decided to take it apart to do a cleaning. Also located a you tube video on the exact laptop on how to take it apart. I did find some dust accumulation on a couple of connectors. Be very careful with the tiny tab connectors. Had a tiny piece come off one of the connectors, I tried under magnification to put it back in place but had no luck. Luckily, the tab broke after I closed the connection. After reassembly, the laptop has worked flawlessly and does not get hot by the fan anymore. Another thing I did while I had it apart, I cleaned any stains on the keyboard backing plate sheet, don't know what else to call it offhand.

Regards, Leo

Hi,

I have a Dell Inspiron 17R Notebook (Inspiron 5721) that I bought in August 2013 and have been having the same issue described by the original poster for about a year or so. Unfortunately I've been busy and just never got around to looking into it until now. I found this and ran 2 Hardware Diagnostics tests last weekend. The first said that "No problems have been found with this system so far. Do you want to run the remaining memory tests?" The second test took a while longer & said "All tests passed."

I'm not sure what the next step would be and what else I might try. From what the other posters wrote on this thread, it sounds like some suggest it's a mechanical issue. Any advice on what to try next? Thanks!

Hi James

Since I last posted I had to do another tear down and re-clean of the connector to the off/on switch. My theory is, because the heat sink fan is located in the same upper left corner (underside) as the off/on switch, I think this is how the dust accumulates on the connector, causing the laptop to shut down or not restart. Hope this helps.

Regards, Leon.

Hi,

My wife's Dell laptop has grown progressively more sluggish so I thought maybe a solid state drive (SSD) upgrade might help. So I pulled out from my spare collection a 256GB Crucial SSD to replace the original 500GB Seagate ultra thin drive. In order to do this I had to take apart the SSD to remove the spacer between the back plate and the PC board.

Once Windows 10 was installed back on the SSD, the laptop works great until it suddenly shut off when I picked it up by the bottom right side of the keyboard. I knew the flexing of the laptop casing had something to do with it, after a couple more shutdowns like that I began to perform disassembly/assembly a few more times to troubleshoot until I recalled how close the metal back plate was to the PC board of the SSD after I removed the spacer.

Then I proceeded to put some masking tape on the metal back plate and problem was solved. Now I can pick it up in any manner and even tried to bump it hard a few times. No more problems.

I wondered if this might be a common problem with modern ultra-thin laptops which require ultra-thin hard drives, and more so with SSD. I noticed that the original ultra-thin hard disk is much sturdier as compared to the SSD whose enclosure is all plastic except for the metal back plate which had no insulation.

It appears the SSD I have is ready for ultra-thin application by removing the spacer, but this makes the bare metal back plate dangerously close to the tiny electronics on the PC board. This would have been fine if the SSD is housed in a sturdier laptop casing.

I hope this helps someone.

Mine was shutting down when stationsry, I took it apart and cleaned the blobs of lint out of the fan. After that it was fine but then I noticed it would shutdown when I moved it. This thread mentioned the SATA contacts so I put elec. tape across both sata's (cd and ssd) and now its fine! my 6 yr old laptop is like new, thx!