Hi,
I have a old laptop from Compaq. Its a 6715b. I am working on this for a friend so here is the story. It had a copy of Windows 7 ultimate on it. This machine kept shutting off. It would just slam for no reason. After pulling his data off I was able to take a look at it.

I found that the OS was corrupted because of the machine just shutting off so many times. I SPRAYED it out with air in case of heat and reloaded it with Windows 7 Enterprise. This didn't really make a big change except it didn't seem to shut off as much. I looked around online and found some people talking about how this machine had a problem with just shutting off. Also how the machine had a problem with charging the battery.

I am thinking about changing the motherboard and seeing if this helps. If I can get a new version of the board maybe the battery problem and the random shut off would be fixed.

Does anyone else have a better idea before I buy a motherboard?

Thanks

  Throwing Windows 7 Ultimate and then Enterprise on it ... hopefully these are legal copies in use since this laptop initially came with Vista or XP, and usually if it was upgraded to Ultimate, it would REMAIN at Ultimate vs switching editions like this.

http://www.cnet.com/products/hp-compaq-6715b-15-4-turion-64-x2-tl-64-vista-business-2-gb-ram-120-gb-hdd-series/specs/

I wouldn't invest much money into this laptop. Its got an older CPU that is very slow compared to todays standards and the SATA controller is only a SATA-150 and not a SATA-300. I wouldn't invest more than like $30 into this laptop and the main board is probably going to cost you upwards of $50. If your lucky you might be able to find a same model for sale that works that has NO OS on ebay for like $50 and retain your original laptop as spare parts to support this other like model laptop. But there is the risk of spending $50 + shipping and ending up with a bunch of other problems in which you are immediately having to mix and match parts between the 2 of them to make 1 working computer.

Abrupt shutdowns can be Heat Related such as the thermal compound or thermal pad is no longer bonded correctly with heatsink and so it overheats and shuts down, or a Cooling Fan is stopping and causing system to shutdown, or as you mentioned the battery might not be charging or its drawing a lot from the power pack and the power pack struggles to both keep the system running at its load to run + is trying to charge a paperweight battery that has a shorted cell.

You can try powering it without a battery installed and see if it behaves. This requires the power supply/power pack to be powering the laptop by use of outlet power.

Here is one I found on ebay if your looking for a potential like system replacement or to mix & match good parts to make a working computer if its in FACT a main board issue. http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Compaq-6715b-15-4-Laptop-AMD-Turion-64-X2-2-GB-Incomplete-5154-/181738125335?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a506fb817



Hi,
Thanks for the answer.

I got it with ultimate on it. After getting a look at it I just pulled the data off and WIPED it clean to put enterprise on it. I have been playing around with it and found a ROM paq from Compaq. I installed it and the machine seemed to work better. At least it can do a restart now without it just slamming and not coming backup.

It will not run without being plugged in. I see a message saying 98% full but not charging when I put my mouse over the battery. By the way the battery is new or about 3 days old. I just got it for this machine. $16 from Amazon.





hmm... new battery and the new battery when at 98% charge will not power the laptop. Sounds like a defective battery or charging circuit for the laptop.I am thinking it is the charging circuit but I am going to give this a try....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx62t6qZ34U

I will let you know how I make out.



I shut the machine down and pulled the battery. Plugged it back in and deleted the power stuff in the device manager. Shut the machine down and put the battery back. It did start to charge and even showed the battery at 98%. I pulled the AC cable and after 2 mins the machine shut down. I am not sure why.

Thanks
Where are you getting these copies of Windows from?  Ultimate is twice the price of Home Premium and provides almost no benefit and Enterprise is only available to large institutions, not retail sale.Ultimate, as I said in a post above, was on the machine when I got it. I know nothing about the who, what, where it came from. And one of the first things I did was to format the drive so this doesn't enter into things. Its long gone and doesn't matter with the problem.

Enterprise I have because I work in IT. I am repairing a laptop for a guy here at work. It is a company machine.

I hope that this explains things.

I am going to try to figure out why the charging problem it still hanging around on this machine.

Thanks

I had to put this away to do other things for the last few days. I am going to go back to it.

Here is what I have done so far. I have changed the battery. I calibrated the battery and it now charges normally. I also changed the CMOS battery. I had one extra so why not. The machine was sitting for a while. I have done all the updates and as long as you leave the machine plugged in it works fine. As soon as you unplug the charger the whole machine drops. You still have it unplugged and try to boot it and it starts to come up. You get about 5 seconds into the boot and it drops.

To me it seems that some how the machine never changes over to the battery. It is stuck on the AC charger.

Anyone have any ideas on how to get it to see the battery?

 To me it sounds like the battery is likely dead/dying. The battery is brand new and I have been able to let it run out once during the calibration. It read 2% when I started to do a full charge. I let it sit over night and then it read 100%. I pulled the AC plug and the machine shut down.

Just in case I am going to buy another battery. I will let you know how I make out.



The MBoard power jack may be the culprit here...You maybe right about the jack. Do you have a way to test it? I know that it does seem firm when I plug it into the laptop.