my laptop keeps shutting down whenever i play a videogame

everytime i play a video game the laptop shuts it self down during the game. i took it to a cowboy repair man and he said it was overheating and said he replaced the fan and soaktested something and he also said that the processor was running at 100% all the time due to malware programs running ih the background. he removed the programs and said the processor was running at 3-8% and was not overheating at all. the laptop still shuts down when i play a game i have checked for viruses using norton and avg and nothing is found.if i watch a dvd or burn a cd or basically do anything it works ok until i play a game and even if the games requirements are less than what the laptop is capable of it still shuts down.the laptop is a emachines bought in september last year it has 512mb 40gb i think it is 1.7ghz and has all the wireless things and has a widescreen if that helps with the description . i know next to nothing bout computers and thought one of you out there may be able to help me .thank you for your time hedle

What game are you trying to play? It is probably that the little internal video card of the laptop can not handle the game, so it or it's drivers crash when you try to run it.

it could be a heat issue... what are you running a Pentium 4M / Pentium M /Celeron M??? becouse when they get to hot they shutdown as a saftey feature....

i am running a athlon64 mobility chips i had the heat thing checked out and was told it was good i think they replaced a heat sink fan . the thing with the game would is it is a old game red alert and the pc is 1.7ghz i think so it shouldnt have a problem with the game or should it . someone told me to update the gaphic card with downloads off the internet would that help?

an athlon 2400 i think thats the processor its one of those mobility chip things.i bought it last year from bestbuy it has a widescreen i think it was the m3505 something like that.

what graphics card (or onboard) are u using is what lucassix is trying to get to. i had that problem with my PC when i was trying to play Doom 3 on a 64 mB onboard. lol

lol thats just not going to happen... doom 3 on onboard grapfics

Could be a Video Card driver issue, could be faulty hardware, or could be overheating. Is their any way to check the CPU temp? I don't know about laptops, but generally you can at least go into the BIOS and there you can find a CPU Temp reading. But that's usually on desktops, and the motherboard has to have a Temp probe under the CPU.

I know this is an old post, but...

Still having that shut-down issue?? If so, call eMachines. It's a known problem with that particular model, and even though it's out of warranty, you can get it fixed. Mine was out of warranty, and I still sent it in, and they fixed. Unfortunately, it's still somewhat of a problem, and will be on this machine, but it IS an overheating issue.

So if you still have that laptop and are still having issues, just call them.
eMachines Customer Care representatives are available 5 am to 12 midnight (PST) seven days a week.
United States 1-408-273-0888
Canada 1-604-637-1419

website: http://www.emachines.com/index.html

Lol 2004....

Good information chynathedragon, thanks