What is causing my laptop to lock up when I leave it on for a while?

[FearoftheNight]

For the past few days when I leave my laptop on for 8-9 hours without attending to it it tends to hard lock on me. It happens after the screensaver comes on...I come back to an unresponsive black screen with nothing on it. I am forced to hold down the power button and restart it. Any idea what could be causing this? I'm not sure if it's overheating since I haven't changed my usage patterns in years and this has never happened before. Thanks in advance.

 

[corkyg]

Most likely, heat and/o0r power management settings. It is really not good to go off and leave a notebook running. They are not built for that kind of use.

Also, it could have entered a state of hibernation.

If you need to run your laptop this way, suggest that you put it on a cooling pad and set the screen save to turn the display OFF after "n" unattended minutes. Don't waste your backlight hours by running a screen saver. That really helps no one.

 

[mpilchfamily]

I agree it's most likly a heat issue. Especially if its not sitting on a solid surface.

 

[Bignate603]

Go grab a can canned air and spray it out. My laptop wasn't crashing from heat but it was getting ridiculously hot to the point of almost burning my legs. Spraying it out made a huge difference.

 

[FearoftheNight]

Ah ok. I just got a program called smcfancontrol so i'm leaving it on a higher fan setting. It is just laying on my desk tho.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: FearoftheNight
Ah ok. I just got a program called smcfancontrol so i'm leaving it on a higher fan setting. It is just laying on my desk tho.

*shrug*

ive left my T60 idling, or suspended, for days without any kind of problem.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: xSauronx
ive left my T60 idling, or suspended, for days without any kind of problem.

That's OK. Idling or suspended is not running the display of the CPU like a screen saver is.