I have a Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop which keeps shutting down every so often. It just turns off. We've noticed that it has been getting very warm. Around the time that this problem started occuring, Dell's fix for Service Pack 2 for the Inspiron 1150 was installed on it. The install claimed to increase the processor speed to help overcome slowdown issues with SP2. Could this be causing the laptop to overheat? If so, is there a way to lower that speed back down?

I would look into the bios to see just what the cpu temp is. If it is within spec then look for an item in the bios that will shut down the computer if a certain temp is reached. If there is then you should be able to set the threshold.

I've tried going into BIOS, but, unfortunately, it doesn't do much more than tell me the processer name/speed. The options of this particular's laptops BIOS are very limited.

Download the program SpeedFan and run it to check the temperatures in your running system.

Laptops tend to run fairly warm. CPU speed varies depending on load. At idle, your CPU may be running as low at 800MHz, possibly lower...this is done to converse battery power & to help it run cooler. When you have these shutdown problems, are you running off battery power or the AC adapter? Asus A7N8X-X 2500+ Sempron @ 2100mhz 10.5 x 200mhz @ 1.80v 512mb PC3200 Ti4200/8X 128mb WDC 60GB

It happens when running on AC and on the battery. I downloaded SpeedFan. It can't find fan settings though. It has been monitoring the temperature. How warm is too warm though? Currently, it's at 44 degrees C, but it's only been on for a short while and hasn't really been doing anything. I just set it up to scan though, so we'll see if the temperature increases any.

Current settings while doing a scan: #1: 49 degrees C #2: 79 degrees C And then it shut off on its own.