Im havin a problem with my laptop cus whenever it gets hot, it automatically shuts down - without warnin, like a blackout. It always come back fine, but Im worried that when it shuts (blacks out) down like that, the HD eventually gets damaged due to sudden outrage and that it will go bad. Or is this normal and expected for laptop HD's? Thanks people. -Andrew

It is "Normal" for a pentium chip to automatically shut down when it overheats to prevent damage to the processor. It is definitely not normal for any system to do this on a regular basis. If this is a fairly new system still under warranty I'd be calling HP support and complaining loud and long. I have no idea how to check if the cooling fan has dust buildup or other problems in a laptop. Perhaps you can improve external environment by having a deskfan running whenever you use the PC. Maybe someone makes a refrigerated tray that you can rest the unit on? Maybe there's a market out there for some enterprising person to develop such a thing if no-one has already made one. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

^^^^ It's not normal, unless it is set to do just that in the BIOS. AMD Athlon XP 1.8GHz 512MB RAM 120GB HDD SATA GeForce 4 Ti4600 128MB Nvidia nforce2 chipset w/ soundstorm Pioneer DVD/RW ABIT NF-7S Rev 2 Motherboard

It is normal for a pentium processor. they have thermal overload cutout inbuilt. Nothing to do with the bios at all. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

^^^^^ I realise that, but shouldn't the settings for the 'overload cutout' be in the BIOS? Ie. set the temperature to cut out at etc? AMD Athlon XP 1.8GHz 512MB RAM 120GB HDD SATA GeForce 4 Ti4600 128MB Nvidia nforce2 chipset w/ soundstorm Pioneer DVD/RW ABIT NF-7S Rev 2 Motherboard

Motherboard may have a separate thermal cutout setting that can be changed in bios but that is independant of that inbuilt in pentium chips. The motherboard option is more commonly used for AMD chips that lack the inbuilt protection of intel. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

I stand corrected :-) AMD Athlon XP 1.8GHz 512MB RAM 120GB HDD SATA GeForce 4 Ti4600 128MB Nvidia nforce2 chipset w/ soundstorm Pioneer DVD/RW ABIT NF-7S Rev 2 Motherboard