[Ceejay]

Hello Computer Juice members, can any of you give me any hints on why my year old laptop keeps switching itself off with no prior warning, and for no apparent reason? I've left the machine running for hours in safe mode without it switching off, so I'm tending to think it is more likely to be software, than hardware related, but I'm open to reeducation.

[Dave Hybrid]

First port of call is to clean the fans, they are under one of the removable panels on the bottom.

The PC is under a lot less strain in safe mode so I wouldn't rule out hardware.

[Ceejay]

Cheers for the reply, Dave. I'm just wondering whether 71 processes seems a lot to be running, or not? In 'safe mode', I know it's down to about 10, or so.

[Cew27]

indeed onhe acers the fans are under an access panel, best to clean it even if you find out it isnt the culprit

[delboy2028]

i have the same problem with the travel mate 4000 i currently have it in peices all over the place at the mo as i am just checking for hardware fault i have reloaded windows and checked everything eles it just turns its self off. not over heating i have 100% ruled that out

[Desertfish]

I just had the same problem with my sisters Acer Aspire 5102... Was sure that it was not an overheating problem as well because it turned itself off even when it was standing on a laptop cooler. Windows would just not install at all. Linux seemed to be working fine though.

When I installed OpenSUSE 10.2 and booted the laptop up, I noticed that the system was shutting itself down because the CPU reached 95C... although when I touched it the damn thing was cool.

In the end, I opened up the laptop, cleaned everything inside, scraped the leftovers of the thermal paste from the CPU and cooler (using an old credit card), put some new thermal grease on and assembled the thing. Has been running fine since.

Cheers:
Chris

[kanoakavirus]

check your start up for anything like bat files because it may be a prank.