My laptop is turning its self off after a few hours of use. It just dies, there is no warning and it does not shut down in the correct manor just wham off like all electrical power has been turned off.

Ive noticed it gets very hot, if you touch the ports at the rear you can almost burn your fingers. I assume its overheating and shuting down to avoid damage but whats causing this?

Is it a good idea to open it up and vacuum the fans and vents?

Toshiba Satellite SA 60 / two and a half years old.

Any help appreciated.

Cleaning the vents sounds like a good move.

You might try downloading something like Motherboard Monitor and running that to check on the various temps around the machine.

Does nothing show up in your event viewer? (under Control Panel/Administrative Tools if XP).

just something obvious but is the cooling fan working ? if it is getting hot ,then surely it would be on all the time unless its got a fault on it

No info in event viewer + the fan is working. Ive been using it for the last three hours and it hasnt happend again yet:confused: Maybe it is a fault with the fan, I will listen out for it and see if it stops or works over time trying to cool.

Mine (Toshiba A60) did this at 11 months old (last december) and was returned to currys where they decided it needed a new motherboard.

First time it happened was sat on a desk, it switched off and started making a popping sound. There was a strong smell of burning too. After that I was able to use it but it kept switching of intermittently. Pointing a desk fan at the machine allowed continuous use without any problems.

Overall i think it's a pile of poo and I wouldn't buy a toshiba anything again (previously had tellys, vcrs etc without problem)