Help - something is loose in my computer

[SomePerson]

Starting earlier this week, I've had a problem where my laptop turns off suddenly and without warning. It's seemed to happen randomly, until I just now realize that if I smack my computer it does it. Every time.

So it seems to be some sort of connection issue where something is losing contact. I'm running a solid state drive so there's no problem with a hard drive failing under harsh accelerations. (I think my SSD is rated to 300 G's or something ridiculous) I think the only other moving part in my laptop is the fan, so it's got to be an electrical connection somewhere.

Now, this is a laptop so it's not so easy to take apart. So I'm wonder what to target during surgery, so I want to find what might be coming apart to make the computer just instantly lose power and go black. That's what it does - it's like pulling the battery, but I'm running dual batteries and I'm plugged into the wall so it can't be a loose battery.

Sometimes it hasn't come back easily, but when I smack it, it loses power and instantly turns itself back on again.

Any ideas? Something in the power unit because it seems like it's loosing power? But I'm not sure if something else could cause something like that, such as the hard drive or ram? I really have no idea where to start except to start with what's easiest to take apart, but I'd rather not go blindly into dissecting my entire laptop.

Cheers

[bonz]

You should check every connection starting from both batteries and the transformer/power chord to the motherboard's main power connector.
You might as well try all permutations of those 3 power sources installed, to see if a single one or a combination causes the issue. Then move further on to the motherboard.

I'd say it's less likely that a faulty peripheral like RAM, GPU, CPU or drives cause a sudden system power failure. Normally those kick the bucket with some sort of error message, screen artefacts lock-ups or similar.
But don't take my word for it.

Also, I once read a story where one guy had his (desktop) computer randomly shutting down.
He later found a loose screw that was slowly wandering from top to bottom, touching contacts and short circuiting them.
Maybe you have something similar that just doesn't move, but stays, ready for the next impact-induced short circuit.

[SomePerson]

It happened for the first time when the computer was asleep so I'm pretty sure now it's not a thermal or OS problem. Usually it's when I'm using it that it does it though, which is kinda funny becuase it must move around a whole lot in my backpack in sleep mode and it does nothing. To me that implies it's shorting out something that isn't usually involved in sleep operations...

I'll start taking it apart in two weeks after I finish my final exams. I don't have time to deal with it right now and I just hope it doesn't get worse or fail altogether right when I need it.

[SomePerson]

Took my laptop apart down to the motherboard. Found no loose connections. Fair bit of dust though. Cleaned all that out and I'm hoping that was the main issue - dust was shorting something out and making it lose power. We'll see if it crashes randomly again, at which point I don't know what else I would do.

[FutureWorm]

odds are good that if it's some sort of a short on the motherboard it wouldn't be visible to the naked eye. years ago i took apart an old ibook in an attempt to fix the optical drive but i ended up totally frying the logic board, though to this day i'm not sure how

[SomePerson]

well I had in my backpack in sleep mode and it decided to restart itself and sometimes when it does that it doesn't actually turn on again, it just blasts the CPU at 100% throttle. It's happened before and gotten a bit warm. But this time it was stowed in the car for a few hours when I guess the vibrations triggered it. So it must've been going for a few hours. Suffice to say when I took it out, it was really really hot, and it smelled that smell of burnt electronics. Suffice to say it didn't turn on again.

It displayed the bios splash screen but once it asked for bios password it just shut off.

I took the computer apart and took the cpu out, but I didn't see anything visually burned. So I dunno what's up.