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centracare_Fl 0 Newbie Poster

Symptoms:

Laptop boots up and dies in about a minute

User had previous trouble with keyboard and had removed and reinserted it before.
First 20 seconds of boot attempt is met with that loud "stuck key" repeating sound.


Removed keyboard.
System began booting without sound, ran for a minute, shut down.

Remove hard drive and CD rom.

System began booting, gave "no boot device message", hung around for approximately a minute and shut down.


Started to disassemble laptop as per instructions here (overheating? stuck fan?)
http://www.insidemylaptop.com/disassemble-gateway-nv-series-laptop-fix-power-jack/

Got half way into it, saw that fan seemed to be quite clean (laptop just over 1 yr old ...barely past warranty)

Flipped it over and looked at memory chips...
EUREKA!


One was slightly askew!

Took both out, reseated them, turned on power...

SUCCESS!

Machine is up and running, w/o a care in the world.


Moral... When the chips are down...they usually are!

Check your memory chips.

It may not be the likely fault, but since it only takes 10 seconds to check, its a worthwhile item to be at the TOP of your checklist!

Edited by centracare_Fl because: n/a
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Dani AI

Generated

Good catch by — a marginal electrical contact can produce confusing symptoms: POST beeps, a short successful boot, then a shutdown. Below is a brief explanation of why that happens plus a short, prioritized troubleshooting checklist and a few cautions to save time and risk.

Why this happens: a loose or intermittent RAM contact can corrupt data during POST or early kernel startup. Firmware often responds to persistent memory faults by halting or failing a graceful boot, which looks like a one-minute run followed by a shutdown. By contrast, a shutdown that consistently happens after the OS is running points more toward thermal or power-rail problems. Early beep patterns usually indicate POST/hardware-level issues (keyboard matrix, RAM, GPU, etc.) rather than an application-level crash.

Quick, prioritized checks

  • Run a bootable memory tester (memtest86 or similar) and let it complete several full passes.
  • Test a single SODIMM at a time and swap slots to separate bad module vs bad slot.
  • Try a known-good module if available; if errors appear only in one slot, suspect the motherboard.
  • Boot on AC with the battery removed (and vice versa) to rule in/out battery/DC issues.
  • Inspect the DC jack for looseness and the board for bulging caps or burned areas.
  • If contacts look oxidized, clean RAM gold-fingers gently with 90%+ isopropyl and a lint-free cloth, then reseat.
  • Capture BIOS POST codes or OS event logs if the system stays up long enough.

Cautions and next steps: use ESD precautions, back up critical data before long diagnostics, and avoid BIOS updates unless diagnostics clearly recommend them. If the problem is intermittent after reseating, replace the inexpensive SODIMM first; persistent faults often escalate to board-level repair.

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