Frozen laptop won't turn off.

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fatboykyle

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Feb 23, 2017
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Got a Dell something something laptop. Its windows 10.

I was playing the game overwatch and it froze (rather unusual). I could still move the mouse and hear the game and chat.

Tried control alt delete. Tried alt f4. Tried control alt tab. Tried Windows + l. Tried windows. Cannot close the game.

However I can also not turn it off. The power button is not shutting it down either. It won't go on sleep when I close the lid.

Can't remove battery as I don't have the tool and it apparently voids the warranty (it's not an easy remove one).

Not sure what to do other than let the battery drain. Any suggestions?

Id rather not send it off and I'd preferably like to resolve this tonight.

Update: whilst writing this slowly on my phone, it went onto sleep. However I cannot wake it and I can't turn it off. Grumble grumble.
 
Solution
If that fails

Let it run flat. (Always make sure you watching it (Fire!))

Then return it to Dell.

That's a serious issue if the button doesn't respond when held and may even result in a recall.

fatboykyle

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Feb 23, 2017
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Yep, tried holding it for over two minutes. Still no luck.

First time I've had a real issue and I think it's actually the first time it's ever frozen (some games crash but normally it doesn't require a restart). I'm overdue a backup as well, irritatingly.

I'll let it go flat, then give it a wee bit of charge and see if any of the symptoms reoccur before sending it off. In the meantime I've left the cooling stand plugged in to keep it cool and help drain power.

Don't suppose there's a hidden hard reset or power kill switch on it that I'm unaware of? Like those you find on phones and routers?
 

fatboykyle

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Feb 23, 2017
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Sorry for the delay in responding. I eventually let it run flat, and it turned back on okay. However after an hour or two I also got a blue-screen (hard drive failure). Took it back to the shop in which I got it and had it sent off for repair.

Apparently there was an issue with the power button and they had to reseat it. They also said that firmware was corrupted. Seems to all be working now, but it's much slower than when I first got it (only like 6 months ago), despite a clean install.
 

markstephan28

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Dec 2, 2017
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Same thing happened to mine just now where it just stopped midway playing rainbow 6. Manage to exit my game using the mouse. But stuck on the home screen can't turn it off using the power button either.
 

annithtran

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Dec 3, 2017
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Strange. Mark, this started happening out of nowhere for me too. It's happened ONCE, like in the summer while I was playing Subnautica... but today I was just doing some schoolwork and my keyboard stopped working, then switching between windows stopped working until gradually everything is frozen.
Nothing turns it off except taking the bottom off (theres also something wrong with the way the screw was inserted into my laptop. I found this out when I had to unscrew it for that first time with Subnautica) and unplugging the battery, which I did. It was working fine again for about 30 minutes, then my keyboard stopped working again, and now I'm sitting here with my screen frozen on Google docs.
I really don't want to send it in, but that just might end up being the case if it keeps on freezing before I can figure out what's wrong with it.
 

aggravated

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Dec 6, 2017
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@annithtran this just happened to mine, as well, and I am running Ubuntu 14.04. I have windows 10 on my other drive, but I wasn't using it. I had a lot of work I was in the middle of.
 
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