Hi all,

My girlfriends laptop keeps shutting its self down. Is there any way of checking why it does this? Not timing out, and its running on the mains. Maybe over heating, but can hear fans running and even does it if left on a table.

Thanks

David

Is it XP? Looks under control panel at the events monitor. Might give some clues....

Probably overheating. I bet there's a nice compact dust cake inside the fan outlet...

Have you got a compressor in your garage? Quick blast with the blow gun would soon dislodge any crud....

I had the same problem on a laptop it was a faulty switch that shuts the laptop down when the screen and keyboard are closed together, when it was open any slight movement of the screen hinge would cause it to shutdown.

I vote for the overheating option, as mentioned above, try blowing it out. I do it regular with my PC's, dirty little things.

You can check out the CPU temperature when the PC is running via various utilities you can download, do a google search and you should find some. Don't pay for one, I remember there being freeware versions. If it's not hot, then it's unlikely to be an overheating problem (though there are other things that can overheat).

A little program called Speedfan is what I use. Very useful bit of kit.

If it's actually powering itself off then it'll be overheating. If it's restarting itself then it will be something else, most likely a memory fault.

Hi,

Thanks for the replies so far. Have downloaded the Speedfan app to my laptop to have a look, so next question is, What are normal operating temps?

Thanks

David

Note CPUs tend to run quite a bit hotter than desktop ones, typically between 50 and 70 degrees C depending on the CPU type, ambient temperature and how loaded it is.

If it regularly runs much over that you may have a cooling problem.