I have a toshiba satellite series notebook. Recently, it has started to just randomly turn itself off. Everything will be working fine, then the screen goes blank and the computer is off. The two power lights still illuminate indicating a full battery and external power.

Also, I get a symantic message literally once every 30 seconds, if not more frequent. The message states "your computer is at risk in the following areas: -virus protection is out of date. I have gone into the norton settings and turned off this reminder, yet it continues to pop up. I've had this laptop into best buy three times in my ownership, thank goodness i bought the product service plan. I'm starting to think a nice bath might help it out? thanks,
Ryan

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83 300SD.......sold
96 integra SE....sold
99 a4 quattro....sold
2001 IS300.......sold
2002 330i.........current.
2004 highlander limited....current.

Mrs Bot started doing that after we'd been married a couple decades. Wine works wonders.

i had a toshiba satellite it used to do that.. i brought it back and got a sony viao.. it origonally went in to replace the port in the back that chrages it since it was loose and wouldnt charge.. i sent the laptop and charger to cali to be fixed under warrenty with toshiba and best buy 3 year plan.. got it back not fixed and missing the charger so my mom threw a fit and i got a new sony viao and a load of other stuff...

Sounds like a hardware issue to me. Usually some sort of hardware component failure or in some cases overheating of one of the chips (often the main CPU) can cause shutdowns/rebooting.

It is possible that a virus or other aberrant software is the cause. Have you tried reloading the OS? That's a good baseline to start from - get out your restore CD's and blast away!

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can you start in safe mode?

That is malware giving you that message. If you click on it, it will take you to some link to purchase some other virus protection software...that is the kicker.

Porn surfing will do that (not saying you are though)...

You have to find the process that is triggering the message, then delete in (in DOS safe mode). You can't delete the file in Windows, and if you try to kill the process, it will automatically restart.

The sporatic shutdowns are another story...you have an overheating condition...

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

Power supply? Replaced it on mine, no problems.

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

The overheating point that was brought up is a very good possibility. A while back the cooling fan had started to make some noise, but i continued to use the computer as i needed it for my final papers due at the time. That eventually led to the hard drive crashing. Perhaps the heat damaged something partially back then and is only showing up now.

With regard to the symantic message: It appears as if it is actually a real norton message. There are no links to click on. This is exactly how the message looks:

Your computer is at risk in the following areas:

-Virus protection out of date


open your Norton product to resolve the issue

(checkmark box)To prevent duplicate security stats alerts, use my existing Norton product alerts and turn off redundant Windows Security Center alerts
(reccomended)


{{{{{{{{{{{{OK}}}}}}}(thats an ok box)


Thanks guys this is driving me nuts.
Ryan

__________________
83 300SD.......sold
96 integra SE....sold
99 a4 quattro....sold
2001 IS300.......sold
2002 330i.........current.
2004 highlander limited....current.

Well i finally got rid of my annoying Norton message. I simply un-installed it. I was trying to avoid that in case the computer decided to randomly turn off in the middle of uninstalling. Luckily that did not happen.
Ryan

__________________
83 300SD.......sold
96 integra SE....sold
99 a4 quattro....sold
2001 IS300.......sold
2002 330i.........current.
2004 highlander limited....current.

Run the hardware diagnostics that came with the PC. I had similar problem it was one memory SIMM or module.

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2010 ML350 Bluetec
2012 Mustang Convertible

Norton and McAfee are almost as bad as having a virus. Use AVG instead.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Thats interesting because i did just add more memory. The problem started about a month after i added it though.
Ryan

edit: Also, the computer has not randomly turned off since i un-installed Norton. I even left it on last night to check it out and it was still on this morning. Hopefully Norton was the entire problem.

__________________
83 300SD.......sold
96 integra SE....sold
99 a4 quattro....sold
2001 IS300.......sold
2002 330i.........current.
2004 highlander limited....current.

I would reccomend that you download AVG and Ad-Aware which are both free and scan your machine from end to end. There is a possibility that Norton was damaged and consuming a lot of CPU time and therefore overheating your machine causing the thermal protection to kick in. If there is something still latent on your machine it's not going to get better before it gets worse. One more suggestion is to check to see whether or not the CPU fan is clogged up with dirt or if it spins at all. The fans only have a 3-4 year life span depending on the air quality and that will dramatically affect CPU coooling.

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k

here are a couple of microsoft related articles that describe a restsart like you have

http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/sasser.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/sasser_printxp.mspx

Your computer may be overheating and the protection circuitry in the bios is turning it off. Very common problem with Toshibas, I found out.I have a Satellite p35-s609 (had it for just over a year) and I have to clean the dust out of it about every 4-6 months to prevent this from happening. Your cooling fans are probably running at or near full speed when this happens. Unfortunatly, the heat sinks are not easily accesable from the bottom like some laptops. To get to them, you would have to gut the entire computer and pull the motherboard out from the top of the machine. To avoid having to do this, or being without a computer for days or weeks while it is serviced, I used a VERY powerful shop vac (the kind that can hold a bowling ball)to pull the dust out of the machine by putting it up to the fan intake grills (stick a toothpick into the grill to keep the fans from turning too fast and possibly damaging them). You can also use compressed air blown into the exhaust vents in conjunction with the vacuum. Do not just blow air into the machine without something to suck it out, it will just get blown deeper into it, possibly causing other problems. Hope this helps. There is a website called notebookforums.com that I go to, they have sections for all brands, including Toshiba. Very helpful place.