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So, first and foremost I have an HP2510p with 4GB ram running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (I had Ubuntu 13.04 64-bit before but the problem was there so it has nothing to do with the OSs).

I also know it is not a virus as I formatted the hard-drive and re-installed my OS.

Whenever I use it on AC, everything works perfectly, but when I switch to battery, or boot initially on battery, after a few minutes it completely freezes such that I have to press the power button to turn it off.

Any help?

Maybe a hardware failure?

Hennes
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Mark Said Camilleri
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    Could you describe "completely freezes" in more detail? Do you have anything on the screen? Mouse/keyboard stop responding? Video stops updating? Screen goes blank? Music stops playing if it was playing? etc, etc, etc – ernie Jun 17 '13 at 21:55
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    This could be a hardware error. –  Jun 18 '13 at 04:23
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    Press the CAP LOCKS key when you get the freeze and look if the light on the keyboard toggles. If it toggles, it is a software issue, if not, you have a hardware issue. – magicandre1981 Jun 18 '13 at 07:46
  • @ernie when I say "Completely freezes", I mean that what's on the screen remains on the screen and the mouse won't move (so no mouse input) and no keyboard input either. – Mark Said Camilleri Jun 18 '13 at 13:09
  • @magicandre1981 no it won't light up, so I guess it is a hardware issue – Mark Said Camilleri Jun 18 '13 at 13:10
  • No definitive answer, but my first suggestion would be to check the power settings. Try changing the Power Options when on battery to match the plugged in settings - my theory is that something is going into a power saving state, and something goes wonky. If that prevents the freezes, you can start enabling various power saving options one by one, till you isolate what's causing the lock-up – ernie Jun 18 '13 at 15:59
  • maybe the battery has an issue and Ubuntu and Windows hang while checking how much power it still has. – magicandre1981 Jun 18 '13 at 19:00
  • last time I tried it and it hanged, 100% battery – Mark Said Camilleri Jun 18 '13 at 20:00
  • @ernie The power settings are on balanced... which I think are good. The thing is that my sister has the exact same laptop model, same OS (Windows 64-bit) and same RAM but different Hard Disk..... could it be the Hard Disk? I am finding that a bit too far fetched.. Anyways, the point is that hers works just as fine on battery as on AC. No matter what the power plan is. – Mark Said Camilleri Jun 19 '13 at 14:00
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    Same model could have different hardware inside (different revisions, even different part numbers). My suggestion for switching your power settings was to change the on battery settings to match the plugged in settings. That way, if the laptop doesn't freeze when unplugged, you've isolated the issue to some power saving feature, likely in some hardware, and you can work to further isolate by enabling power saving things (screen dimming, processor throttling, etc) step by step. – ernie Jun 19 '13 at 16:03
  • @ernie Ok, sorry if this might sound stupid, but can you tell me how? If with the windows power management tool, I've switched it to High Performance and checked the settings, they were both the same yet it still froze. – Mark Said Camilleri Jun 19 '13 at 18:33
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    In the power settings, go to Edit Plan, and then make sure to select the "Change advanced power settings" option. There'll be lots of items that have on battery and plugged in settings - make sure everything matches. If you still have issues, then @magicandre1981's battery theory might be right? – ernie Jun 19 '13 at 19:56
  • @ernie Thanks for your help you were right, I had minimum cpu speed at 0%, simply raised and it worked like magic. If you want please right your answer as an answer below so that I can upvote and mark it as the answer that helped. Thanks again – Mark Said Camilleri Jun 19 '13 at 20:22
  • @ernie what if windows right after you login and you can't get to power settings? I am experiencing right now. – committedandroider Apr 27 '15 at 17:24

3 Answers3

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Summarizing comments:

Since the issue is only seen when running on battery, it sounds like this might be due to some power saving setting, e.g. a device not entering/exiting a lowered power state correctly. One way to try and troubleshoot this would be to inspect the power setting options.

So, go to the Power Options in the control panel, and select "Change plan settings" for the active power plan you're on. From there, make sure to select the "Change advanced power settings" option. You should see a large list of items that have on battery and plugged in settings - make sure the on battery matches plugged in for all of them, and save the plan.

If no lock ups are seen this way when running on battery, then slowly enable options, until the lock up is seen again, which will isolate exactly what device or setting could be causing issues.

ernie
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I had the same problem with my laptop. When I unplugged it, started it from sleep while on battery, or started it up while on battery, it would freeze solid. I tried the caps lock, nothing changed. I went into bios, and looked at the system information. It said that it didn't detect any integrated graphics. I reset the bios to "Optimal default" or something like that, and it started using my integrated graphics card again, and stopped crashing. It appears that what happened was this. My computer was only using the nvidia graphics card. When I was running it on battery, it stopped using the nvidia card, to save power, and since the integrated graphics wasn't running, it would crash. With the bios reset, the integrated graphics started working again, and everything was fixed. I hope this helps any future people reading this.

Mat Cauthon
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Go to:

  1. Control Panel
  2. Device Manager
  3. Battery
  4. disable Microsoft AC Adapter and Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery

After you do this, you will see that the battery notification thing on the bottom right of the screen goes away.

redbeam_
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Ibrahim Munaser
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