Question : Problem: Dell Laptop sudden shutdowns

I have the following: Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop, running XP Home Edition.
In the last few days, my computer will suddenly shut off -- no warning at all. I'm plugged into the wall, and have checked all power connections without issue. Ran updates of Norton Antivirus,
SpyBot, AOL Spyware Check, Panda Active Scan, AOL Computer checkup, and came up with nothing. The fan seems to run a lot, and I'm wondering if it just might be overheating (but I don't know how to know this for sure). I also checked my Event Viewer log for errors, and I seem to have several related to time error, such as:
W32Time, ID 29 (...NtpClient has no source of accurate time.)
W32Time, ID 17 (...error occured during DNS lookup of manually configured peer 'time.window.com,0x1'...socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host." )
W32Time, ID 36 (The time service has not been able to synchronize the system time for 49152 seconds because none of the time providers has been able to provide a usable time stamp. The systme clock is unsyncronized.)
My date & time seem correct in the control panels, and I have resynced the internet time also.

If you haven't already guessed, I am NOT an IT expert, so any advise offered in regular-Joe English would be appreciated, thank you!

 

Answer : Problem: Dell Laptop sudden shutdowns

Thermal shutdown does seem a possibility.  Is the laptop particularly hot to the touch behind the fans or on the bottom?
I would suggest that you run a diagnostic on your memory, use the below link, it is an excellent start point


http://www.memtest86.com

Also run Dell's diagnostics on the laptop.  If you do not have them, start here

http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?cs=&sum=True&s=gen&ssum=False&k=inspiron+5100&cat=all&img=True&l=en&qmp=10&c=us&snpsb=K&snpsd=D&subcat=&usf=info&ddate=False&rfe=false&p=3

There is insufficient information at this time to suggest a definitive cause.  You need to do some investigation first.  Post the results of the tests here and somebody will assist you further.