In the first year that I've had it, the fans got busted, so my laptop would suddenly shut down when I used to run too many programs or if I used to run memory-intensive ones like Adobe Photoshop.

Last July, I decided to expand the memory, so I bought a Kingston 1GB memory in place for one of the 256MB ones in my laptop. I think my laptop was very fast and efficient-- I had deactivated a lot of startup programs and services, I periodically cleaned the registry, temp files, etc., with CCleaner, ATF, and Registry Mechanic.

Two days ago, when I turned on my computer and while I was surfing online, it just shut down again. Thinking that my previous problem with my laptop was repeating itself, I waited for two hours to turn it on again, but it just wouldn't. Since my mother has the exact same laptop, I tried to make sure that the problem wasn't with the charger or batteries by switching them etc.,-- trying her batteries in my laptop, trying my batteries in her laptop, trying my charger in her laptop, etc., So I suppose I could safely assume now that it's my laptop that's busted and not any of those two?

What could be wrong with my laptop? Does the expanded memory have anything to do with it? I hear that it's common for HP/Compaq laptops to experience this kind of problem as caused by overheating... I really don't know. I couldn't tell you what a motherboard is to save my life, but I hear a lot of people talk about how a motherboard could cause a problem like this.

Anyway, I just need people to speculate for me right now. I'm having my sister bring my laptop to the service center on Monday to get proper diagnosis. But if anyone could offer a theory, I would also like to know how much it would cause me to fix that particular problem. For instance, how much would a motherboard cause?

Thanks.

If the fans don't spin and the hard drive is silent when you turn it on then the motherboard is probably shot. You can get an idea of the cost here:

http://www.fastlaptoprepair.com/motherboardrepair.asp

I've never used them but just to get an idea of how much the repair would be!