“My Toshiba laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without any warning. Sometimes it works fine for hours, sometimes it shuts down in 10-15 minutes.” This complaint we hear from our customers over and over again. About 15-20% of all Toshiba laptops we get for repair, suffer from an overheating problem. Yep, OVERHEATING!
This is one of the most common problems with Toshiba laptops we deal with.
Indications of laptop overheating problem:
- The keyboard and the bottom of your laptop are very hot when the laptop is working.
- The CPU fans are working all the time at maximum rotation speed and operate much louder than before.
- The laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without warning. When it just started, the laptop was shutting down after 1-2 hours and how it shuts down after 5-10 minutes of operation.
- The laptop works fine when it runs idle, but shuts down as soon as you start using any memory demanding applications (DVD player, image editing software, video editing software, etc.).
Solution:
If the CPU heatsink is not clogged with dust and lint completely, you can use canned air and just blow it inside the laptop through the openings on the bottom and on the sides. It’s nice as a precaution measure, but it might not work if your laptop already has a problem and the heatsink is completely clogged.
- Open the laptop case, so you can access the CPU fan and the heatsink. In some cases you can access the heatsink through the latch on the bottom of the laptop. Sometimes (for example Toshiba Satellite A70/A75) you have to open the laptop case all the way down.
- Carefully disconnect the fan cables on the system board and remove the fan. If the fan makes unusual sound when it spins (grinding sound), I would recommend to replace the fan.
- Clean the fan and the heatsink with compressed air.
- I would also recommend removing old thermal grease from the CPU and applying new grease for better heat conductivity.
UPDATE: I just received a nice tip from MC N’Colorado. I think it could be useful for all of you with guys:
I decided to use a shop vac to suck the dust out and it worked. I tested it by letting the machine run all night and it worked. It’s been a couple of weeks now and I’m glad I did it. I was ready to take the machine apart, now I’m glad I didn’t. I’d suggest you use a heavy duty shop vac to clean out the fan and heat sinks first.
I agree. Try to fix the problem without taking the laptop apart first but I would recommend using a powerful air compressor instead of a vacuum cleaner.
If your laptop is still under warranty, you can take it to any Toshiba Authorize Service Provider and fix the problem at no charge to you.
Toshiba laptop disassembly guides with pictures and instructions.
Toshiba Satellite A15 Clogged Heatsink
Toshiba Satellite A35 Clogged Heatsink
Toshiba Satellite P15 Clogged Heatsink. Absolute champion!
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May 5th, 2012 at 9:30 am
I have this shuttin down of my laptop and hetaing problm since 2-3 yrs.. The laptop gets over heated evn if used for 5 or 10mins and shuts down much earlie if external devices are attached to it.. Ex: usb, ipod, fones , earphones or music system etc
I seriouslyy can’t dare this shuttin down , and sick and tired of it.. I repaired it more than 50 times bt this problem is be solved yet.. I want this laptop to get repaired as soon as it can .. So I don’t want to loose data from my laptop.. Plz need solutions for this. Thank you.!
April 28th, 2012 at 4:19 am
hi! i have toshiba a500-1ee and mine lap shuts down, like i pulled the battery or plugged off ac adapter from it! the light that shows that mine lap is connected to Ac, goes off and second laters goes back on and i can boot it again normaly.. its not overheating, the fan is clean(allready cleand it)it doesnt matter is laptop in windows, watching youtube or playing games. so enyone has encounter simmilar problems or have a solution, plz respond me coz my warranty just expired like 20 days ago!!!
tnx
Ps: sorry if mine english isnt great
April 22nd, 2012 at 9:26 pm
‘i have a toshiba laptop satellite L455-S5975 Y9717329K THAT WILL NOT START. THE BATTERY AND POWER SUPPLY IS LIT GREEN, BUT WHEN THE START BUTTON IS PUSHED, IT GOES OFF QUICKLY. NOT EVEN ENOUGH TIME TO START THE COMPUTER.’
April 8th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
i hyave toshiba sattelite c665!It gets hot then shuts off!Computer is my life i hope it will be ok!
March 25th, 2012 at 8:08 am
The way I fixed this problem(only ever happend when I was playing games such as wow/lol/cod/battlefield)I went into the power settings by right clicking on the “batt” icon then clicking on “power options” then clicked on change plan then clicked “advance power settings” then I scrolled down to “processor power management” and changed the maximum setting from 100% to 80% now I hardly ever get the problem of it overheating only if it has been running for more than 5 hours. The changes I made only really made a difference when I was loading into games but not actual game-play
But in the future I’m not going to buy Toshiba again because of this problem, also on my model the only way to reach the heat sink is to take everything apart you even have to take the screen off to access fans, CPU and heat sinks!
Anyway I hope I helped some people out
March 21st, 2012 at 10:03 pm
my loptop is toshiba vth satellite c640.it takes more time for shut downing and some times not responding for applications.plz help me
March 15th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
@ Lexxx,
Yes. If you replace thermal pad with thermal paste, you’ll have a gap between the heatsink and chip surface. I would install thermal pads and test the laptop.
I don’t know if your heatisnk is bad but I’ve seen failed thermal thinks before. It’s very uncommon but happens.
March 15th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
@ Nelson,
Thanks for this tip.
March 15th, 2012 at 11:33 am
@ Ksfa,
As I suggested in the previous comment to Rizvi, try reseating memory modules. Test laptop with only one module installed.
A failed memory module can cause “NTLDR is missing”. By the way, you can test memory with Memtest86+ utility.
If it’s not memory, test the hard drive. It’s possible your hard drive is failing. You can run Seagate “Seatools utility” to test the drive.
If both, the hard drive and memory pass test, most likely you have corrupted OS.
March 15th, 2012 at 11:27 am
@ Razvi,
First, I would try reseating memory modules. It’s possible one of the modules got loose.
Also, try removing memory modules one by one. Test the laptop with each one separately.
Also, enter the BIOS setup menu (if you can) and try loading default BIOS settings. Save, restart.