Ibook g4 spontaneously shuts down

lately my ibook g4 just shuts down with no warning. it's been happening more often since updating to 10.4.11, though it happened before that as well. and by shut down, i mean the screen goes instantly black and it's off, no warning whatsoever. i have to press the power btn and it then boots normally.
it happens when it's hot... but it also has happened when it's not hot too (after surfing the web for 10 mins the other night).
any ideas what the problem could be? should i install an older version of os x? can i do so without wiping the hd first?

I have the same problem. And I haven't done any recent upgrades. It sometimes shuts itself off suddenly only once every few days, and sometimes it's once every few hours. Earlier tonight, it did it three times in about 30 minutes.
The other oddity is that sometimes, pushing the power button doesn't reboot it. It's like the whole system is stuck. I have to unplug the power cable, and completely remove the battery. Then, once I put everything back, THEN I can can reboot it.
And after reboot, a message shows up saying "The system rebooted after an unexpected OS shutdown" or something to that effect.
I'm thinking about taking it to the nearest apple store on Monday, but I really don't want to be without the computer for days or weeks while they diagnose it and fix it. Hopefully someone will have a suggestion.

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