Processing star alignment registration, computer shuts down.

[rep48]

I am a newbie beginner at astrophotography post processing and was following a YouTube “Calibration and Stacking in PixInsight 1.8” by Richard Bloch May 5, 2015 using my own data; 15 bias, 16 darks, 16 flats and 20 lights.  Going through the YouTube process I created masterbias.xisf, masterdarks.xisf, calibrated flats, masterflats.xisf and calibrated lights.  I then started the star alignment registration using the first calibrated light image as a reference image and added all the calibrated lights. The program ran for maybe a minute and then shut down my computer.  I am able to turn the computer back on immediately.  I tried this several other times and the same thing happened.  I noticed once it shut down processing 3 of 20 images and the next it shut down processing 1 of 20 images.

I also tried the PI Batch Pre-Processing (Batch Utility) with my raw data and while it was processing the PI star alignment registration the computer shut down.

I did have geek squad do a remote tune up on my computer after this happened last night.  It still shuts down.  Also MS forced an update to Windows 10 this past week. 

Any suggestions?

My Computer.
Lenovo Yoga2 laptop.
Processor: Intel Core i7-4500 CPU @1.80 GHz 2.40 GHz
Installed Memory (RAM): 8.00 GB
System type:  64-bit operating System, x64-based processor
Windows 10 home
Software: PixInsight 1.08.04.1195 Ripley (x64) Trial License, expires 7/15/2016

[pfile]

i have heard that the thermal management on some of these laptops is not so great to begin with... also sometimes dust gets in the exhaust ports and the computer can't cool itself properly.

what i'd do is download Prime95 and run the torture test; if your computer shuts down in that situation then it's not PI that's the problem per se, it's the fact that when the CPU gets really busy it ends up panicking on a thermal event and just stops.

http://www.mersenne.org/download/

rob

[RickS]

You might have a fan that's not working.  I have a 6 year old laptop with a dead fan that I use for image capture.  It works perfectly unless I load the CPU heavily, i.e. try to run BPP on more than a handful of subs.  Once it gets too hot it just shuts down.

Cheers,
Rick.

[rep48]

It works!!   

It was Thermal shutdown.  I cleaned the ports and the process completed its run.

Thank you, thank you , thank you so much RickS and pfile.