Recently my laptop has been switching itself off. I can restart fine and it's only very intermittent at the moment but wondering what might be causing this. I'm often running quite a few applications, could it be anything to do with this? Any thoughts?

If it is just losing power altogether it is most likely a heat issue.

Is the behavior the same on both battery and AC?

What is the exact make and model?



Also: look in your Event viewer: rt. click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
Or: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/ eventvwr
Open the system as well as the application tabs & look for X errors. Click error line for details.
Post back the source & event id & Description especially of errors that seem to coincide with this issue.
Also check the Information lines that might coincide with this issue.

How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP

Thanks for the reply. My computer is often on for a long time and the weather is hot at the moment so perhaps this is a heat issue. It often also feels very hot. Could this start causing serious issues? It's a Dell Inspiron 5100, about 2 years old.

Application event viewer recent errors:

Application error, event 1000
Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.2180, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x02f56cfb.

VSS, event 8193
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine CoCreateInstance. hr = 0x80040206.

Event system, event 4609
The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 80070005 from line 44 of d:\qxp_slp\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemo bj.cpp.

There is nothing very recent in the system event view log. Does any of this suggest anything?

Originally Posted by jephree

If it is just losing power altogether it is most likely a heat issue.

Is the behavior the same on both battery and AC?

What is the exact make and model?



Also: look in your Event viewer: rt. click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
Or: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/ eventvwr
Open the system as well as the application tabs & look for X errors. Click error line for details.
Post back the source & event id & Description especially of errors that seem to coincide with this issue.
Also check the Information lines that might coincide with this issue.

How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP

Prolonged heat would have a tendency to lower the life-span of your hardware.

There are many laptop coolers on the market:

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...laptop+coolers

Basically they are two fans that fit the bottom of the laptop.


Dell also has some troubleshooting tools that might be worth a try:

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...rt/en/inspiron

thanks for your advice!

Originally Posted by jephree

Prolonged heat would have a tendency to lower the life-span of your hardware.

There are many laptop coolers on the market:

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...laptop+coolers

Basically they are two fans that fit the bottom of the laptop.


Dell also has some troubleshooting tools that might be worth a try:

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...rt/en/inspiron

I am still having some problems with my computer seemingly losing power and switching itself off. I've noticed that in windows task manager my CPU usage is nearly always at 100% and it is when up at this level that the problem occurs. I'm guessing it isn't normal for CPU usage to be this high all the time. I often don't even have any applications open and am maybe just online with one or two Explorer windows open and it will be up at 100%

Today one time when it switched itself off on me, it went to a blue screen and said as follows:

A problem was detected and Windows shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

No_more_irp_stack_locations

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed.

(There was then something about running the system in safe mode and BIOS but it switched off on me before I could note this!)

Not sure if that is connected to the problems I'm experiencing.

Can anyone suggest anything or am I best off trying to ask Dell? I'm not sure if this is a heat problem, although my computer would seem to be rather hot when this happens.

That is a driver issue. When you first boot the computer is the CPU up @ 100%?

If so Try booting into Safe Mode by repeatedly tapping the F8 key after your BIOS POST but before Windows starts. See what the CPU usage is here.

Do you have any external hardware connected? Have you added any hardware or software that might coincide with this problem?

The shutdown most likely is from an overheating CPU but there is some driver triggering the CPU usage.


If you want to try and analyze the XP errors:

Go to start | search (type in) .dmp
Note the location of your .dmp files.

Then:

1) Download and install the
Debugging Tools from Microsoft
2) Download and install this
debugwiz
3) Open the Wiz & Browse to, or paste in the path to, your .dmp file.
4) After the Wiz creates a Text document attach it back to this thread.




http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...ck%5flocations

Thanks again for your help. It doesn't start out on 100% when coming into Windows but usually gets up there fairly quick.

No, no external hardware except for mouse and printer via USB which I have been using fine for ages. No new software that I can think of either...

I have attached 3 .dmp logs here which were all the ones when I searched. Let me know if I haven't done anything right...

Thanks!

Turn off any Sonic software programs.

Stop them from starting via:

start/run msconfig | startup

See if that helps.

Thanks again. The only Sonic software I have is for CD writing. I've disabled this but still seem to be having problems. I can literally be online with just 2 explorer windows open and maybe yahoo messenger and CPU usage will suddenly hit 90-100%.