I think my computer is overheating. It just randomly shuts down on me. Gonna take it apart tomorrow,and give it a good cleaning. Hope that works. I'm on my HP TouchSmart laptop, with a 12 inch screen. My old eyes just can't take it, haha.

My uncle's laptop has the same problem, randomly shuts down. Well not that random only when he watches youtube for a long time. When he plays chess, it doesn't shut down. I think it has something to do with memory because youtube caches and then memory probably fills up and i am guessing whenever it writes to that part of the memory it just shuts down but i don't know anything about hardware...so.

This is actually my home pc I'm having the problems with. It's an older model Gateway. I installed a program on it, that measures the core heat, and it was getting a bit hot. I'm hoping it's just the dust build up.

More likely overheating. If it's powered off (remove the power cable from back) a computer can be vacuumed (carefully). I repaired several that way (including one that had a .5" thick layer of cat hair on the mother board).

I just vacuumed it. Hopefully it will work. There was a lot of dust over the fan.

Yup; I vacuumed my PC (after over a year and a half) and 2 weeks later, my video fan went out. Not long after that, my cpu fan went out (bearings shot; very noisy and get BSOD/freezes). Now, temporarily, I have an external USB powered fan blowing it it with the side of the case off. Hopefully my Heatsink/fan from Tigerdirect comes in today or tomorrow.

Crazy...

More like idiots. lol

You may be able to get away with this if you allow the inside to completely drive. Not sure how the fans will operate if the bearings rust. lol

Agreed!

So much for that idea. Lasted 50 minutes, then shut down again.

Did it again. I don't think it's overheating. I had SpeedFan running, and it wasn't hot when it shut down. Wondering if it's my graphics card. One of the things I saw while Googling that seemed common.

Depends which fan you vacuumed. The important bit is the one of the CPU, as well as the associated radiator fins. But if your CPU is still reported hot, it may be a bad thermal contact between radiator and CPU. Remove fan, remove old thermal paste from CPU and radiator base, put new paste, put the radiator and fan back in place. Plenty of tuts to do this around.

Ofnuts has a good suggestion there. This could be the problem if the past has failed, the CPU could overheat.
Does your graphics card have a fan?
If not, maybe you could add another fan (if there's room) to your setup. Or maybe just add another fan blowing in on things, to get the air moving around in there.

One overlooked area is the space between the CPU fan and the CPU heatsink (same with video cards).

Remove the fan from the heatsink (normally attached with 4 screws) and clean the area in between. Spraying and/or vacuuming usually won't get it. If not cleaned, that area can get a layer of dust over it that looks like a piece of felt. I've seen lots of PCs with overheating issues caused by this problem.

Make sure all vents on the case are cleared, as well. Check your power supply to ensure its fan is clean and spinning properly too.

Thanks guys. I have the cover off, with a box fan on it at the moment. Been on for nearly an hour, without shutting down. I know not a fix, but still. In all reality, I think the Flux Capacitor is going out, haha. Shows the extent of my knowledge for computers.

Went off again. Temps were as cool as can be too. It seems to last about 50-55 minutes, then shuts down.

Looks like a pretty easy process. Have to get some thermal paste, and give it a go.

So, I read that crappy registry entries can also cause problems shutting down. One place recommended "Wise Registry Cleaner". It's a cleaner/optimizer. Since I've run it, I've had no shutdowns, knock on wood. Been an hour and 22 minutes so far.

You should have some CPU monitoring tools for your mainboard to help you determine if over heating is actually the problem. There might also be settings in your BIOS to set limits & direct the motherboard to shutdown when those limits are reached.

I've been monitoring it with SpeedFan. It's been staying cool. So far, so good: