A couple months ago I inherited an older Toshiba Satellite 1900 laptop. I’m not sure what year it is (I can find nothing on the machine to indicate) but I suspect it’s about 4? 5? years old. I reformatted it and installed XP Pro, then downloaded the drivers from Toshiba and it works. However, usually after it has been playing for a couple hours it just suddenly shuts off. After restarting it will run again for fifteen minutes or so then cut out again. It continues to do this. I suspect it’s overheating, because it feels quite warm \ hot to me where the fan is on the body of the machine in the back left area. If I leave it for a while I get back to being able to use it for a couple hours before it cycles back to shutting off again. I checked the power management features, and disabled hard disk shut off, screensavers, and hibernate. This machine has it’s own proprietary power management, that over-rides Win XP’s power features. Any suggestions as to what this might be, or what is causing it? Thx

It sounds like it's overheating to me too. Point a table fan at it while it's running. See if that slows the shut down time. Also, look at the event viewer.

THx guapo, I'll try that.

Laptop cleaning procedure: http://www.informationweek.com/stor...

If you posted the correct Model # Satellite 1900, the specs should be at the link below. http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/tos... You can verify with Part Number listed in the specs. The same Part Number should be on a silver Lable on the botom of the Laptop. AFAIK, WinXP Power Management should work unless you installed the Toshiba version when you installed your drivers. It's one of them. Your machine is new enough that the Original CD's should be available from Toshiba, if you are interested. There is an 800 number on the bottom for Toshiba Support (Human too). You can ask them about new CD's. Not sure if you can get XP PRO, Home was standard on this model. Your problem sounds like Over temp, but Toshiba's Power Management is sometimes tricky. Are you sure it's shutting down? A bad Screen inverter will cause the Screen to go black and appear to be off. When this happens the LED's should be lit. Try tapping the Lid close button a couple of times, next time it appears to be shut down. If the screen flickers it could be the Back light Lamp or the inverter. You may, or may not, hear a Beep. If you do the machine is running but the screen is off. If no beep it may not mean anything. There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.