“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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April 10th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
I have a Toshiba M45-s2693. We’ve used it a couple of times since we bought it. The laptop keeps turning itself on and off over and over. It tries to start up and zzzzzzeeeeeee, then keeps trying to turn itself back on. Cleaned the heatsink, eventhough it was spotless. To no avail, it keeps doing the same thing. The fan does go on and then turns itself off after two seconds. Are these Toshiba laptops just damaged goods?
April 10th, 2010 at 6:43 am
Where is Toshiba M40X-149 laptop’s heat sink? Do I need to open the computer completely to get to it? I can’t open the laptop base completely, always sense something attached to it, as I can’t lift the keyboard. And the laptop power on for two seconds, only heard the sound of fan, then it stopped.
April 5th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Hey, I just got a Toshiba Satellite L500 -00F, and it has this problem already. It only happens when I start watching videos, or playing games. What do I do?
March 31st, 2010 at 10:53 am
I have a TOSHIBA SATELITTE P205-S6347 and have noticed that the keyboard does not work all the time .. usually have trouble with the ‘shift’ key to use for caps .. it just will not work to capitalize a letter .. sometimes the whole keyboard will not work on an email also .. do you know if this is a common problem or not?
Thank you
please send reply to my email address
March 28th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Urm…is the fan supposed to be sucking air in or pushing it out?
phew i anaged to type this without it shutting down! lol
March 27th, 2010 at 9:19 am
I tried replacing the Hard drive first, but when it contined shutting down intermittently, I had a pc guy come over and he replaced all 10 parts on my laptop..fans, case, everything! Problem cont. every now and then. Even with a new rebuilt pc. I figured it out by trial and error. It was all due to wearing a SABONA magnetic bracelet! when I didn’t wear it…no problems…ever! make sure you are not wearing anything on your wrists that have a magnet in it.
March 25th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
how to enter bios in toshiba laptop portege s100
March 20th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Got an A70 from a client that had serious virus issues. Managed to clean them out finally with Dr Web (tdss virus…nasty). Had shutdown issues. Tore the laptop apart (many thanks CJ for the detailed help and pics). Sent the dust bunnies to bunny heaven and re-greased the cpu. The only monitor that would give me cpu temps was an earlier version of cpuid’s hwmonitor. So, temps averaging about 50c at idle at full 3.2 ghz power…well within norms.
Every now and then…bang …off it goes..screen blank, fans shut down, blue power light is on and so are the front panel ones. Machine hasn’t been touched so I’m discounting any static interaction. Happens mostly on AC but DC will still pull a gotcha. Machine is NOT too hot, great airflow across the blades of the sinks. Using XP (safe and normal) and a linux PE…doesn’t matter still goes poof. flashed to 1.6 from 1.5, thinking that power management might be affected…no difference
Question: are there issues with the sensors for the cpu/gpu that will glitch and shut the machine down?
Q2: Is there a software interface with the acpi that could have been compromised by the virus and would affect the machine no matter what OS I put on it?
I’m a dog worrying a bone here. I’ve even gone so far as to set everything to absolute minimum to get temps down to 42c at idle and cpu at 1.8ghz and still it goes poof!!! ….sigh
March 18th, 2010 at 12:43 am
Here a Toshiba A105, cleaned everything, heatsink, replace thermal paste from cpu, doesnt work; it loads windows xp media center edition, goes into desktop and then 2-3 minutes after it just shuts down; BUT, it does work perfect in safe mode, no problem at all, cant even format it and start all over again, because it behaves as if it was loading windows, meaning that it loads from cd, copies necessary files, and when I think I will continue with installation it just shuts down; I can only work in safe mode, Ive noticed a difference in fan when in safe mode, it does work, while in normal mode it doesnt as in safe mode, any ideas my friends? A problem with video?…
March 8th, 2010 at 4:30 am
I have a toshiba sattelite L300-20n laptop. I had it for not more than 6 months and one evening when I decided to turn it on. It was completely dead. I took it in because it was luckily still under warranty, and they told me the motherboard had packed up. They replaced it, but for some reason the fan does not work. So I’m guessing they did not re-connect the fan when they replaced the motherboard or it could be something else. My question is, how do you take this particular laptop apart, because I have tried unclipping it so I can try get to the fan to have a look, but when you get the back part of the laptop where the screen is, it is almost impossible to unclip it, unless I wedge a screwdriver in there which could possibly cause some serious damage… any advise would be most greatful… thanks