Re: Laptop Shuts Down Suddenly

On Wed, 5 Jul 2006 16:28:02 -0700, dtwhsieh <dtwhsieh(removethis)@hotmail.com> wrote:

My wife complained that her laptop once in a while would suddenly short-beeps
several times and shuts down few months ago. I told her to let me know if the
problem persists. So she notified me of the same problem several more times.
I thought to run McAfee Virus Scan to see if there is any infection. Deep
into the scan, the laptop short-beeps several times and shut down. Therefore
the scan cannot be completed. I tried going to windowsupdate.microsoft.com to
check for updates. Again in the middle of checking for updates, the laptop
suddenly shuts down again. I decided to reinstall Windows XP Professional and
completely reformat the hard drive. I tried to reinstall Windows XP few
times, but each time the laptop will suddently shut down so I can't even
reformat and reinstall Windows. After loading necessary files from Windows
CD, sometimes the laptop shuts down while the screen shows "Setup is starting
Windows...", sometimes it shuts down few steps into the setup (selecting
drive, partition etc.).

Is this a virus problem? Hard drive problem? Neither? Or Both? What should I
do to resolve it?

Thank you very much in advance!

Probably overheating, especially if she uses it while in bed. The CPU cooler gets blocked with
lint and pet hairs. I've seen it so thick that the fan is actually stopped! It depends on the
make of the laptop whether or not you can access the cooler without a total disassembly.

Raise the back of the laptop 1" to aid cooling, or use a laptop cooler.
See http://tinyurl.com/br5qy

You can check the temperature with the EVEREST Ultimate Edition limited trial version.
No need to buy it just to run a temperature check...
http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.php?pid=3&lang=en

.

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