“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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October 11th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Connie,
Check out my post “Laptop has a bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?” From your description I can say that it could be a faulty LCD screen, a faulty o loose video cable.
October 11th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Giulio Brunetti,
Check out this disassembly guide for Toshiba Satellite A60 notebook. The DVD drive in this model is secured by one screw on the bottom; I believe this screw is marked as B2. The screw is located close to the lower right corner of the memory bay. After you remove this screw, pull the drive from the notebook as it shown on the step 4.
October 10th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Does anyone else have any ideas on my laptop? I don’t want to spend $75 for the CPU if the board is bad, is there a way I can test it?
October 10th, 2006 at 11:04 am
it’s either the LCD screen, or something is not plugged in correctly, did you take it apart at all? if not It’s the LCD screen, it can’t be the video card as the other monitor wouldn’t work, did you recently mess with any display setting before this happened? if so you could have overloaded the screen, Randy
October 9th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
My toshiba P35 S609 has a year and a half now. For about 2 month now many lines have appeared form top to bottom on the entire the LCD. I Connected an external monitor to the laptop and the image was perfect.
Are these lines symptoms of a faulty LCD or could it be somethig else?
Thanks you for help and such a great site!
October 9th, 2006 at 6:46 am
IN my notebook toshiba A60, the drive dvd doesn’t work well . May I please have some instructions to remove the drive to change.
Thank you very much
Giulio
October 8th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
tried both of those already, nothing, no LED activity or anything, Randy.
October 8th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Randy,
Try starting the laptop from the AC power, without the battery installed.
It also could be a dead memory. If you have any extra memory stick installed, remove it and start the laptop without it.
October 6th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
I have the A75-S229 Model, I’ve owned it for a year, I had the upper cover replaced because of the static issue and the speakers and I have opened it and cleaned it about 6 times. Well now my problem is this, I was playing Ned for Speed Most Wanted and I thought that Turning off Hyper Threading would allow the game to use more CPU, well I turned it back on and played it for a while and then it just shut off, nothing,? when I try to turn it on the Blue power light will come on, the fans turn on, and the CPU light blinks only once and then nothing, almost as if the CPU is fried, ? well I took it apart and cleaned everything again for the 7th time, put everything back together and it does the same thing, I tried putting in a CD and pushing the PLAY MODE button next to the ON one, the CD drive spins but again No CPU activity LED, or music, what could be wrong? I don’t want to buy a CPU and it not be the problem,
Thanks, Randy.
October 6th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Cjones,
Can you download and burn a copy of Knoppix – live Linux that runs right from the CD? Boot your laptop from this CD (it looks like Windows) and see if it still goes to stand by. If it works fine, then it’s a software related issue.
The biggest advantage of this test – you don’t have to reinstall Windows.