Computer shuts down with no warning

[Bus429]

Help.
Acer Aspire 9104 laptop running Windows XP Home with MS Office
It has developed a habit of shutting down without warning, usually while an I-Pod is plugged in, Windows Media Player is ripping a CD or, occasionally if my model aircraft simulator is plugged in (USB).
Run tests etc - no help.
Any ideas?

[NutLoose]

has it got enough cooling to it?

[stevef]

Agree with Nutloose. Try putting some spacers underneath the corners to help the ventilation.

[rickity]

Oh dear rings a bell, windows media player and shutdowns or freezing, happened on my daughters machine after updateing to media player 11, never conclusivly proved it what it was, but i suspected confilcts between software installed to get photos off a phone via a usb connection and media player. Im afraid that the quick solution was taken which was to install another copy of xp on a partion created for the purpose which worked fine with media player 10 and all the rest of the required software including the phone stuff. end result was to delete the orginal xp after moving all the important files i.e. music, photos, homework, email etc.

I guess if possible you could try a rool back of media player or, back to a system restore if you can identify when it started happening. A new xp install was a bit of a heavy handed solution but the quickiest way to resolve things , if it hadn't of worked I would have been looking at hardware as suggested begining with cooling and power supply problems.

The only other place for clues is the event viewer which logs events which take place such as software conflicts but wasnt much use to me on this occasion as whne the shutdown occured it was instant and not logged.

Event view can be found in control panel- administrative tools.

Good luck

Rickity

[rwy_hdg]

There's a handy program called 'Motherboard Monitor' which will sense CPU temperatures etc. Try installing this (free on the net) to see if it is your CPU reaching critical temp.

[Keef]

Do you have a utility that monitors the chip and motherboard temperature?

My laptop used to do that, when the chip passed 96ºC. The "fix" was to clear out the fan so that it could blow enough air over the heat sink etc.

Processor-intensive applications, on a machine that's running close to the limit, can cause that sort of problem.

I don't know about the Media Player 11 issue - I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't doing the same thing to your CPU.

[Bus429]

The CPU cooling issue has occurred to me; the fan is very active and I have, on occasion, propped the laptop to allow improved cooling.
Thanks to all for suggestions.