“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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February 4th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Laptop Repair Guy!
Thank you for this wonderful site!
I have a Satellite A70 and I found your site because I was looking for what the problem may have been for my computer shutdowns. I figured it was overheating but didn’t know how to solve the problem. I am not a computer techie person but I like to take things apart. And man it is a bit_ _ to get to the heatsink.
I have had problems with the ones mentioned here on your site. The powerjack and as mentioned the shutdowns. I did get the jack replaced by warranty. Hopefully I won’t run into any other problems. Thanks again. I hope you keep this site up for the lifetime of my laptop.
I do have a question about the Toshiba Settlement. I don’t think I am entitled to it because I bought my laptop in Canada. Is this correct?
January 29th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Hi i have a toshiba tecra and whenever i play any type of game in about 10 minutes the laptop shuts off without warning. Sometimes its not even hot. What is the solution to this?
January 29th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
i found so much junk in mine i could stuff a turkey. I started going to the car wash every three months and vacuum it .
i had to open it to fix my cord too so i cleaned a bit also. I took the stickers of the fans and poured some baby oil in there:p
Mine use to shut off when i touch it , it also stopped
January 29th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I don’t know if anyone looks at this page anymore – but I’ve got a Toshiba A65 Notebook which kicked the bucket a few months ago. Everything was working fine when one day it froze up on me, and afterwards never agreed to reboot. The lockup in Windows was a hard one requiring a hard reset (8 secs on the power button). It shut down but will not restart, it does not do a think other than you hear the CD-Rom initialize and 2 of the front LEDS turn-on. But other than that she’s dead… No LCD activity, not HDD spinning up, no nothing – oh the power light around the On button does turn on. I’ve tried doing everything from pulling the additional memory out, pulling the CD Rom out, pulling the HDD out, using just batter, using just AC, but nothing… I’ve opened up the unit per the instructions on this site and looked for a clogged heat sink and fan – but neither were they were both very clean. I tried reseating the CPU and checking for loose connections. I put it all back together and still nothing.
What is interesting though is out of the 250+ times I’ve tried booting it in the past 6 months it actually started booting – but then locked up within just a couple of minutes and died not to be rebooted again. I have to presume a serious hardware failure somewhere.
This laptop was a lap-burner from day one, definitely a terrible design by Toshiba. I am quite sure this is the same problem that Toshiba got sued for on the A70-series. But they deny the A60 series suffers from this problem. I’ve called them and begged to differ…
Anyone got any ideas? Should I just scrap this thing on eBay? A new motherboard is way too expensive, but just a CPU would be cheap enough to replace.
I will never ever buy anything Toshiba makes, whether it’s a computer or a wide-screen TV. I can’t believe this notebook didn’t even last 2 years and I barely used it! I had an old Digital (DEC) notebook that ran strong for over 5 years – and I ended up selling it!
I’d really appreciate any advice if someone is still out there looking at this website.
Thanks
January 29th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Hi,
I have the CPU overheating problem on my Toshiba A10-511.
I took it to a repair shop where my laptop was cleaned, the old thermal grease was removed, and new grease put on. Now the laptop stays on for longer and I can at least copy all of my important files onto cds as a precaution! But I can’t even go on the internet or run any software, it just shuts down!
Is there a solution to this problem?
Thank you for your help!!
January 25th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Thank you so much cj2600!!
I forgot to mention that the fan does turn back on only when not using any artic silver!! My guess is that the CompUSA brand Artic Silver 5 is not conducting any heat to the heatsink. I’ll try buying some thermal pads. Also, is that settlement/ 12-month warranty extension valid on previously disassembled laptops?
January 25th, 2007 at 12:13 am
Zooos,
So the cooling fan starts when you turn on the laptop, then it goes off and never comes back? It might be a problem with the motherboard. I think the circuit responsible for the turning on the cooling fan is damaged and doesn’t work properly. I’ve seen that before two or three times, very rare problem. That’s my guess.
If the fan does come back after a while, try a different thermal compound; use silicone based grease.
BTW, check out this post. May be you can get a free repair from Toshiba?
January 24th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Martyn,
Could you please tell me where the link is located, the comment number? I’ll fix it.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Dear cj2600,
I’ve been reading your comments for the past month. Thanks to you i was able to find out the problem with my Satellite M35X-S311. It’s an overheating issue. It would boot and then shut down;sometimes within minutes if left off for a day, and sometimes shuts off within seconds if repeatedly booted. There was some dust/dirt in the heatsink which i managed to clean up. I then applied a thermal pad to the CPU-heatsink interface. The boot problem still persisted. I ended up buying a new heatsink and some Artic Silver 5. After multiple trials of applying various thickness layers of the Artic silver, without any solution to the overheating. Note that the fan doesn’t kick in, it only works when i first boot. i realized that when i totally cleaned the CPU and heatsink and connected them without any thermal compound in between, it seemed to boot and load Windows and then shut down after minutes.
Please help. What could be the problem??
January 21st, 2007 at 4:27 am
These are my experiences of the A60 and things that helped me.
http://www.reviewcentre.com/review177939.html
Also did the hoover trick and have a laptop cooling pad. Overheating improved, but wouldn’t buy another toshiba laptop again.