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
881 Responses to “Why my Toshiba laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without warning?”
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Pages: « 89 … 68 67 66 65 64 [63] 62 61 60 59 58 … 1 » Show All
October 7th, 2007 at 4:25 am
I just came up with an interesting fix for my A70 (and I haven’t even done the shopvac trick yet — though I will). I decided that since it was dead and a piece of crap that I’d install Ubuntu Linux as the OS. I guess Ubuntu puts less stress on the CPU because it’s working beautifully now. And it’s a really nice OS. Only thing killing the machine now is trying to install print drivers — I guess that stresses the CPU, so now I’ll try the vacuum trick and see if that gets me past the driver install.
October 6th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Why do I have to be stuck with this faulty laptop?
There is obviously a design flaw with the A70/A75’s. I paid good $ for this - it should work without constantly having to clean it. I just had all the guts in mine replaced not 3 months ago and the problem (overheating) is still occurring on a regular basis. It must shut down 5-10 times a day. Is there any way to get Toshiba to replace these faulty laptops?
September 29th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Abraham,
First of all, you can access your laptop hard drive by connecting it to another working computer via an external USB enclosure or IDE hard drive adapter. Looks like you know how to do that and I mentioned that only for people who don’t know.
Second, if you had administrator password set for your account I believe you can get an error message when you trying to access files or folder on your laptop hard drive. Something like “Access denied”, do not remember exactly.
I think you can work around this message if you take ownership of the folder/file. After you take the ownership, you should be able to access your files.
You’ll find step-by-step instructions in this article on Microsoft website.
September 29th, 2007 at 9:51 am
CLARK,
In the comment 626 Abraham said:
Yes, it’s possible that you get this error because of a faulty hard rive, but I believe you can get the same error when you have bad memory. So, replacing the hard drive might not fix the problem. Before you replace anything, run diagnostics test for hard drive and memory. Find witch one is failing and only after that replace the bad part.
For memory test you can use Memtest86+. For hard drive test you can use Hitachi’s drive fitness test. You’ll find links to both utilities in “Resources” on the right side of the website.
September 29th, 2007 at 9:22 am
CLARK Says:
September 27th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Why my Toshiba laptop suddenly keep getting a blue screen, “PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGE_AREA” this happen about four times I kept rebooting, however the problem still remains. Afterwards I place the CD in to restore my computer back to the factory default, which downloaded the software fine, but somehow the computer is now stuck in reboot. Any idea what’s wrong?
ANSWER=
THE BEST WAY TO FIX THAT PROBLEM IS CHANGING THE HD AND RESTORE ALL THE PROGRAMS AGAIN. PLUS THAT IS A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO UPGRADE THE GB OF YOUR LOPTOP
September 29th, 2007 at 9:15 am
In my case, I have the same problem wich I didn’t know was that till I opened and clean up all part, but plus that I change the HD from 60GB to 100GB, afther tha I didn’t have any problem with that. Now I have another problem with the same loptop, afther I was going out and I decide to turn off the loptop before living.
The serius problem is that WAS THE LAST TIME THAT I TURN ON MY PC. What can I do to HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION THAT I HAD IT IN. Because I have ADMINISTRATOR PASSWORD, I can not get into those files or folder from my other desktop.
PLEASE HELP ME WITH THAT, I WILL REALLY APRECITE IF ANYONE CAN. THANKS.
September 27th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Why my Toshiba laptop suddenly keep getting a blue screen, “PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGE_AREA” this happen about four times I kept rebooting, however the problem still remains. Afterwards I place the CD in to restore my computer back to the factory default, which downloaded the software fine, but somehow the computer is now stuck in reboot. Any idea what’s wrong?
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Tom,
I don’t think that you can find special silent fan for this model. Maybe you just need a new fan? Try cleaning the heatsink first, it might help to reduce noise.
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Thank you so much for your help. I thought my toshiba laptop was a goner until I read your article. I have a Toshiba Laptop A75-S2111 that was overheating every 2 minutes after I turned it on. I used shop vac and it solved the problem without having to take it apart or take it to a computer tech. Thanks Again
September 21st, 2007 at 6:12 am
Hey there,
Do you know of a silent fan that I can buy for my Tosh Equium A60 as i have the 3.2 P4 in mine and its really loud? I have upgraded the ram and that has help but would like a new silent fan if they are available?
cheers tom