“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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January 7th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Hi, I owned a Toshiba A75-206S and the problem that I had was overheating. I follow the steps on this site about using a compresed canned air blowing thru the open slots of my laptop and it really works. The overheating stop completelly without having to take apart the computer, thank you.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I have a Satellite A10-129. Just out of a 3 year warranty and of course now I have problems. The fan is loud and it runs hot. I’ve cleaned the heat sink but the fan is still noisy and the computer is hot.
Can you take apart the fan itself and clean it? If so, how?
Also, I dont need to replace a Toshiba cooling fan with a Toshiba part do I? There seem to be better cheaper options out there but I dont know what size fits what.
January 4th, 2007 at 8:05 am
I have a toshiba EA60-155 laptop with a display fault, it works ok on an external monitor but its own display just shows flashing horizontal white lines up and down the screen, i fear it is the mobo anyone had this before???
Regards
Jay
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
I own a Toshiba Qosmio F25. Recently it has been suddenly shutting itself down on AC power and shows it as a dead battery. The computer is not hot when it shuts off. It is almost as if the AC charger does not have enough power to run the computer and charge the battery. It runs off AC power when the battery is fully charged, but does not seem to fully charge unless the computer is off. I have brought the computer in multiple times to be looked at, but they say there is nothing wrong with the computer. Any idea what the problem may be?
December 31st, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Afet,
Most likely it’s just a software related issue. Backup all personal data (burn it on CD/DVD or transfer to an external drive) and reimage the hard drive using the recovery DVD. This process will erase everything on the hard drive and reload it back to the factory default, it would be the way you bought it from Toshiba.
December 30th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
A note of thanks. Just finished putting together my Toshiba M35 after reading on how to take it apart. After using the shop vac on the fan and exhaust port, I removed the heat sink off the processor and found that the heat sink compound which assist in the transfer of heat away from the processor was non-existent. After adding a fresh dab of compound and re-assembly the unit is working nice and “cool”, relatively speaking. Thanks again. By the way I wound up with a spare screw.
December 30th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I have a qosmio av 600, now i dont know but why does the web pages freeze on me.is it the graphics card,i have to go back and forth to other pages for it to come back and then again the same thing,the page keeps on freezing,please help very frustrated.
December 28th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301 and would like to try cleaning the heat sink. Please let me know where could I find the instructions. I already checked the irisvista.com and it does not have instructions for this model.
If there are no instructions for this exact model, then please let me know which model most closely resembles 1905-S301 and I would try to follow those instructions.
Thank you for this really helpful website!!
Regards,
Manish
December 26th, 2006 at 9:21 am
I have an A 70 which was suddenly shutting down due to overheating as well. I solved the problem by putting the computer on supports that hold it about an inch off the table or desk. The fin area cools down after that and the fans run at about medium speed; I downloaded a cpu temp monitoring utitlity (Hardware sensors monitor) and found that once cpu usage gets up to around 50%, the cpu temp rises quickly. But having the computer an inch off the table allows the cooling system to work properly.
December 25th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Mav,
Did you clean the heatsink? Did you remove the old thermal grease and applied new one? Make sure both fans spin when the laptop is hot, may be you have a bad cooling fan.