“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 9th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Toshiba satellite A75-S229, is running HIPER slow!!!
My laptop is taking about 16 minutes to star in safe mode, and if try to start it normally I don’t even know, the last time I tried I let is start for about 5 hours, and it never did. I was watching a power point file and it just repently started going very slow, so I restarted it and it was doing the same thing, and restarted it again, but it never did. I thought is was a virus, so I took out the hard drive and connect it to my desktop, but it runs perfect and no virus found. Then I thought it could be overheating and I cleaned it as the procedure you show in the website, it stills the same. One particular thing is that the time never change, not even in the BIOS. Any advice???? Could the battery of the BIOS be causing this???
August 7th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
Chris,
I think that first of all you have to find out if it is hardware or software issue. Does the laptop freeze up only after booting to Windows? You can enter the system setup (BIOS setup) and check if the laptop still freezes. Check if the fan spins on startup.
Here are Toshiba Satellite M45 disassembly instructions. All you have to do is remove the heatsink and apply new thermal compound (steps 1,4,5). It’s not necessary to remove the fan; you can clean it with compressed air after you remove the heatsink.
August 7th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Fadi,
I’m sure that you cannot damage the CPU by cleaning up the surface with isopropyl alcohol. I do it myself each time I have to reapply thermal grease on a CPU.
Does the fan spin all the time or it starts only on the laptop start up? If the CPU is so hot, the fan should run at least once in a while.
Just yesterday I had to repair a similar problem on Toshiba Satellite A75. The laptop shut down after 2-3 minutes being on. I noticed that the fan started spinning only on start up and then it didn’t start anymore. The heatsink was very hot and the laptop shut down. Apparently, the circuit that turns on the fan (when the CPU is hot) was bad and the problem was fixed after I replaced the board.
Another laptop with a similar problem I fixed about 3 days ago. It was Satellite M45 and the fan got stuck and didn’t spin at all. Fixed the laptop by replacing the fan. So, check for fans.
I don’t think that you having a problem because of thermal compound. Arctic Silver makes a good stuff and by the description they provide, Ceramique thermal compound is a good one.
August 7th, 2006 at 7:56 am
I think my Toshiba M45 Satellite is overheating. It freezes after a minute of the computer being on every single time. I am planning on getting compressed air to clean out the fans.
If that does not work, is there a tutorial on how to apply artic gel, or to remove the fan to celean out more?
Thanks!
August 7th, 2006 at 1:10 am
Disassembly EiSYSTEM need to resolder the power supply plug on this note pad but can’t seem to get at it can you please point me in the write direction thank you
John booth
August 6th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
I’ve been fiddling with my laptop, trying to figure out what the problem could be.
I’ve run it with a program that monitors my CPU temperature. It’s upwards 78-96C in temperature. Soon thereafter, it’ll shut down on its own.
Also, I’m almost sure that the heatsink is supposed to conduct heat, am I right? I’m not sure if it’s doing that. I opened the panel and ran my computer again. The brass directly in contact with the CPU is hot, but the heatsink out where the fan blows air is cool. In fact, it’s not even warm until about an inch away from the processor.
Not sure if that’ll help you out, just trying to get as much information as I can on the problem for you. Thanks again, CJ.
August 5th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
CJ, I took your solution and went to my local computer store and picked up Ceramique (an Arctic Silver product).
After following the instructions and trying it, it doesn’t look like it’s helping my problem. Could I have damaged my processor? I noticed that when I cleaned the surface of my CPU (isopropyl alcohol) it seemed just a tad discolored at the center, whereas around it there was a nice, mirror finish.
July 31st, 2006 at 4:59 am
Thanks, cj2600. I was hoping someone might say that. As of now the line seems to be intermitent, flashing on/off, then going away, then coming back. The LCD solution seems right. I’ll find someone to physically walk me through the test procedure. At worst right now it is only annoying.
Thanks,
John
July 30th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
John,
It might be the LCD screen problem. There is no way to troubleshoot it, until you connect a test LCD screen and check if it fixes the problem.
July 30th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Hiya folks…I have a Toshiba A75 and I have recently (the past two days) begun having a very thin yellow/greenish line running vertically down the right third of my LCD screen. The line seems to coorespond to the warmest part of the base and the bottom of the screen frame is warmest at that time. What’s this all about? The line is about the thickness of a thread. There are no other disruptions to the working of the unit, so I’m stumped…
Thanks,
John M.