I was hoping it would be software issue but it appears to be getting worse but only occuring when on the mains supply. I'm going to wait until I can rescue my old toshiba laptop (which in three years has never missed a beat!) from parents house and send this one back to the shop. When it's back I'll post on here what was wrong. Thanks for all the help and advice folks.

GT

May be wrong and not temperature, but just put your hand by the outlet and test the temp on battery and mains.

My laptop sent me bonkers until I stumbled across the air flow solution on the internet.

The inlet was on the bottom of the machine on a dusty electrostatic surface.

I opened the fan area and discovered a 'filter' on the air inlet. Only thing was it was a 4-5mm mat of dust. I removed that and kept the desk clean. Job done.

Dunno why, but I startin to think of the possibility of a bit of "overvoltage" from the power pack. A few extra tenths of a volt can make a BIG difference to heat, etc...

Well, folks the current saga is that the laptop runs on the mains fine when operating in safe mode with network access. As soon as I boot it up normally it starts to crash again so I'm making an assumption that it is a driver problem. It's probably a big assumption though.

But if it runs fine on battery, so would that be a driver problem?

Power management drivers!

I'd thought of them but it still did not compute, Saab.

After all, the very same drivers are in use under battery power.

I still thinking it's a hardware/cooling issue. After all, in safe mode you have far less gubbins installed, etc, so a lower power demand (if there's a problem with a power component, for example, then it is less likely to go "Dunk" due to the lower power requirements of safe mode.)

If you can follow what I mean because I damn near confused meself there....

Off to the repair people, now lugging around my trusty old Toshiba. I'm quietly hoping it doesn't come back because I've not been impressed with the quality of it from the start but I was sold by it's size. When your dragging these things around day in day out small is beautiful. I'll let you know what the problem was.

This is going to sound weird (had a few beers...)
Can you clear some space in your fridge and see if it runs ok in full mode for an extended period?
I'm trying to think laterally, ha ha, and now I'll slink off....

Cheers

Octane

I had the same shut down problem. HP help suggested I tap F10 during start up, this brings up the BIOs page, go to test along the top menu and run the test. It came up with a fault code which meant that the hard disk was about to fail! In othe words get it fixed quick.
Hope this helps.

An update for you all. After 5 weeks being repaired, (waiting for bits) the laptop is back. It had to have a new main board and a 'dc power' board. So there you are. Running properly now. They wouldn't say what caused it, whether it was manufacturing or a problem that developed while I had it. Just so you know though Tech Guys who fixed it (PC World) stuck a big sticker on the lid which didn't peel off easy so the lid looks a mess at least it'll be easy to identify and so less likely to be nicked. They also delivered it back to the store with the packaging and not in the package. Pretty pointless having the instructions to make sure it is securely packaged in transit when they can't do it themselves.

Back to normal now though (whatever that is)