Computer turns off, can only turn on when battery removed and put back in?

[jbitakis]

I have a pretty good Laptop. It is an HP Probook 4730s, with an i7 processor, 8gb ram, 700GB hard drive. I have this new Corel Videostudio Pro software program, and I am in the process of Rendering a large 20GB HD video. All of a sudden, my computer turns off. And what is weird is that it won't turn back on, even when plugged in. It will only turn back on when I take out the battery and put it back in. This has happened 3 times since I started rendering this video.
What do you think is happening? Is the video rendering that I am doing "too much" for the computer to handle?
If so, is there a way to direct all the power to just do this one video job?

[redwudz]

Maybe overheating? You might try HWMonitor and see if the temps are high and the voltages are correct. http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

[p_l]

Also, you can set up Core Temp to display in your All CPU Meter desktop gadget.

[jbitakis]

Even if it is overheating, is there a way to prevent this, short of not running the corel videostudio pro? Because I need to render this video.

[p_l]

Try this and this. <- (mouse over smilie; get it?)

[redwudz]

I would make sure that overheating is or is not the problem first. And I forgot to mention, you should also check in MS Task Manager and see how much CPU and RAM the program is using.

Depends on what format you are encoding to, but Mpeg and some other formats don't require that much CPU power for a timely encode. Formats like H.264 can easily max out your CPU with 100% CPU on all cores and make it run fairly warm. RAM doesn't matter much, as long as you have sufficient for your OS. For a 32 bit OS, 4GB. 64 bit, maybe 8GB, though W7 64 bit will run fine on 4GB RAM.

[Bjs]

The "weird" part is something which has plagued the hp dv series so its a problem which hp has yet to properly address ... in this situation its remove power and battery, press and hold power button for 30 seconds then connect to mains while still holding the power button down, restart and shutdown, insert battery and resume as per normal ... and yes the problem exists in other models not just the dv series ... there are many complaints about this particular unit.

How long have you had the unit

If you see dust collecting on book case's every 2 to 3 months then you'll have to do the cleaning bit posted (1st link) by p_l and find a better location where dust is reduced ... if under warranty take it back and get them to check and confirm the unit ... How is the unit sitting ... never leave non desktop units laying on flat surfaces as the heat will build up. Esspecially in the hard drive bay, they get hot enough to burn most people.

Current season temps ... personally I never power up units once it reaches above 28c inside ... the server is located in a water tower type enclosure as it needs 100% up-time for business backup services, every thing else is off till it starts cooling down.

Programs .. especially anything video encoding related will certainly push temperatures of all critical parts ... for those you could use monitoring types software to gauge system performance ... hopefully if something is spotted it may be simple to rectify.

Is there anything you can do ?

Well one of the simplest things to do is open task manager and before you let the encoding begin you could set the programs priority to low and set affinity to use only two cores ... it be a bit slower but if its successful you'll at-least have one work around method.