[d4rktemplar2]

Help!! For some reason, these past couple weeks, my laptop has been shutting down on it's own. I'm in the middle of doing something and "poof" the system just shuts down on me. The problem got worse after I bought a Maxtor OneTouch II External Hard Drive (200GB) last week. I can only have the hard drive on for about 15 to 20 minutes, and if I try to keep it on longer, the system just shuts down on it's own. And earlier, I was watching a movie, it shuts down on its own, and when I turn it back on it takes to to a boot screen asking me what mode (normal Windows mode, safe mode, etc.) do I want to boot it on. When I choose something, it shows me the Windows XP loading screen, then it shuts down after a couple seconds. I don't know what's going on, but does anybody think that I should reformat my primary hard drive to help solve this problem? Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

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Is the external drive powered by the laptop or does it have an external power? If the laptop powers it, it might been that the power supply is overheating. It can take some time for it to cool down. I think there are some external coolers which you can use with laptops, but I have not paid much attention.

Does the machine work without the external disk? If so, then it again points to power and heat problems.

I don't think that this is a software problem, so reformating your disk will not help. The boot screen is because the machine was not properly shutdown.

[Kemasa]

Is the external drive powered by the laptop or does it have an external power? If the laptop powers it, it might been that the power supply is overheating. It can take some time for it to cool down. I think there are some external coolers which you can use with laptops, but I have not paid much attention.

Does the machine work without the external disk? If so, then it again points to power and heat problems.

I don't think that this is a software problem, so reformating your disk will not help. The boot screen is because the machine was not properly shutdown.

[d4rktemplar2]

The hard drive is connected to a surge protector that is conntected to the power outlet, but the problem is still there. Even though, my hard drive isn't pluged into my laptop, it still shuts off automatically. Sometimes I have nothing, but simply a mouse and the laptop's power supply connected to my laptop, and it still shuts off automatically if I try to do something that will require some amount of RAM. For example, if I play a video (from a website or my regular hard drive), download something, or run a big program or game, it will shut off automatically after a couple minutes. These problems started to happen within these past couple weeks and it seems to be getting worse as I try to figure out what's going on. But in the previous months, I have left my laptop on overnight to finish a download, and there was no problem, and I had a lot more stuff connected to it at that time.

Edited by d4rktemplar2, 30 December 2005 - 08:27 PM.

[Kemasa]

Have you tried testing the memory (memtest86, for example, I think that the correct name)? I would not think that would cause the machine to power down, but since you mentioned having a problem when using a lot of the memory.

It may be that the main board has a problem. Is the machine hot or quite warm?

[d4rktemplar2]

Yes, it is quite hot around the vents.

[Kemasa]

I would assume that it is shutting down due to the heat then. The question is why is it so hot. I have heard that you need to have airflow around the case to help with cooling. It could also be that the fan is not working as well as it should or the air path is partially blocked with dust or something.