Hi Acern and welcome to PCWorld.

The Discussion to which manrayferns refers is available by clicking this hyperlink. Another Discussion that you both may want to review is available here.

Now, Acern, we are going to need more information from you before we can even begin to troubleshoot your situation:

• According to this site, your laptop came with 1GB of memory. How much memory do you have installed in your computer now? If you are not sure, please follow these steps to find out

Right Click on My Computer -> Select Properties -> Post what you see under the General tab

• Are you using your laptop on a hard surface like a desk or a soft surface like a bed?

• Have you used compressed air to clean out the vents?

• Are you using your laptop via the battery or the power adapter?

• Have you confirmed that you have the latest drivers for your video card?

• What application do you use to watch any video file?

• Does this only happen while using one specific application? If so, have you confirmed that you have the latest updates for that application?

• If you have not done so, please check how many processes are running and your CPU Usage while you are watching a video file. To do this, open your Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Delete) and click on the Processes tab. In the lower left corner, you will see the current processes and in the lower middle, you will see the current CPU Usage. Please start a video file, check this tab, and then post what you find.

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This is my personal Dream PC: http://forums.pcworld.com/blogs/mphenterprises/2007/12/21/my-gift-to-myself

Hi Acern. Don't worry, we have members from all over the world/ Let's see if we can resolve this for you.

Yes, the specification link was not directly from Acer so some of the information may not have been 100% accurate; although, the fact that you have 2GBs of memory is very good, especially for Vista.

The fact that you use your laptop on soft surfaces most of the time is part of the reason your computer is shutting off. There are ventilation vents under your laptop. A soft surface basically suffocates the vents, heating up your processor, then your computer shuts down to save your system. If you are going to continue to use your laptop on a soft surface, like a bed, you should get a riser that connects to the bottom of your laptop which will allow your laptop the air it needs.

At this point, I think everything else is secondary at this time. I believe once you get this riser, you will notice a major improvement in your computer and no more random computer shut offs. The Task Manager is accessible within Vista the same way you would get to it within XP (click the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys at the same time).

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This is my personal Dream PC: http://forums.pcworld.com/blogs/mphenterprises/2007/12/21/my-gift-to-myself