My computer's been shutting down and I don't know why.

[Bard The 5th LW]

In the past 2-3 days my computer has had a really bad habit of just going kaput and killing itself while I'm in the middle of playing a game. Its happened twice during Metal Gear Rising and just today during Dark Souls 2. Its really a recent problem, as I've played both of those games just fine for extended periods in the past.

This has happened to me once or twice over the year I've had the laptop, but only when I'm legitimately running too many processes at once (like, podcast + skype + game + whatever). Its just been in the past two days that it apparently has gotten really fragile and has been shutting down more often. I've been trying to turn off other processes while I play, but it doesn't always help.

I'm not sure if its a memory problem or if its overheating or what. Usually my laptop tells me if there's a memory issue incoming, but I've gotten no such warnings during the most recent shutdowns. It doesn't feel that hot either so I don't think its overheating.

My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite, my processor is a core i7, and I have about 8gb's of ram. Any recommendations? I can try to provide more specific details if needed.

[rpgdemon]

Mine would shut down from overheating when the fans got clogged with dust, then not boot until it cools down. There was never any error message, it just turned off. Try compressed air to blast dust out of the fans.

[synkr0nized]

Don't rule out overheating until you have logs / data to show temps at time of shutdown.
Shutting down, as opposed to locking up, suggests a hardware issue other than just bad or corrupted RAM, but that's just an initial impression.


If it's only happening when playing games, also investigate driver issues (e.g. video).
Does your event viewer suggest any errors or failures? Specifically around shutdown times (example on how to investigate that)?

[Bells]

Any physical signs showing up during use?

Like, heat is a given sure... but noises, high fan usage, even crackling noises in the cabinet...

MGS Rising and DS 2 are 2 fairly intensive gaming experiences for your machine... but if you have them, your machine should be able to take it. But something might be pushing it over the edge.

I get the very rare, occasional Blue scree on my PC but i know it's because i have a shitty HDD that needs to give way to an SSD sooner or later... you could be having a similar issue.

maybe HDD, maybe graphic's card related (Temperature and fan usage are important on this one) , your PSU might be a problem if it just straight up shuts down...

But also you can't rule out Software issues. The very basic ''update all drivers, clean up the PC'' with antivirus and Ccleaner and the such, might clue you in some more.

[Azisien]

Listing all specs would be good.

Download Open Hardware Monitor or Speccy to monitor your temperatures, it'll become pretty obvious if that's the issue (you'll see your CPU/GPU go to like 100C and shortly thereafter if you experience a crash, there you go).

Based on personal, firsthand experience random shutdowns like this usually point to a faulty power supply.

Bells already mentioned, but I should also reinforce that laptops aren't really designed for intense, long gaming sessions, even if they are "gaming" laptops. Small form factor is small form factor, no way around those heat problems, and heat = degrades components faster. The Asus G750JZ is pretty good actually, but it's also nearly the size of an Xbox.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I replaced my old stand with a set of pegs that give the fan more open room. So far I haven't had many problems. I'll give the Hardware monitor a look too to see if the temperature is higher than I think it is.

Thanks for the advice! I'll give updates if things work/don't work.

[shiney]

I was going to recommend Event Viewer as well. It has a lot of information about critical warnings and other things that could result in a sudden shutdown, gives you an error code and stuff so you can do better and more specific research.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Aaaaaaand it shutdown again today while playing a game. I had shut down every other program/browser prior so I really doubt its a memory issue. I'm running Windows Defender but I don't know what that would accomplish.

Like, I know that Laptops aren't supposed to have as much power as desktops but this has never been a problem until recently. I've had it for a year and have been playing plenty of games on it until now.

Based on personal, firsthand experience random shutdowns like this usually point to a faulty power supply.

Someone else I talked to about it suggested this to me. Any particular recommendations on how to solve this if it turns out to be the case? Would I just replace the charger or the battery?

[Azisien]

In the case of a laptop I don't know. Could be as simple as that, but might need to replace the unit entirely.

You should post data/watch for yourself with the hardware monitors though? We are speculating otherwise. They're freeware and take 2 minutes to install.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Took a screencap of the monitor while playing Dishonored, another game that shut me down once. Played for about an hour with all other browsers/processes shut down (barring Hardware Monitor). I checked it periodically, and most of them usually fluctuated around 90 degrees, with 100 or so being the high for each, but for whatever reason it didn't shut down this time.

As for power use, I took a screen of that too although I'm less certain of the implications regarding that.



My graphics card is an Intel HD 4000 for whatever that's worth.