....itself off anyone any ideas???? i think i might need a new battery pack,other than that i have no idea the laptop is 18 months old!
Thanks

does it do the same when connected to the mains ?
do you get any error messages before it shuts down such as a blue screen ?

Is it a Toshiba? can you switch it back on straight away? if not and it just goes off for no reason then it could be getting too hot, blow in to the vent at the side and see if you can shift the dust off the heatsink, works on mine.

My laptop goes off if it overheats or you block the air vent if you have it on your knee or an uneven surface!

yeh its does it when its connected to the mains too...
no it just switches off and i have to reeboot

no its a compaq pressario. done all the blow jobs

maybe you should read what you just posted lol,i missed mine

maybe you should read what you post too lol
sorry it was just a joke

Always good to keep on top of things I suppose!!

My laptop switches off cos it has no battery pack and the terminals inside the jack port are wearing. If your battery isn't charging when the cable is in, check the lead, the transformer and the jack port. If the battery is ok, I'm stumped.

the Battery charges just fine, we had a new jack port fitted a couple of months ago because the laptop was knocked off the table by one of the dogs it was on charge and the jack pushed it inside, so it cant be that. i cant understand why the power just switches off when it's plugged in with a full battery

My laptop is also a Compaq and has a dodgy jack socket, sometimes is the jack plug is making repeatedly intermittent contact it also just switches off.

Does it ever do it when just running off battery, mine doesn't.

Other thing that also did it on mine was a knackered memory card, luckily it had two fitted and so running it with one it was ok, running it with just the other would sometimes switch off. New memory card and it was fixed.

My desktop computer manages to do this when I access a specific file on an external USB drive. I have still to find any possible reason for this, nothing down USB should be able to do an immediate shutdown of the PC so I am guessing it is a driver problem. Annoyingly this is 100% predictable which should make fault finding easier but with no error log generated and the time to boot it up again has made me give up - one day etc.

makes no differance DD it just dies plugged in or not.

I still think it is an over heating problem, maybe blowing into it wont shift the dirt, I have taken mine to pieces a few times, its amazing how much dust gets in there. If you put your hand near to the vent, does the air blowing out feel warm or quite hot?

when the Jack port was fixed the bloke cleaned it all
the vent feels warm but not hot

I have a HP which became very hot and switched itself off constantly about 6 months after I bought it so I sent it back under guarantee and they replaced the motherboard. It worked fine for about another 6 months then started to overheat again, now it's outside the guarantee and I'm stuffed. It switches off all the time, no warnings. this sounds like what you are experiencing Tilly.

In the BIOS
the Temprature settings may be set too low.
And there for shutting it down too soon.

70 - 85c

You may not have those settings not all do.
But could help you manage the problem if its over heating and shutting down.

A few years ago I had a work laptop that kept doing this. I bought a cooling tray (the kind you put your cakes on to cool when they come out of the oven) and put my laptop on that - the air could then circulate under it and keep it cool.

Just start by cleanin the innards. That will resolve any overheating problems, full stop (unless you have a faulty fan or component of course).

I wouldnt recommend playing with the BIOS settings, as under normal circumstances, they will be setup correctly - you should only experience a problem if you have a problem (ie. overheating - its happening for a reason). Get to the source of the problem rather removing the warning signals, its like seeing the oil pressure light come on your car's dashboard, you would not keep driving (certainly not for long) and just remove the bulb, you would get the problem fixed, as ignoring it will just cause you more serious damage in the long-run (if a processor core is reguarly overheating or forcibly running hotter than is within safe limits, it will fail much quicker than under normal circumstances, I had this happen to me many a time, and at great expense, back in my overclocking days). If its turning off you laptop because the core is overheating, it's not doing it for a laugh etc, its doing this to protect your system from more serious damage.

A good clean of the innards every 6 months or so on a laptop is strongly recommended, the heatsinks get clogged up with dust over time, and unfortunately, unlike desktops, there is such little space, that when they do get clogged, they become unable to breath, so the fan cannot circulate enough/any air to actually cool the heatsink.

Btw, I once had the same thing happen on my old Pentium 4 NW laptop, and that was restarting every 15 minutes. A 5 minute clean of the system (during which I removed a carpet of dust), and all was resolved.

I bought a laptop cooling tray it has a fan and usb connection for £10 at netto. done the trick

I have to agree with everyone that the most likely cause of all this heat. and/or dust, the problem is that now it has alreay got hot you have to solve another problem.
Between the heatsink and the CPU you will have a thermal compound (paste) this helps to transfer the heat away from the CPU onto the heatsink and the fan blows the air across to keep it cool. The problem is that once your CPU has got hot a few times the paste tends to dry out and becomes more of an insulator than a conductor, some CPU's (Intel especially) then begin to slow down by reducing their clock speed or even turn themselves off to protect themselves from damage.
What needs to be done is the heatsink/fan removed, the paste cleaned off (Tim cleaner is good for this) and a good quality high conductivity paste applied (you MUST use a good one with a laptop as the haetsink/fan are so much smaller than a desktop). This solves the problem in most cases (although a tray with a fan is a good way of preventing it in the first place).
If you can't do it yourself then I know which shop I would recommend you take it to, but as advertising is not allowed, and I own it, you might want to pm me if you get stuck.

Laptop batteries can be expensive, I priced one for my HP and it was just over £60.00, Depending on the age of laptop you might be better getting a new one!