I have had an Acer Aspire 1830T-3425 laptop for nearly 2 years. I recently lost the battery charger / power cord that came with it when purchased. Since then, I have been using a universal charger that came with multiple adapter heads.

The past few times I've used the laptop while plugged in, it seems to get extremely hot. Then, it shuts down suddenly in the middle of a video or other usage.

I was wondering about a few things: (1) Do you think that this universal-type charger is causing the overheating? (2) Is it common for a laptop to simply shutdown when it reaches a certain point of overheating? (3) Aside from the charger (if it is the problem), is there anything else I can do about the problem?

Does it shut down unexpectedly when using the battery only? Most computers have a setting in the Bios to shut down after attaining a predetermined temperature to protect it. At two years old it could use a cleaning. Use a pressurized can of air only to do the cleaning. Also make sure none of the vents are blocked when you are using it.

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i think this one is really very nice advice. may be it is shutting down due to this reason just try it may be you will get solve your problem.

i have only experienced the overheating and shutdown when plugged in with a multi-purpose AC adapter. Will try cleaning soon. THANKS

When laptops get over-heated, they will shut down. The most common cause of over-heating with a laptop, from my experience, is that the internal fan is clogged with hair, dust, dirt, etc. Someone would have to take the laptop apart and dig all the “garbage” out of the fan.

Thanks. It seems that my heat sync got knocked out of place. You can see it through the vent on the side of the laptop. A well-known dealer's service department told me it would cost a minimum of $200 to fix with labor and parts. They are convinced that the heat sync needs replacing. A small-shop guy told me that he could probably fix it for $60. He doubts that new parts are needed. If so, he said it may be slightly more. More than about $120 and repairing it would probably be unwise. Not sure...

yes, it's most probably the heatsink, Heatsink complications leading to PC overheat | Techyv.com as it is the part which is most connected to heating problems, the charger is more of battery problems, better have that heatsink replaced or repaired by a technician for better replacement. Check also the fan of the processor if it's working just fine, it might not be bringing air to the heatsink, which would then lead to overheating problems.

Sudden shutdowns, reboots, and freezes can all be caused by overheating, and the ... fails, the usual symptom is an overheating CPU and automatic shutdown. ... should have tipped me off to the overheating issues this notebook would suffer.

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I think you should check and clean youre processor fan. Dust couse overheating too.