Why my Toshiba laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without warning?
“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.).
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!
Entry Filed under: Toshiba Laptop Problems
897 Responses to “Why my Toshiba laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without warning?”
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Pages: « 90 … 61 60 59 58 57 [56] 55 54 53 52 51 … 1 » Show All
July 7th, 2007 at 7:01 am
My wife’s Toshiba Satellite A70 was terrible, fan always cranking and computer shutting down. Has done this even when brand new. I also have a Satellite A20 which is great, never overheats, fan is always running nice and quiet,
My solution so far for the A70 has been to set the CPU to mid or low power mode using the Toshiba power management utility. Make a low power configuration for both AC power and on-battery which has the CPU set to “mid” or “low”. At first “mid” worked for me, now only “low” keeps the temperature below critical. Guess it’s time to open it up and do some cleaning.
Also a great utility to monitor the actual temperature is at hmonitor.com, so you can see exactly what effect your fixes are having.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Hey cj2600
thanks for ur help i tried it out again and was again unsuccesful.
Iv tried the last known good configuration and safe mode nothing will work. It wont even boot to dos/command mode therfore i cant tell it 2 bak up files 2 a new device. dont know wat 2 do at all any more ideas?
Thanks Nick
July 5th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Jesse,
A can of compressed air should work unless your heatsink is completely clogged, in this case you’ll have to find more powerful air compressor.
Turn off the laptop and spay air into the opening on the bottom of the laptop first. Then spray it into the opening on the side.
July 4th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Hi everybody. Thanks for the informative posts. I have an L25-S1194. I think my problem is similar to everyone else’s. My laptop gets hot and occassionally shuts off on its own for no apparent reason. I’ve found that if I lift the back of the laptop off the table and give the fans on the bottom more access to air, the problem is helped.
I was wondering however, if this compressed air idea will work for my model’s heating problems as well. If so, do I shoot air into the bottom opening or the side opening, or both? Do I do that while the computer is on or off?
Thanks again.
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Nick,
You can try Last Known Good Configuration option, it might help. If it doesn’t help, probably you’ll have to reinstall the operating system from scratch.
You can easily backup all personal files (I assume there is nothing wrong with the hard drive) using an external USB enclosure for notebook hard drives.
Backup files and then run the recovery disc.
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:43 am
Hey was wondering if anyone could help, iv got a toshiba L20 and its just ran out of its warrantee. It wont boot up fully…in either safe mode or ordinary gets 2 the ‘ windows xp loading screen ‘ then no further..screen just goes blank? any help would be gratefully recieved as i havent backed up files an dont wanna lose items saved.
cheers Nick
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Jordan,
Follow the disassembly guide at www.irisvista.com and you will be able to take it apart.
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
Ive never worked on a laptop before, I was wondering if there is a trick to opening the case. I have a Toshiba Satellite A75 S206. I removed all the screws I could see but the case doesn’t want to come apart.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:44 pm
eddie,
Run the memory test. Sometimes you can get this error because of a faulty memory module.
July 1st, 2007 at 4:13 pm
hopeing you guys can help me here. I have a Toshiba Tecra 8000 and when i try to turn it on i receive a message ” Windows could not start because following file is missing or corupt”
\windows\system32\config\system
i try to put the disk in as they say and hit R to repair but nothing helps.. pls help i need it badly
thanks again
eddie