Mysterious Crashing

[MurphysLaw]

I've recently started playing again, and I'm on a new (4 month old) computer. I'm basically just running around AE kiting with my new (lvl 5) bard and powerleveling him with my druid, but every 5-15 minutes SoD will shut my laptop down, as if the power's suddenly been cut. This happens sometimes during long (4+ hour) Team Fortress 2 marathons, but never with this kind of frequency, so I don't think the problems are related. The computer doesn't feel like it's overheating, either.

System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 12/4/2008, 14:31:41
Machine name: PAUL-PC
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.longhorn_rtm.080118-1840)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: XPS M1530
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A09
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5750 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page File: 1274MB used, 3055MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 6.00.6001.18000 32bit Unicode
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

I've done all the basics to try to diagnose the problem; virus scanning, defregging, cleaning temporary files/clearing off unnecessary programs, turning down all my game settings, binding separate game instances to their own processor, but the problem persists. I'm not getting any errors in the patch logs either.

Can someone help me solve this problem?

 

[emachine74]

Ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla at. Id semper risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum. Volutpat diam ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus. Non arcu risus quis varius quam quisque id diam vel.

 

[telove2]

Definitely sounds heat related to me. You could download this and check out the temperatures of everything:
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

There is also this one which just does the CPU:
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

It's strange for that to happen on a new laptop though. Usually temp problems are because of dust build up over the years, or a fan that dies after a long life. Something I wonder is if maybe you are holding the laptop on your lap? If so, it might be better off being on a flat desk where at least a bit of air can get underneath it. And if it's not heat, then it could just be a faulty power supply.

Either way though, if it was me, I would be shouting at Dell at this point, because that just shouldn't happen to a new laptop.

 

[MurphysLaw]

Using the speedfan program, my temp when I started up was 62, and with two instances of SoD running it went up to 83. The temp stayed there for about an hour while I AE kited, and then the computer suddenly shut down.

It seems strange to me that the laptop would be overheating running SoD, but working fine with TF2, but it's also happening with Fallout 3 so I'm pretty convinced that it's a hardware issue now, I guess I'll send it to Dell and let them handle it.

 

[telove2]

That does sound rather hot. I'm not sure what that would be measuring, because speedfan measures the disks, the motherboard, the cpu surface temp, and the individual cores. Although, none of those should get in the 80's so either way it's not really good.

And yeah, I would just contact Dell and have them worry about it instead. I'd be interested to know what happens next.