I think it's time to call Dell and get them to take a look at it, you might need the heatsink or the processor replaced....

I would think though, that if the heatsink were bad, when playing 3 hours of Halo or Raven Shield that as well would cause problems... but it doesn't.

It might do that as a failsafe if the CPU fan fails the post test. You may have a CPU fan ready to shoot craps. I'd call for service.

Regards,

Below is the word for word message I receive. Again, I get this error from time to time when I first hit the power button, the computer shuts itself off, then, on the next boot, after POST and BIOS checks, I get the message. I have never had it shut itself off two boots in a row though.

"Your system automatically powered itself off because it became warmer than expected. This may have been caused by:
o) operating or storing the system in an enviroment where the ambient temp is too high or,
o) obstructing the air flow from the system fan vents.
If this problem recurs please call Dell Support with error code #M1004."

Well, the computer has never powered itself off while running, so that eliminates half of the first option (operating). The laptop is inside where the ambient temp is at maximum 25C (75F), which eliminates the second part of the first option (storing). That leaves me with the second option... well, the fan vents are clear, and free of dust, and as I mentioned, this has only happened JUST after hitting the power button to boot the computer.... so air flow a split-second after being turned on shouldn't cause warmer than expected problems anyways.

Which, leaves me confused.

I am getting nearly the exact same behavior. I shut down my machine cleanly last nite (no temp alarms or anything). When I started the machine, there were no temp warnings at all. I logged in, and the machine shut down within 5 seconds. On restart, it then gave the M1004 error, and now Im stuck in a loop. The fans are running normally, ambient temp is normal, room is AC cooled, Im not running any applications at all.

BIOS is version A07, and all the Tech Support pages say that this (falso positive) error should only affect machines w/ A03 or less. Machine is a Lattitude C640.

I tried a different hard drive (same OS, Win2K), and I get the same error on POST, but after hitting F1 the machine boots normally, I can login normally, and run apps under Administrator normally. There is none of the performance degradation that I encounter when the machine gets too hot.

So Im wondering if it is the machine itself (heat sink, CPU fan, whatever) or something just hung up in software somewhere.

Thoughts?

Hi workalready,

 

I'm expiriencing the same problem. My computer was working fine. I switched in on earlier today, and got an eroor message at startup:

code M1004..

did u get your problem solved?

Cheers,

Pieter

I have a similar problem in that my Inspiron 5150 (3.06GHz) will sometimes switch off suddenly. I have figured out that the problem happened when the CPU usage was at 100% and the speedstep kicked in to boost the CPU up to 3.06GHz, after which the machine just turns off (after a small amount of time at full power). My friend said it could be a problem with the CPU fan voltage regulator being faulty and that in this case the fan was spinning too slowly, causing the CPU to overheat. I don't know if you guys have the same problem since your computer is switching off after startup. It could be though that at startup the machine is using all its horsepower to load everything up, meaning that the CPU gets stepped up to full power. Maybe it doesn't happen during gameplay because the graphics card is doing more work... just my thoughts.

I experienced this problem (unexplained shut down while running) the past 2 days with my Inspiron 5100. The 1st day, it happened repeatedly, so I gave up. Later in the day, I restarted and booted up fine. the following day, the laptop shut down again.  When restarted this morning, it's fine.

Interestingly, my remote office has been quite warm the last 2 days. When I take the laptop home (and the temperature is cooler), it ran fine and I experienced no shutdowns. I downloaded the latest BIOS today, and on restart, saw this error message for the first time. I'm wondering if the repeated shut downs are symptomatic of a potential hardware failure? But if so, why did I not see this error message until AFTER updating the BIOS, and why did it appear only after a normal restart?

Any ideas??

I have the same problem with my Inspiron 5100. The system will just power down when running large processes. I am going to try and find some motherboard diagnostics which will allow me to monitor temperature to see exactly what is happening. When I contacted tech support, their response was to shut down some startup apps using MSCONFIG. I tried to explain to them that the problem is when I run big processes which max CPU usage.

Anyways, I was attributing the issue to XP SP2, not sure now though.

dshukle