My friend just gave me his old laptop (I think he had it in 2010).

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pogiako12345
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Iscritto: 07/11/2014

He just gave it to me earlier and we've already talked about this a long time ago that his computer shuts down like when it's used for a long time. I think his laptop might have a hardware problem, graphics driver I think is the culprit he said it as well. I don't want to take this to the repair shop as I don't have much money right now. I hope I can fix this by myself.

Halp!

I am running Trisquel 6.0.1 with the latest updates, I installed it with the standard version (700 MB).

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

Is it overheating? Laptops are notorious for having really delicate cooling systems. I had a problem with overheating with my old laptop.

You can find out the temperature of your CPU and possibly some other components with lm-sensors. Once installed with e.g. apt-get, run the "sensors" command and it'll show your current temperatures, and how hot the components can get before they reach "critical" temperature -- the point at which they shut themselves off to prevent damage.

You might also have to run sudo sensors-detect. I had to do this for my current laptop, but not my old laptop.

If you're on GNOME Shell, there's a GNOME Shell extension called "Sensors"[1] which takes the report of lm-sensors and puts it into an icon on the top-right. This is how I personally prefer to use lm-sensors.

So, if the laptop is overheating, there are a couple things you can do.

The solution I would recommend is to get a laptop cooler. You should be able to find one for no more than around $30.

The other solution is to replace the laptop's fan. The reason I wouldn't recommend this is it's probably not any cheaper than using a laptop cooler (might even be more expensive, too), it's much more hassle than it's worth, and it's going to have the same problem of getting clogged up again at some later date anyway.

[1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/82/cpu-temperature-indicator/

pogiako12345
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Iscritto: 07/11/2014

Thanks! Really helped!;)

Jabjabs
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Iscritto: 07/05/2014

Yep that sounds like an overheating issues, listen to onpon4 :).

I used to get this on my desktop every once in a while, after a few months of the exact same symptoms I investigated, I found that not only was the CPU fan dead but the heat sink wasn't even attached any more!

If the cooling solutions mentioned above don't work, you can always try under-clocking the components via the firmware this will at least give it a little more stability provided you don't mind the performance drop.