“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!
July 1st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
tiff,
Nope, this problem is not related to heat. Cleaning the fan will not help.
I’ve seen this problem with Satellite Pro 6000 laptops before. This laptop is assembled like a sandwich and has a few main parts connected to each other via not very reliable connectors. These parts are: motherboard, power board and video card. I believe the laptop fails as you described because it has a faulty connection between one of these parts.
By the way, here are instructions for taking apart a Satellite Pro 6100 laptop.
Reconnecting these parts might fix the problem temporarily but the bad news is that most likely it will fail again.
July 1st, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Hi there,
great site by the way - thanks for sharing. Before I attempt to clean the heatsink I figured I’d just clarify something - when my laptop (satellite pro6000) switches itself off and I attempt to turn it on again, all the LEDs swich off except the first one (with the plug sign) which flashes orange in blocks of 8. I have to remove the battery and pop it back in to reset this. Some days I will have a fair few hours of working lappy, other times it won’t even boot up. Is this an overheating issue or something more sinister? It is a reconditioned laptop that I purchased from an ebay dealer. It came with a two week warranty and this problem started within three weeks of me getting it. It’s my first laptop and I am so dissappointed. I can’t afford to replace it or get it repaired.
Thanks in advance.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Hi,
I have a toshiba satellite M45-S359, My laptop used to shutdown randomly and i found a problem with the heat sink which i then fixed..Now after a day of using it, It shutdown again and does not start. When I turn it on it shows the toshiba screen and then nothing happens.. I tried to boot it through a cd but no results..Please help
June 29th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Hi,
I have a Qosmio G25 that is giving me a power light code of 01001110 which i think is 72h. Something with the ‘PCOREV’ being under 1.08 volts upon boot. The machine will not start up, just gives the code.
Does anyone know what the ‘PCOREV’ is and what I need to fix / replace??
Thanks very much,
Bob
June 21st, 2009 at 1:39 pm
my toshiba laptop freezes when ever i am trying to copy something unto it. please what can i do.