My laptop turns itself off, without warning!

Zen

Posts: 763   +49
Well I've just spent the past hour or so trying to chill out and relaxing by trying to play some Call of Duty 2 on my laptop computer. "Trying" is my key word here, because for whatever reason or reasons the darn thing in game, is turning itself off without warning!

I get about 2-3 maps into the game, which is approx. something like 30-40 minutes in and the thing shuts itself off. I know for a fact this isn't an issue that my laptop's hardware is bellow the requirements for the game.

Toshiba x-205 dual SLi
2 Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT's 256MB's each
Intel Core Duo T2800 @ 2.8 G's
6GB's of system RAM
Realtek High Definition Audio Sound Card
Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)

I'm well over in almost every area the games requirements, but even with that the game or the computer shuts itself off. I'm thinking this could be heat related! I've got the thing resting atop a nice dual fan laptop cooling tray, I did notice possibly one of it's exhaust vents might have been blocked a little by a printer I had stationed pretty close to it. I moved the laptop away from that printer, about another 2-3 inches or so and try'd the game again, same thing, about 30 minutes into it the thing shut itself off.

Upon firing it up again, I ran the stock Toshiba diagnostic tool, no problems detected. I then checked the hard drive, no problems found. I then ran CCleaner and checked the registry, no errors found. Lastly, I went into the Administration control panel to view the event log and see if Widows was reporting anything in there, is wasn't, no sudden crashing type errors were reported.

This baffles me, no errors anywhere and it keeps turning itself off whenever playing Call of Duty 2! Maybe it's my setup? I do have my laptop via HDMI hooked up to my Samsung 44 inch LCD television, with the television set to "game mode", maybe there's something screw'y with the setup? The computer behaves when in normal operations, web browsing, You Tube watching, VLC media playback, Windows Media Player playback, it all checks out fine.

Anyone got any recommendations or thoughts?
 
Sounds like it could be overheating. The best thing to do will be to load up something like CPUID's HWMonitor, fire it up and check the temps whilst gaming.
 
Well it appears that this problem was indeed a "heat issue"! Since reporting the problem, I had preformed some maintenance on my laptop. I first opened it up, as much as was safe to do and gave it about a half a can of air cleaning! There was some debris that came out of both cooling vents on the sides. Also some dust bunny's did pop out of the intake on the bottom of the computer. I did a visual inspection to find that everything, "visually" was in order. Then I decided to change the location of the placement of the computer, giving it more room to roam. Also I made the choice to take a small fan I use to help cool the house, and rather than cool the house, it's was allowed to blow directly on the laptop, while I re-attempted to play Call of Duty 2.

This time everything pretty much went normally, I was able to play the game beyond the 30-40 minute mark with no signs of trouble. I think I might have played for something like an hour and a half with no troubles. So the laptop got cleaned out, a fan will now be blowing on the computer when playing demanding video games, and I was able to play for a long while without any problems. I think this issue may indeed be resolved.

Thank God I've got that PC build here real soon, then I won't have to worry about these sorts of things! :)
 
Aye, definitely sounds like it was dust-build up that was interfering with the laptop's cooler airflow.

Good to hear its resolved. :)
 
Good to hear its resolved. :)

Just wanted to advise and confirm that this little problem is now "bye bye"! I just logged off of Call of Duty 2, where I just enjoyed 2 full solid hours of on-line game play. So I'm happy! :)

Well time for nite nite, my eye's feel like someone dumped cement into them! "Ouch"!
 
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