Well, this is different for me. I have never had a problem with Oblivion on this computer before, mind you, until recently. Actually I have had this problem before in the past, I just can't remember how to fix it, other than re-install Oblivion. It seems that in this particular game of mine, when I try to walk from Pell's Gate to Skingrad, as soon as I step on the long road toward Skingrad, my computer shuts off. I'm not talking about crashing or rebooting, I'm talking... simply, the power goes off, as if someone pulled the plug out of the wall. The messed up part is, I try to go back into the game after running Disk Cleanup, thinking this would fix it (I know Oblivion keeps a temporary cache, and this cache gets corrupted, and you have to delete the files manually, but I'll be DAMNED if I can remember where this is, and no amount of Googling has led to the solution, either)... well anyway, the computer shuts off again, and so I start Googling for the solution... guess what? Computer shuts off. What? I boot in Normal mode, then the computer shuts off again. Now I'm alarmed, thinking my computer's power supply is broken, then I remember, oops, I have a battery, and this is a laptop. Overheating? No, no overheating... huh. So I run it in Safe Mode, no crashes at all. I uninstall my video card's driver and reboot, and Windows installs a driver (against my will, mind you), and then after rebooting, the computer shuts off again. Hmph! So I uninstall the driver again in Safe Mode, this time deleting it from the hard drive as well. No problems now. No shutting off. I go to NVIDIA and re-download the driver, and everything is good again. So, I think, I've solved the problem. Somehow my video driver got corrupted, maybe? So I go back into the game, run for Skingrad... and the computer shuts off in the exact same place...

Someone please, if you know, tell me where Oblivion's temp files are so I can flush them. I had a problem very similar to this in the past (minus the weirdo video driver corruption, I guess Oblivion can screw your computer)... and all I had to do was delete some files somewhere in /AppData/, Oblivion made a new cache, and all was well again. Something is corrupted here. Me children are starvin'. Please help!

Oblivion doesn't have temp files. :/

I explicitly recall that it does keep temporary files, somewhere. Maybe even in /temp, I forget.

oblivion, being a software application, regardless of data corruption, will not cause the notebook (NB) to shutdown.
it cause itself to crash, and cause the OS to crash leaving usually a BSOD.

the issue you are describing sounds more like a hardware issue.
could be power (battery, ac adapter, ac port) or could be the a failing component that is stressed at that point in the game (ram, motherboard, cpu, gpu).

I would recommending using any hardware diagnostic tools that the NB came with, and if no issues found, you may want to call the manufacturer for them to troubleshoot. (providing you still have warranty).

hope this helps.

Edit: I believe the temp files you are reffering to are actually the oblivion ini in your my games folder.

Yeah... it's sad. This just started happening, I thought it was just that one cell, but I tried fast traveling to Skingrad, and the same thing happened. I wonder what happened? I've been playing Oblivion for two weeks straight now without a single issue, now all of a sudden I cannot play the game at all...

Ah, I think I know what you're thinking of - the Xbox360 version often had slowdowns related to cache, and you had to clear it... but as far as I know, there is no such thing as cache for the PC version of oblivion.

This is a very strange problem... it really sounds like hardware failure. Can you play a more intensive game than Oblivion and see if it still happens? As far as I know, the southwestern part of Cyrodiil is the most graphics-intensive, as well as being very CPU intensive. Tons upon tons of AI packages are there, and if my game crashes, it's almost always in that area.

Nah my laptop is trash now. I cannot play any game. Not even Left 4 Dead. As soon as the title screen shows up (you know, where the zombies are lumbering around and the creepy music is playing), the screen goes black and the music loops (1 or less seconds of the music, sort of like The Matrix when an Agent takes over a hard-wired civilian, you know what I mean? That sound...). I have no choice but to force a power-down at that point. Oblivion just shuts the laptop off. If I had to guess, I would say the video card is damaged in some way. Maybe even the RAM in the video card, or something. I guess from extensive Oblivion sessions, the heat finally cooked it. And unfortunately, I do not know how to replace a laptop graphics card... I can't even find one for sale, anyway. Not even on newegg or tigerdirect. I guess I will just throw this laptop in the trash and build a desktop, finally.

you would not have an easy time changing the gpu if you can even find one, you would be better off changing the motherboard (which will come with a new gpu)

my recommendation is that if you are not certain of what failed, you may want to have a computer store diagnose it for you, then you can order the parts for cheap on ebay. if you are carefull, it is pretty easy to change parts in a notebook.

And usually it costs a lot of money. I'm sad to say it might be time to look for a new laptop. One with a free cooling solution

It's definitely the GPU. If I do not disable the GPU's driver in Control Panel/System/Device Manager, the laptop will shut off in about 10-30 seconds, even if all I do is sit here and look at the screen. I've had this laptop on, browsing, for about 4 hours now. If I enable the driver now, it will power off.

Here is my exact laptop:
http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/2008/GodzillaFX/2906087R/2906087Rnv.shtml

It has an NVIDIA 8800M GTS. I've never owned a laptop other than this, so I don't know much about its insides. I don't know if this is just a card that snaps in, or if it's integrated. Looking on the bottom of this laptop I can see a cooling fan and a grill for both the CPU and the GPU, though. I've never bothered to open it up and look for myself. I've cleaned it out regularly with compressed air, so dust has never been an issue. I have always used a cooling pad underneath. I've owned this computer for a bit over a year and 1/2. So if I cannot replace the GPU, then I may as well build a desktop and this will be something to prop my bed corner up with. Sad, that.

See...I told you over at Steam that it was something in your hardware.

It's true. It makes me sad this happened, as I was playing this game every day for 2 weeks+ without a single issue. Then all of a sudden, bam... my GPU is dead. I guess Oblivion was too much for this to handle.

an 8800m is overkill for oblivion, the part failed because this notebook could not keep the gpu cool enough.
the 8800 is a huge card, big heatsink and fan mounted the gpu's board. it needs a lot of cooling and the fans from the pc's tower help.
the 8800m likely is a hot plate as well, but the NB does not have the room for the cooling, my guess is it has a heat sink in the gpu, with a thermal pad and one fan nearby, this is not enough cooling for your usage, and when the thermal pad wears out, the part overheats and fails.

cooling is the biggest issue with gaming NBs, i dont think any oem has made one that last as well as a pc.

the MB for this NB is about $400 on amizon, which is the cheapest i have found.
expensive, but not as expensive as a new NB.