Laptop Automatically Switches Itself Off

Hello,

I'm having a problem where my computer turns itself off perhaps once a day, sometimes more frequently. It is a 'Digitac' laptop, basically a custom build. Just before it turns itself off it gives several loud beeping noises, and I need to wait around 2 minutes before it will let me turn it back on (without it turning itself off again).

This problem never happened in the winter, so I'm thinking it might be an over-temperature shut-down. However, I am running the program 'Notebook Hardware Control' which has not yet indicated a temperature of 45 degrees, and the cutoff is set at 55 degrees (celcius). Is there any way I can monitor that to make sure that that is the problem?

 

You have answered your own question.... if it never happened in the winter, and now that temperatures are rising, so are the internal temps in the PC. The PC is giving you a warning by beeping. It then shuts down and tries to cool off. PCs have a built-in safeguard so they shut down and won't power on when temps reach dangerous levels. You can seriously damage your processor, RAM, hard drive, and motherboard by running the PC at near-critical temperatures for repeatedly extended amounts of time. Hopefully this hasn't happened yet. The first thing you need to do is get some canned air at the local PC shop and blow out any and all fans and vents as best you can. If the fan and vent covers can be easily removed, do it (the screws are really small so don't lose 'em) and blow everything out. I've seen laptop fans so packed with dust and hair and crud that I needed to use really small scissors and long, thin pliers to completely pull out the debris. Hair was wrapped around the fans and they barely spun, and the air vents and passages had so much crap packed in there that even if the fans spun great, no air would flow through. So, clean it out. If things are really dirty, you may not be getting accurate temperature readings. If it still seems to be overheating, you can try a cooling pad like this one at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834997292 and here's a bunch more: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=laptop+pad&x=0&y=0 Try to get one that's powered from the PCs built-in USB ports; that way you don't have to deal with an external power source.
To monitor your internal temps, there are several free programs that will do this:
HWMonitor http://www.majorgeeks.com/HWMonitor_d5842.html (my personal favorite; temps, voltages, fan speeds)
PCwizard http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3846.html (click the Hardware tab on the left, then click the symbol that looks like a meter)
CoreTemp http://www.majorgeeks.com/Core_Temp_d5665.html (fairly basic; primarily for CPU temps)
MBMlog http://www.majorgeeks.com/MBMlog_d918.html
I hope this helps!

[dlb]