Leo, I have a Dell laptop model Inspirion M5010 Core I5. On this laptop, I
play MW3 and Battlefield 3. During the game playtime, my laptop suddenly shuts down. What is the reason?
In this excerpt from
Answercast #8, I discuss the heat generated by processor-heavy applications
(such as games) and look at the option of cooling off the machine.
]]>
Laptop suddenly shuts down
It’s impossible to say exactly what the reason might be. My suspicion is the typical cause of this kind of a shut down: overheating.
Games in particular tend to stress computers quite heavily. They use the processor very heavily and they tend to use the graphics cards fairly heavily. Both of which generate a fair amount of heat when they are used heavily.
The net result is if your computer doesn’t have proper ventilation or the fans aren’t working or there’s too much dust in the way, things can overheat.
Heat can cause a sudden shut-down
When things overheat, what typically happens is the computer simply crashes.
So the very first thing I would look at: [it] would be to clear out your area and make sure that your computer has appropriate ventilation and that it’s not overheating.
Next – Aren’t incremental backups just as important as a system backup?
There are some laptops which simply don’t have enough ventilation to run the CPU and video card full bore, even when they are brand new.
Try to install an applet which displays the information generated by the various temperature sensors in your CPU, video card and hard drive. I use lm-sensors and conky on my Linux system.
I had a system where I added a Video card, and when my son played high graphic games the same thing would happen. But that was because the power supply wasn’t strong enough. Putting in a higher rated powersupply fixed the problem — but with a laptop — you would think they would put in big enough power to fit the components! (but not always)
To follow up on the possible lack of ventilation; and the following may sound contradictory-
DON’T HAVE THE LAPTOP DIRECTLY ON YOUR LAP(top).
Have a tray, a large book, even a Laptop Cooler or other similar flat surface directly on your lap, with the laptop on top, thus helping to avoid blocking the vents etc.
Heat is the answer. Amazingly most of us have ONE fan in our CPU’s. Gamers show me that they often have 3 fans.