np5620 problem

same thing happened to me. But i can get it working for about a week by giving it a slight knock on my knee. But eventually it cuts out again.

I am in New Zealand with no warranty as well.

I fear that I have got a loose connection somewhere on the motherboard. And since I have narrowed that down to the graphics part, as the whenever I start the computer after it says there has been a device failure with the ATI radeon.

I have managed to find me a 5660 service manual, (cheers bsmith!) and I am going to operate whenever I don't need my laptop urgently (which will not be for a while :S). Hopefully the ATi GPU or VRAM has come slightly loose, or just something needs a firm push into place!!!

I can't see how a knock would be fixing a problem like this, but at least its better than nothing.

Anyone else got any ideas before I open it up? I will take everything apart, cpu, HDD, EVERYTHING! hopefully when I put everything back it works perfectly :S

Give us an update of the progress or problems

I'm having the same exact problem as Rookie. I have the same model too. It seems to me that it's some type of overheating problems but i'm still not sure at this point. Anyone further advices would be appreciated. Thanks.

I have this problem as well. It got worse when I had a pcmcia card (PCS wireless) plugged in. WOW did it get hot - I got maybe a 1/2 hour out of it before it would just shut off. Needless to say, $250 for the card went down the drain, as I stopped using it to save my laptop.

One thing I tried when traveling: moving the bedside table in the hotel room directly in front of the a/c unit, placing the laptop with something under the back end so that the bottom of the unit was tilted with it's rear end pointing directly at the a/c.... and turning the a/c on full blast. It never shut off from overheating, but that's been the only time since it started pulling this crap.

On top of everything else, I think the cmos battery is dead - I get the nice message on boot-up about the clock not having the correct date and time (set for 1/1/98 and refuses to save a different one). Due to continual overheating?

" ARTIC SILVER ", that's the answer man! Nothing like it anywhere else in the laptop universe. Can't say enough about how good it is for me. Another option is to purchase ( ebay ) a under laptop cooling plate ( with at least four fans ) to direct more air under the laptop for the tans to pick up and circulate, I did and it keeps things from boiling. When playing doom 3 on mine, there's enough heat to keep the room warm. The only other cheap option is to elevate the laptop off the desk by raising the feet and leaving more spaaaaaaaace under for circulation.

grandpa ninja - old but not out

I don't think the problem is heat

I had a similar problem with my 5620. It was not heat it was the motherboard. What is happening I think is that one of the imprinted circuts is not connecting either by time or heat. My computer would hard freeze and every once in a while it would restart but then freeze again (very annoying). I eventually took my comp apart twice in order to figure out what was wrong. Couldn't find any problems with anything. I did notice that when my computer would hard freeze if it gave it a good hit on the bottom the screen would flash. By hitting it on the bottom I was also able to "reset" the computer again and reboot the system, until it would hard crash again. To fix this problem what I did was to open the case where the heat sink is. Then remove the heatsink. On the side closest to the middle there is something that looks like wire mesh that is protecting the aluminum there. What I did was to put some plastic credit card like material in between the casing and that wire mesh. This puts pressure on the motherboad so that that faulty connection will stay connected. So far it has worked like a charm (4 days and counting). Another guy has had the same problem and it has fixed his computer as well. Apparently, this is a weak point in the motherboard. You might want to try this. It beats having to go out and buy a new laptop. Give me some feedback if you have any success.