HI~ I just bought a laptop not too long ago. Here are the specs: Toshiba Satellite, 1.something GHZ celeron, 256 megs RAM, plenty of HDD space, running XP. The basic problem is that often, with some games, it will just shut off (I mean completely turn itself off, without shutting down or anything, the screen just goes black and the power off). I am able to play the games for a bit (say 5-10 min) and then out of the blue, pouf- My machine turns itself off, very quietly, without any blue screens or beeping or whatever. I am new to XP, I used to use 98, anyone knows why this happens and how I might fix it? Thank-you for any ideas, Regards, Pixy

Couple of things could be happening, my 1st thoughts are overheating? is you laptop hot when this happens? Also my older laptop has a battery problem that doesn't read correctly, it'll read full charge one minute then the system will start beeping and shut down.

I too have just brought a new laptop - HP Pavilion zt1172, similar specs to yours. I have had similar problems when mine gets hot. Am trying now to prop something underneath at the back when using for any length of time to give the internal fan more air (the desk always feels really hot when it is flat). I have never owned a laptop before and would be interested to know if this is a common fault. I use mine for prolonged periods as have brought it to replace my old desktop. Also have had 2 bad XP crashes which involved system recovery et al. I have read that these can be due to overheating probs. Would be grateful if any of you wise people out there could tell me if this is indeed the problem Thanks

check that the hard drive is secured properly in it's case my problems was because the hard drive was sitting on the bottom with the connectors the only thing holding it in. it could also be the ram (not fitted properly or to much). when my computer kept turning off when i started to play games i found it was because i was using a ram booster