Laptop keeps shutting off on its own

Nope, first it was in a bit of a chilly environment, then average temp, then warmer...made no difference. And yeah, the fan runs. We checked for dust as well. Lol, that's what I keep hearing. I'll try to look beyond dell if I end up having to get a new one (which I prolly will).

I have an HP, love it, but my computer geek nephews swear by Dell. After I replaced that little part on my plug, my HP is fine now.

Fortunately I did not use Dell if it is the problems lie. We used the PHILIPS here in our office and it functions well. Just suggest to change another main board if the computor is old enough so that you can utilize more time to earn more money. Maybe the money will be back soon if you changed a new running computor. LOL!

Lol, hi Cobra. I haven't been around much. =o Busy life. How've you been?

I'm glad your surgery went well! I'm glad to be back on here too. ^_^

Healing from more jaw surgery, but glad to see you here again!

As you said the same happened to me, I have an Acer... It used to shut down automatically. When I tried to solve the problem on my own doing all possible things (installing an updated antivirus etc) it became more worse and prevented me to login to my own computer. And ultimately it started shown black screen. I was so astonished to see the behaviour...!!I got sure it was a virus, and a dangerous one. I carried on my probe and thought that I should solve the problem very soon and easily...!! As it was not even running in safe mode one of my friends told me to boot with a bootable CD and check my partitions. The system booted well to MSDOS prompt and I was spellbound to see that no partitions were there... I tried to run FDISK, the oldest and simplest partition making utility, but it failed to do so...but I did not lose my hope at all. I thought that Linux would be better, I booted with a free Linux CD from the friend and I was so happy to see that all the partitions were intact!!! Immediately I took my system to Acer techinicans, they Installed the OS for me and now its running ok. I have installed AVG free and update it on regular basis. In conclusion I can say, as you all know the issue could be caused by software or hardware issue or errors, a virus( I was attacked by a deadly worm),and Operating system issue or error. I hope soon everything will be solved for this mylot friend. Good luck

Hey, just be careful. AVG is very good at keeping infections at bay, but it can miss some viruses and then, you will start having problems. And once infection occurs, AVG sucks at trying to remove it. I highly recommend Avira antivirus! It is probably the best free antivirus/antispyware in my opinion and is quite effective.

Well, about a week ago...my computer mysteriously had more than 22 used Gigabites..that's over half my memory. I was baffled, as I hadn't installed anything and in fact took several things off with little to no change in the memory. And last night after having it on safemode for the evening and running diagnostics...it did a memory dumo and fix upon shutdown...and upon turning it on this morning -- it acted completely fine and like normal! I can't imagine, because after all that, I was sure that I had a corrupted systems/crappy motherboard. Unfortunately, this is a three year old computer. I only got internet on it in the past two months. I'm way past warranty.

xParanoiax, Not sure if I am right or wrong here, but doesn't Dell have a longer warranty period for the motherboard? Anyway, if the motherboard is really faulty, then I would suggest that it's time to purchase a new notebook.