There could be many problems that can cause yourlaptop to restart automatically and randomly. Here are afew common problems
Faulty battery: Most spontaneous shutdown and restartingproblems on laptops are due to a faulty battery. Laptop batter-ies are like mobile phone batteries—they do not last forever.A heavily-used laptop, where it is often running only onbattery power, will use up its battery at any stage between thefirst and second year of use. What is not very well known isthat even if you always use your laptop from the mains ratherthan on battery, a faulty battery will still adversely affectyour laptop’s operation, from unwanted shutdowns to spon-taneous restarts or freezes. Take the battery out, plug thelaptop directly into the power mains, and see if you still expe-rience spontaneous shutdowns or reboots.
Faulty power adaptor: This is not a common occurrence,but power adaptors do go faulty—either through lack of careor through wear and tear. With the battery out of the laptop,
if you have a spare power adaptor from an iden-tical laptop, see if replacing it solves the prob-lem. Otherwise, try wiggling the cord that leadsfrom the adaptor to the laptop and see if thatstabilises the problem—if it does, then the power adaptorneeds replacing.
Problem with mains power: Is the switching off or restart-ing happening anywhere, or only in a particular place or room?
Faulty internal cooling fan: Most laptops have one ormore internal cooling fans—it is those fans which producethe quiet whirring noise you can hear when you turn yourlaptop on. If any of these fans stops working, the laptopmay overheat and, if it does, it will automatically shutdown to prevent total damage. Observe whether yourlaptop shuts down after near enough the same amount oftime every time (with the same amount of activity while itis on—and allowing the laptop to cool down between exper-iments). If it does, then it is quite probable that it is shut-ting down because of overheating. Feel the underside ofthe laptop with your hand—most often, it is possible to tellthat the laptop is abnormally hot. If your laptop is indeedshutting down because of lack of cooling, you need to takeit to the repair store.
