HP Pavilion dv7-4190us overheads and shutsdown to protect itself when it should be idle

[ronShim]

HP Pavilion dv7-4190us Windows 7 critial event 41 - system reboot without cleanly shutting down 10 times in last two months.  it has shut itself down at least twice for over heating. Don't know why it shut down the other times.  No previous problems in the past two years.

I have via the support advisor updated the software and removed the papers between the laptop and the laptop tray.  Vents were clear.  It is running quiter now.  Could it be that easy?  Time will tell.  Anyway I would be interested in knowing if others have had this problem.

[maxkaufmannjr]

How many tasks are running on this computer when you are not using it?

[ronShim]

There are about 135 processes still running when I close all applications.  I closed all applications when tyring to figure out what was causing the problem.  What I found when the fan was loud was shortly after i  ran the task manager it woud settle down and be 99% idle.  Norton must have been running in a background mode.

It just blows my mind to see applications that I have installed and rarely ever use claiming 20, 30, 40 or more MB of memory.  I have written code to simulateously communciate with 3 radar sites decomutating guidance information on a system with only 64 K of memory.

I have had no probems today since I removed the magazine and few pages sandwitched between the Laptop and the laptop tray.  I believe that they were just blocking the air intake vents.  DAH.  There is not much clearnance underneath the laptop.

[maxkaufmannjr]

I had an older HP that did the same thing. I used canned air and blew the heck out of every fan, but then took the covers off the computer and really blew it all out good and couldn't believe all the dust that was heating up my laptop. If that doesn't work, make sure you back up everything, I mean everything, and do a system recovery back to factory. I switched my anti-virus from Norton to McAfee because Norton is always running the CPU whether you wnat it to or not and it uses precious resources, McAfee does not do that, you can shut norton off and look at the task manager and it still runs, i don't like not being able to control programs. When I have one that I cannot stop from running, I remove it from my computer. I know that is not always possible, but try this stuff first and if it doesn't work, chat with India on HP support.