This morning my laptop started shuting down randomly ( like I'd shut it down manually). A few days ago I got a blue screen - saying that windows is shuting down due to some kind of error and to protect my computer from hardware damage. I recently replaced the dvd-rw with a new one ordered from a HP. Components (from HP's website) * Intel® Pentium® 4 630 w/HT Technology, 3.0GHz * 17.0" WXGA+ BrightView 1440x900 LCD * 1.0GB DDR2 SDRAM, 533MHz * DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo (Dual Layer) * 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon™ X600 * Internal Altec Lansing® speakers * 4 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0, 1 expansion port 2 connector, 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire), 1 Consumer IR (Remote Receiver) * Mouse: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad * Airforce One 54g™ Integrated Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN with 125HSM/SpeedBooster and BroadRange support and Bluetooth® I was planning to reinstall my XP so it thought it was a good timing. Because i had some driver problems last time I reinstalled I prepared an F partition to install a new XP just to check if the new drivers work properly ( mainly the WLAN driver, the driver from the Install CD didn't work). During the install procedure it shutdown again, twice. I tried to enter the bios to check the CPU temperture, it shutdown while I tried to find the temperture. I let it rest for a few minutes then I started the laptop and worked fine. I installed the drivers, antivirus, antispyware, trojan remover and did a complet scan of the system. The system was healthy. Then i rebooted and it started to shutdown again. I changed the power supplier and I got the same behavior. I formated the C:/ and reinstall a new XP, it shutdown during install, just before finishing it.... During this install it run on battery, and i pluged in the charger a few minutes before it shut down. I tried to start it again, but it shutdown in a few seconds. I pushed the power button and then pluged out the charger, it shutdown when i pluged it out like it would happen on a desktop. When it started again the CPU temperture was 74 C. I'm out of ideas, do you have any suggestion? What kind of problem am I dealing with?

I googled for "random shutdown xp" One suggestion was there was some temp monitoring in the bios & it was set too low. Is there any dust near the fan cpu? My desktop shutdown at 90c due to dust. 74 doesn't seem too high.

To find out this I have to get inside my laptop:) I will open it tonight to see what's inside. I hope this is just a dust related situation:). It was cleaned a few months ago...

shud be a thermal problem.... as the system seems to passed all scans..it cound be either the heat sinks or the processor fan..

It was a thermal problem indeed, one of the fans wasn't working properly and i had to clean it. Now the temperature is between 55 - 60C. The shutdowns are all gone. I thought about it but I didn't had the courage to go inside the laptop... I knew they are more fragile then a PC. Thanks for your answers.