overheating?

For the past 4 days I've been experiancing weird behavior with my laptop. In the middle of doing something it will completely shut off without any warning at all. Is there any explanation for this or could it be because it is overheating? It is constantly plugged in and the laptop is about a year old. It never did it until just recently and I can't seem to figure out what it could possibly be.

 

Hi m8 Read this http://forums.majorgeeks.com/announcement.php?f=30

The more info we have the more we can help

 

Okay well its a Dell Inspiron 5100
OS is Microsoft Windows XP Home Ediction
Intel Pentium 4, 2666MHz
512 MB System Memory

im not sure what other kind of information to post.

 

Try vacumning out the vents where the fans are and see what happens. It stinks because you really cant clean a laptop like a desktop. Try sucking the dust out of the vents with a vacumn and let me know if it helps.
-the new tech guy

 

You can also for out , $20 for a laptop cooler. Your laptop just sits on it and its supposed to keep it cooler.... Not 100% sure if they work, as i have never used one.

 

is there any other explanation for the computer shutting off other than it gets too hot? because it just started and i don't use it anymore now than i ever did

 

The CPU fan could be failing, which was the problem with my brothers computer... It would get so hot and just stop working.

 

First go to the spyware forum follow all the guides on protecting yourself from malware and spyware,check your comp for them using updated versions of spybot and adware,install an anti virus,update it then run a thorough scan,then go to windows update and update xp,the next time your computer shuts down,make a note of the time,go to control panel,anmin tools,event viewer,list the events with yellow and red warnings next to them ONLY from the time around when the computer shut down.

 

well i did all that and there were no real serious threats found. it just happened about 5 minutes ago and i went into the event logger and there were no events that seemed odd. under security though there are a number of events that happen while i'm on the computer such as failure audit and the user is listed as NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON. a week or so ago i used to get a message pop up saying that NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON has authorized shut down of the computer and it counted down 60 seconds and then shut down, but now it doesnt do anything. could this be a virus or a hijacker? i had already gone through the hijack this program and posted it on here and i received help and everything was going fine until it started happening again. it will just randomly shut down and most of the time it happens when i'm in the middle of doing something important.

 

it just happened again, n the same security messages are there, but this time there is a yellow warning that says

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Dhcp
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1007
Date: 9/7/2005
Time: 1:02:27 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SARAH
Description:
Your computer has automatically configured the IP address for the Network Card with network address 00904B147B9C. The IP address being used is 169.254.142.43.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 ....

 

Is your computer part of a network?if so the warning is normal when your client computer accesses yours to use a service,if not the anonymous user logon can be disabled,also are you using a firewall and did you update windows?

 

yes i am behind a firewall and i ran windows update...i am also on a network thru my college but i dont think they would authroize my computer to shut down. i would just run system restore but i dont have a system restore disk

 

Try this it will disable annonymous user logon,write this down somewhere,if you have trouble connecting to your network at college,reverse the change

START MENU-CONTROL PANEL-ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS-LOCAL SECURITY POLICY-LOCAL POLICIES-SECURITY OPTIONS-a list should have now opened,go down the list until you come to Network access Do not allow anonymous enumeration of SAM accounts,enable it,if there are two enable them both

 

the only options under administration is component services, computer management, data source, event viewer, performance and services

 

It might just be a feature with xp pro,do you have service pack 2 installed

 

Got pets in your house? After a while, the computer's fans suck up enough dust and hair (even without the pets) that the cooling systems get clogged. It takes a while, but eventually, the system begins to overheat even though you're not using it any more than you used to.

Maybe you'll be lucky, and find that the air intake on your laptop is filtered, and you only need to clean the filter. It'll be a lot easier than pulling the machine apart to clean the dust out of the fins on the CPU's heatsink. I have to do the latter to my machine every year or less. But then, there are three cats in my house, one of which likes to sleep on my printer and shed hair all over my desk and computer.

 

Yeah I would really check the overheat issue because i really think that that is the cause of your problems. Just suck out your vents with a vacumn and let us know what happens.
-the new tech guy