Laptop restarts randomly (Update)

[muckymucks]

Does anyone know what could be causing my laptop to restart randomly? This laptop is about 11 years old, it's not my main computer but it's been working so I keep it around. I mostly use it to farm TF2 items and occasionally as a second monitor. But in the past month or so it has started to randomly restart.

I've done a few things. I reinstalled Windows, the battery died years ago so it only runs while being plugged it, so I changed plugs. It still restarts. The reason I don't think it's a power issue is because it restarts, it doesn't shut down. And it only does it when it's not doing very much. When I farm TF2 items it never restarts. I have the game running for hours, it always stays on. But if I have a torrent client open and a Twitch stream playing it's only a matter of time before it restarts.

I also changed the thermal paste about three years ago so that's still fresh.

It's been a good laptop up to this point so I'm at lost why it's doing this.

[_I_]

probably poor battery
if it cant deliver the power under load

does it restart when using the power brick?

[muckymucks]

Opprinnelig skrevet av _I_:

probably poor battery
if it cant deliver the power under load

does it restart when using the power brick?

The laptop only turns on when connected to the power brick. The battery died years ago.

[_I_]

the laptop cpu/gpu may need more power than the brick can provide on its own

if the battery cant hold any or enough charge it may not be able to power the laptop at full load

[Vox]

What does event viewer say?

[muckymucks]

Update. The last resort was opening the laptop up and cleaning it out. To my surprise there was a bit of dust in there. I cleaned the fan, heatsink, reapplied thermal paste, and looked it over, made sure there were no loose wires. It's been a few days and that appears to have fixed it. It was overheating after all.

This laptop is over ten years old and it looks like it's going to give me another ten years out of it.

[N3tRunn3r]

Check Energy Options -> Advanced Settings,

..so it is not going to hibernate or going into stand-by mode while being plugged in .. without a battery implemented, this might cause issues ..

After a Windows fresh & clean install, this is one of the very first steps I do check myself ..

[Bob the Boomer]

3 years between hanging thermal paste if I read correctly, is not fresh and best to see if it feels dry or flakey if so it needs a new application

[Mr White]

Motherboard maybe on the way out. Take to shop and tell them what is happening