How to fix compaq laptop suddenly shutdown

It is really painful this compaq laptop V2000 suddenly shutdown, it looks like overheat protection by design, but no idea at all how to solve this problem.

change memory

Heard memory chip sometimes caused system crash then reboot, so replaced to new 1GB x 2 memory by chance to expand memory, no difference still reboot after 10-30 mins, sometimes longer like our hour.

memory test

I installed Linux Mint 17 on laptop, cannot see memory test in grub start menu, it always booting up to desktop directly.

May check grub config to make it visible? At least need to run memory test to see any simple chip issue.

memory config in BIOS

Press F10 during boot up, go through all hardware config, cannot find any memory related setting, give up.

cooling fan

Some people said cleaning dust in fan may helpful to make cooling more efficient, opened back cover but hard to detach it completely, so far didn't see cooling fan yet 🙁

After few times attempt, finally I detached back cover completely, found how many dust inside fan ! I just cannot believe it 🙂

It is typical overheat protection use case, when there are too many dust inside cooling fan, CPU will detect hot soon and shutdown system.