Overheated laptop AC adapter (random shutdowns)

[nyik]

Would an overheated laptop AC adapter be the cause of random shutdowns? How hot is "too hot"? Is "too hot to the touch" considered too hot?

[Kwirky]

They do get hot to the touch for sure, but they also have thermal protection circuitry that would shut it down to prevent damage when they get too hot. How old is the laptop, and what model do you have? If you remove the battery, does the problem go away?

[nyik]

They do get hot to the touch for sure, but they also have thermal protection circuitry that would shut it down to prevent damage when they get too hot. How old is the laptop, and what model do you have? If you remove the battery, does the problem go away?

Laptop is Asus N81vp-c1 (1.5 yrs old). Removing the battery does not resolve the issue.

Issue:
- random shutdowns (no BSOD).

It already has gone into Asus once for RMA and the motherboard got replaced. I installed HWMonitor on it to monitor temps, they stay relatively low (40-50c). Wife uses per normal usage (office, online, no gaming). It's already on a laptop cooler. Vents have been cleaned. RAM has been tested. HDD has been scanned/tested/checked. Even a fresh install of Win 7 was used to test. Even with all of the above, the shutdowns continued.

I bought a new universal laptop charger today from NCIX (Antec SNP90), and it's been running for a few hours now. Right now I can hold the adapter brick in my hand, and it's warm, as in it feels like a nice warm-hot cup of hot chocolate. When I compare that to the previous adapter, the previous adapter would turn scalding hot in 5 seconds and I'd have to put it down.

So far, the new SNP90 adapter has not gotten too hot, and the laptop has not shutdown unexpectedly. Although based on past experiences, the laptop could go for a few days without shutting down, and then it would shut down 3-4 times a day.

So we'll see if this fixes the issue. So far it's looking promising.

[Tornado F2]

Laptop is Asus N81vp-c1 (1.5 yrs old). Removing the battery does not resolve the issue.

Issue:
- random shutdowns (no BSOD).

It already has gone into Asus once for RMA and the motherboard got replaced. I installed HWMonitor on it to monitor temps, they stay relatively low (40-50c). Wife uses per normal usage (office, online, no gaming). It's already on a laptop cooler. Vents have been cleaned. RAM has been tested. HDD has been scanned/tested/checked. Even a fresh install of Win 7 was used to test. Even with all of the above, the shutdowns continued.

I bought a new universal laptop charger today from NCIX (Antec SNP90), and it's been running for a few hours now. Right now I can hold the adapter brick in my hand, and it's warm, as in it feels like a nice warm-hot cup of hot chocolate. When I compare that to the previous adapter, the previous adapter would turn scalding hot in 5 seconds and I'd have to put it down.

So far, the new SNP90 adapter has not gotten too hot, and the laptop has not shutdown unexpectedly. Although based on past experiences, the laptop could go for a few days without shutting down, and then it would shut down 3-4 times a day.

So we'll see if this fixes the issue. So far it's looking promising.

Sounds like you may have (hopefully) already identified the problem and solved it. The old adapter getting scalding hot in seconds sounds like a potential fire hazard, possibly due to an iternal short.

I did once have an old P3-based tower PC that kept shutting down without warning. It turned out to be a loose/damaged power wire for the CPU cooler that caused the fan to stop and the CPU to overheat. It doesn't sound like that's your laptop's problem, but you might want to check to make sure the cooling fan keeps spinning when the laptop is on, just in case it is as simple as that.

[PurePsychism]

Kinda happened to my Asus A53SV (it wouldn't charge), power adapter was changed by Asus for free and it was fixed.