For the computer experts

[rabbit]

I have an almost 3-yr-old Gateway laptop that has started to give me trouble. Up 'til now it has performed vitually flawlessly.

Recently, it has begun shutting off out of nowhere. It only happens when the CD-ROM is being used; for instance, when I am playing Madden '06 or when my 6-yr-old daughter is playing one of her educational games. Without any warning, the computer will turn completely off and whatever you are doing (such as a 38-0 drubbing of the Steelers) is completely lost.

I can surf the web for hours, or watch a 4-hr-long DVD, or do any number of other things on it without any trouble.

Any ideas?

[WickerBill]

Wait, so you can watch a DVD -- same drive as the CDROM -- and it doesn't fail?

[Cam]

:saywhat:

[rabbit]

Wait, so you can watch a DVD -- same drive as the CDROM -- and it doesn't fail?
Correct

[rabbit]

:saywhat:
That's not the response I was hoping for. :cry:

[Cam]

That's not the response I was hoping for. :cry:
Let me think about it. :gomer:

[racer2c]

Has it ever been reformatted? I have an 8 month old Sony Vaio that I've reformated twice already. It could be some currupted drivers.
Have you run a virus scan lately?

[Insomniac]

Overheating? Is your fan turning on? Is it very loud? (I'm assuming it's a variable speed fan)

[dando]

I have an almost 3-yr-old Gateway laptop that has started to give me trouble. Up 'til now it has performed vitually flawlessly.

Recently, it has begun shutting off out of nowhere. It only happens when the CD-ROM is being used; for instance, when I am playing Madden '06 or when my 6-yr-old daughter is playing one of her educational games. Without any warning, the computer will turn completely off and whatever you are doing (such as a 38-0 drubbing of the Steelers) is completely lost.

I can surf the web for hours, or watch a 4-hr-long DVD, or do any number of other things on it without any trouble.

Any ideas?
Odd. I would think it's a thermal event, except that your use of the drive to watch DVDs rules that out. Does the shutdown happen after a consistent length of time, or does it vary? If it varies, it might be a driver issue like 2c indicated. You might go under the Device Manager under My Computer to check the device status and/or reinstall the driver for the CD ROM.

You may also want to run some disk utilities to check the hard disk to make sure you aren't hitting any bad sectors on the hard drive, etc.

-Kevin

[Dr. Corkski]

Overheating? Is your fan turning on? Is it very loud? (I'm assuming it's a variable speed fan)Pretty sure that is the problem. Sports games are hard on the CPU and will overheat easily. I used to have this happen all the time when I played any EA game on my old POS HP laptop.

[Cam]

Have you checked the log files to see if there is an "event" created when the problem occurs?

[nrc]

Overheating? Is your fan turning on? Is it very loud? (I'm assuming it's a variable speed fan)

That was my thought. Laptops are bad for heat build up anyway. Make sure the fans are all working. You may need to open it up and blow the dust out of the heat sinks. Of course after you do that it probably won't work at all. :saywhat:

[WickerBill]

I guess since you speak of "38-0" that you're saying the lockup/shutdown doesn't happen the very second the CDROM is in use; therefore, as the others have said, a thermal event is your likely enemy. I just toasted my lappy after a bit of rubber got into one of the fans (from the laptop foot, you sick pervs) and it only took a couple of hours to crack the CPU, believe it or not.

Hopefully a blast of compressed air at the fan exits will help you carry on for a bit, but worst case, you have a dud fan, or a dislodged heatsink, or something else that will require cracking the case.

[ChampcarShark]

Try moving to a cooler city, Vancouver or similar. :gomer:

I had a heating problem with my laptop that was fixed when I upgrated to XP Professional, after three clean instalations and a number of calls to microsoft.

[pfc_m_drake]

Plus, when you play a 3-D game (like Madden '06) you work the video card really hard too. So, hot GPU + hot CPU = my vote for overheating as well.

That also might explain why you can watch DVDs for hours without problems - the video card (GPU) isn't doing any work to speak of, so it stays relatively cool, which is not true when you game.

[racer2c]

Plus, when you play a 3-D game (like Madden '06) you work the video card really hard too. So, hot GPU + hot CPU = my vote for overheating as well.

That also might explain why you can watch DVDs for hours without problems - the video card (GPU) isn't doing any work to speak of, so it stays relatively cool, which is not true when you game.

Running a DVD for even a few minutes will heat the drive up way more than playing a game. The DVD drive is in constant use with a DVD movie where as with a game there are intermittent calls to the drive. True playing a game will increase the heat of the video card and to a certain extent the cpu (but not much). Rabbit mentioned educational games of his kids. Are these 3D based games? If not, there is no reason why the video card would over heat unless there is a build up of crud on any of the heat sinks or fan exhaust (some older laptops don't even have fans).

Try running thermostat software (some have alarms when the system overheats) to see if you are getting high temps.

I wouldn't rule out driver corruption also. Does it happen in all games or just a few?

[nrc]

Try running thermostat software (some have alarms when the system overheats) to see if you are getting high temps.

I wouldn't rule out driver corruption also. Does it happen in all games or just a few?
Normally a driver problem would give some other indication besides just shutting down (BOSD, etc). Most of the time that kind of instant death is hardware related.

Also, watching a DVD the motor is spinning at a fairly constant rate while accessing a CD/ROM can involve a lot of seeking and spinning up and down. Which leads me to another WAG - something wrong with the CD/DVD unit causing it to more power than it should.

Has it ever shut down not playing a game or doing something else stressful on the CPU/GPU?

Is it always using the CD/ROM when it shuts down?

Has A.J. Foyt been anywhere near this laptop?

[rabbit]

I suspected overheating before I asked.

I took the cover off where the fan is (the fan works) and blew it out. I got clumps of dust and lint the size of a small dog! It seems to be running much cooler now, although I haven't had a chance to play Madden yet. I'll let you know.