My Sager 5660 has been working beautifully for almost 2 years.
Recently, it started behaving weirdly by just shutting down spontaneously!

2 Symptoms:
(1) I though that maybe my batteries we flat and had to charge them, etc, but that did not seem to work. Even when the batteries are charged it shuts down doing the normal WinXP standby or hibernation thing. Even trying to charge the batteries for a long while seems not to charge the batteries at all. I cannot be sure, but I have seen it shutdown not via the WInXP standby mode, iow plain pulling the power on the whole computer.

(2) So I thought, okay, the batteries are dead (both - the main and secondary one). This sounded fishy, but possible I suppose. So I started up my 5660 without the batteries to see if the batteries were the problem. Still, every now and then, it still shuts down spontaneously, bang! dead.

It seems that there is something wrong with the power supply to the laptop, or maybe motherboard problems?

Anybody experienced similar problems?

As I live in South Africa, it is relatively pointless for shipping to Sager for repairs, or what?

All I can offer at this point is sympathy. I had my 5660 die recently after about 2 years too. What exactly is happening on the random shutdowns? Does it actually say "Windows is shutting down" and go through the shut down process? Or does it just spontaneously turn off (going immediately to a black screen without exiting Windows)?

Well currently the most devastating problem is the immediate shutdown, in other words: it just dies, no software intervention - its like the power is taken away from the computer as you would when switching it off.

The other problem seems to be that the batteries does not charge fully either - I think this is related to the above problem, maybe the power supply unit in the laptop is faulty or some such, thus not charging my batteries and causing spontaneous shutdowns.

Spontaneous, random shutdown is often related to heat. Check your fans and ensure they are not clogged with dust.

I actually cleaned them out in the meantime, but it still happens. The whole computer works beautifully, but just shuts down.
I am starting to think it might be heat related, as charging the batteries generates a lot of heat as well.
But what todo now? Why all of a sudden is the computer less heat-resistant?

well when my vidcard went bad, first it was spontaneous lock ups, then eventually it would not boot at all. some heat problems get progressively worse. if you want to test if it is the heat, get the machine cold (like leave it outside in your car overnight in relatively cold weather (not too cold of course or you could ruin it), then turn it on and see if it goes longer before it shuts down than normally. if that is the case it is most likely a heat problem.

Ditto for me.... 5660 died about the same time frame.
Sent it in for repair and they replaced the MBoard.
The Video section (embeded) fried. It would sometimes start and run for about 5 mins, then die. After a week of this, it wouldn't start anymore at all....
I did find a trace on the MB that was blown too....
I didn't mess with it because I have the Philips warr. on it.
Not much good news, sorry... Looks like you may need a new MBoard too.....Hope you got the warranty!!!!
I could not find a board on the Inet, and Sager won't sell you one either.....
GoodLuck!!!

B