“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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August 21st, 2009 at 3:52 pm
thanks for all the good info. i had the typical overheating problem with my toshiba A75. i cleaned out all the dust (there was a lot!) and it now runs just fine without shutting off.
August 21st, 2009 at 12:19 am
i have a Toshiba M305D-S4830,when windows is starting, it says put your recovery cd and repair the system but when clilk to repair its shutting down. i wanted to format it but there is an other problem there and its says error:10-fc12-0241
i really dont know what should i do, can anybody help me!!!
August 20th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Hi, I have a Toshiba M40 laptop that has just encountered shut off problems today. It happened the first time as i was moving the laptop from my bed to the table, then when i turned it back on, it shut off again after loading up XP, and during a startup scan by my antivirus. Happened 3 times. I looked closely at the lights, and when it shuts off, ALL the lights are off, including AC and battery. Then the AC and battery re-appear, and i can turn it on again.
I *think* i narrowed the problem down to the battery, i removed the battery and now it hasn’t shut off yet. I downloaded MobileMeter to check my temps and they are around 53C so probably not overheating. I DO keep my battery in the laptop at all times despite using AC power, this is because of one time i had a power shortage and i forgot to save a document and lost it. So i thought by having the battery in would protect me from laptop shutting off… but now its still shutting off completely. Scared the crap out of me as i thought the CPU was failing or something. My question is, could a faulty battery be the culprit? And could you please email me a copy of your response, thank you.
August 19th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
cj2600,
I have cleaned the heatsink and replaced the fan. It is still doing precisely the same thing. The fan shuts off after the initial startup. I’m not feeling a great deal of heat, so I’m not sure if the system is shutting itself off for protection because the fan isn’t running or if it’s something else entirely.
It still shuts off after about 30 seconds regardless of being in the bios configuration or in Windows. I will try to clean the heatsink grease off and replace it, but I’m not seeing that helping. This powering-off problem came out of the blue. There were no previous overheating issues at all, and the heatsink was already pretty clean. I am becoming concerned that it is the motherboard.
August 17th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
My Toshiba laptop was working fine earlier the other day. But today , i tried to start it up, and it almost immediately goes to the “sorry for the inconvienence” screen, and the whole “start off where the laptop last worked” or whatever it says, and the computer will start in 30 seconds. But it begins to start up and the fourth button, i think it’s the battery is blue, it blinks and stays solid for a moment while my laptop is loading on the windows xp screen, then it just shuts off and restarts itself, only to repeat the same thing over again. i think i have dust in my fan, i looked but i don’t know how much and i really don’t know if that’s the issue. what do i do?
August 15th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I have a toshiba sattelite pro A300D and it just randomly shuts down after about 5 mins – an hour please help!!
August 11th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
i just bought Toshiba satellite L100 its almost new n had no problems but one day i was seeing a movie i just paused it for a while and when i came back it was off the i turned it on but i turned on showing the nums light and restarts after 1 minute and there is no display i hav chaecked the ram the hard disk i have tried external monitor but nothing worked , got it to a repairer he took it and checked it and is telling me that a chip(whch just looks like a processor)is dead or something and its near to the processor is there a cheap way that could get it fixed or could you help me out to check wat is wrong with my motherboard and also that where could i get a motherboard for this if the old one could not be repaired.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:18 am
I’ve being having problems with my Toshiba Satellite laptop, which started when it was just out of the one year warranty. I took it to Best Buy where I bought it and had to buy a new charger pack for 90 bucks and it worked fine for about 6 months.
I’ve been dealing with problems with booting up for several months and now the screen is dark and the computer shuts off after less than 5 minutes. It also reboots, but shuts down.
It may be overheating, and, if so, then I feel it is the manufacturer’s problem, not ours and they should repair the computer and send another.
Certainly, a computer should be workable for more than a year.
I intend to send mine to them and have them repair it or give me a new one.
August 10th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Hello, first and foremost I am appreciative for the laptoprepair101.com Documentation. My laptop is the
“A75-S211″.
I was having a heat related problem. I disassembled the laptop, cleaned the heat sink, reapplied new thermal grease. I hooked it back up and the heat related shut downs so far have not happened.
However!
I have a new possible problem:
Normal laptops usually boot up and you can hear the fan sometimes loud for a few seconds then they get quieter.
Since hooking it back up, the fans are running constantly fast and noisy. Maybe I hooked up the fan cables to the motherboard wrong? Or the fans are going out? Or maybe that is just how it sounds on this model. This laptop was given to me so I do not know how the fan should sound. Let me know what you guys think, that way I can take the most appropriate action to the situation.
Thanks,
August 8th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Clint,
Have you tried removing dust from the heat sink? Spray compressed air into the air intake on the bottom of the laptop until it’s clean. Try running the laptop again.
Here’s how you can try if the laptop shuts down because of overheating. Turn on the laptop and when it starts blow air inside the same air intake on the bottom. This will help to move hot air away from the heat sink. Will it run longer when you blow air inside the fan? If yes, most likely your problem is heat related.
Could be:
1. Bad fan. Maybe the fan can start only when you turn on the laptop for the first time and cannot start after that. I’ve seen a failure like that a few times and replacing the fan helped me to fix the problem.
2. Maybe thermal grease between the CPU and heat sink dried out and doesn’t conduct heat as it should. Try applying new thermal grease.
3. There could be a problem with the motherboard. Maybe it cannot start the cooling fan after the initial start up.
Things I would try first:
1. Clean the heat sink.
2. Apply new thermal grease.
3. Replace the fan.
Just in case if you need it. Laptop disassembly instructions could be found at http://www.IrisVista.com