Stasis lock

Stasis lock is a state of being for transformers that was introduced in the Beast Wars portion of continuity. Stasis lock is a sort of coma that allows a transformer to stay alive, running on the smallest amount of power, despite massive energy loss or massive physical damage. Stasis lock can come about in a few different ways.

The first way is from a shock of massive damage. When the Ark crashed on Earth all of the occupants on board were retconed into emergency stasis lock. At various times during the Beast Wars combatants had to be returned to their respective bases due to going into stasis lock after being badly damaged.

The second way seems to be a more gradual process and can come about from damage and energy depletion over a longer period of time. Dinobot was told by his internal computer to go into stasis lock or risk losing his spark. This method is a conscious decision, and the character can choose to override stasis lock, unlike the first way which seems to be an unconsious action by the the character's onboard computer.