Laptop shuts down when playing sl

Hi, after putting up with this trouble for a few weeks now its really starting to annoy me!

I have a Toshiba A300D laptop that is only 7 months old, when i first got the laptop it was great and i was playing SL for most part of the day and night with NO problems at all.

Now I have the problem that when playing for possibly 1 hour or sometimes even less the laptop will just switch off/shut down with out no warning, this has been happening for the last 2 weeks roughly. I then have to restart the lappy and log back into SL, to which again after about 10 minutes of being back on SL it will again shut down!

There are no warning signs of the lappy switching off.. It just dies!

But I can leave the laptop on all day if im not playing SL.. NOTE this only does this when on SL..

If any more information is required let me know and i will get the info and post it.

Thanks and really hope someone can help as this is driving me nuts argh!

Cherrydrop,

My previous computer was a Toshiba laptop, and it would shut down with no warning also when it got too hot. (graphics card, I guess?) This was before I knew about SL, but I could run the computer all day long, but as soon as I started playing a graphics-intensive game, it would shut down.

If you can use the computer in a way that keeps the air intakes unobstructed, and better yet, if you can direct a fan onto them, that might help.

--Avion

Sounds like you are having overheat problems.

Buy a laptop cooler and that should help stop the problem.

i have been told about a laptop cooler, i will look into getting one, but how come this only overheats when on SL ? and not when the lappy can be left on for hours just on the internet ? hmmm

Thanks again and will deffo look into that cooler as at the moment i kinda need sl haha

SL is about as processor-intensive a program as you can find today.

My Toshiba LapTop is SUPER; I can stay on SL all day with no problem
I prop the LT on a cooling stand, you can get it from BestBuy for under $30.00.

if you have a frys electronics you can get a cooling fan for 6 USD that blows away the 39USD one from best buy.

Also on those Toshiba's they get a lot of dust in the cooling fan vents in turn cloging it all up (I used my wet dry vac sucking from the intake side our, as well as canned air once a week it fixed that issue when I ran a Toshiba) another thing is make sure that the lap top is up and getting air into the fan intake and the out take vent is not blocked. my kids would use it on a bed and have it cooking in blankets. now they have to have it on a lap board (you know the plastic desk like things with a bean bag to lay on your lap. they don'[t give enough air space uder them with out a fan or blocks under them even on a flat surface

I had power supply issues twice in three years while playing SL. I finally had one installed that can handle the load.

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if your laptop is shutting down, do not try to run SL anymore until you get the cooling pad. You risk frying your RAM. The most common symptom of slightly fried RAM is weirdo intermittent problems (while your machine still passes diagnostics just fine), so it is definitely something to be avoided, even though RAM is relatively cheap nowadays.
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A cooling pad is a good idea, but you should also try to eliminate the cause of the overheat, not just treat the symptoms. 7 months of dust can certainly be enough to make the difference between smooth sailing and constant shutdowns due to poor airflow. I would suggest you carefully open up the chassis, and blow out any dust buildup with a compressed air. Make sure all fans can spin freely, and all surfaces are clean. Don't forget to clean out the intakes on the bottom, especially.

If you're not comfortable tinkering inside the case yourself, take the machine to a repair center. Many will do a simple dust blowout for very little money, if not for free.

laptops are a bit of a different bear when it comes to dust, most modern ones have only 1 point of air exchange and the heat is moved to that point via heatpipe, so you can do a half way good job with out taking the thing apart

before breaking out the jewelers screwdrivers and dixie cups and tackling the billion little screws in it, id just get a can of air and blow it tru the vents in the case (do it outside)

then snag a stand, doesn't really need to have fans on the stand, but just enough space for good air flow

http://www.instructables.com/id/Laptop_Stands/

ok cheers for all the replys, well i have found a cooling fan in maplins for around £30, but the laptop goes back tomorrow and the tech guys are gonna take a look, but hopefully when it comes back i will have the fan a well and be able to use that on the lappy to!

i will post a reply when i get it back and let ya know how i get on...

thanks again

cherry

My laptop has an nvidia 7600, and the nvidia software will report the temperature of the GPU and what temperature it starts to slow down/shut down at.

while I agree with everyone that it sounds like a heat/dust/airflow problem, maybe you should hunt around for the GPU utility that will tell you the status of your cards.

lee