“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 27th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Can I also ask if the fans are designed to run separately or always both at the same time? At the moment only the fan closer to the rear is in action but not the other.
Also, maybe there is some kind of thin strong narrow shaft that can be inserted through the fan grills to immobilize the fans when blowing hard compressed air.
PS – I am thinking your quote above referred to times when you had the fan units out of the disassembled case and could manually secure them.
October 27th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
CJ,
I try to keep the space around my Toshiba Satellite A75-S229 as free of dust as possible and have not had heat problems. But I have only really used the unit during this year [2007] after its July 2004 purchase. So maybe the heat/dust issue is in my future.
To protect against that, I am asking if you can clarify your reply to Carew Rowell on August 17 of 2006 where you said, “I’m not sure if you can burn up the fans but when I clean them with compressed air I block the fans just in case. I usually take the fan out and block fans with my fingers.”
Most of your posts advise compressed air without further ado. So when you said, “I usually take the fan out [-did you mean 'grill'?-] and block the fans with my fingers,” this appears to be a little additional technique of some importance.
Did you mean you pry the circular fan GRILL out of the bottom of the closed case and stick your finger in there from outside to hold the fan steady?
I ask because Hugh also indicated on March 26th of this year: “I popped out the screens – you can use an eyeglass repair screwdriver or small knife – and was able to get much cleaner suction from the shop vac and remove all lint fragments.” [question: Are those screens designed in a way that one can even get them out like that?]
I am confused a just a tad by your description because the compressed air method is all about not having to open the case. The generic process would be to blow air through the in-place fan screens of a fully closed case. In your quote, were you talking about a process during a certain stage of case and contents disassembly?
Lastly, if we ever need to graduate from a can of compressed air to “full leafblower mode,” is there any concern that that blowing highly compressed air into the open grill at the rear of the case or down through the circular fan grills could damage the fans? And are the fan mechanisms fully free to rotate in either direction?
- Bill
PS – By accident I stumbled upon lowering the processor setting to “Mid” in the Toshiba Power Mgmt utility. The result is that the notebook only very occasionally needs to rev up the fans up to hyper-spin speeds. (I do no gaming.) I wish I had found this option earlier in time because ‘less suck’ means less dust intake!
October 27th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
thanks for the info cj2600. I checked the heatsink fan and it runs on startup. Do you think despite the fan is working correctly, it may be faulty causing heat entrapment? Thanks
October 25th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Kubes,
Did you check the cooling fan? Does is start spinning when the CPU gets hot?
If not, probably you have a bad fan.
The cooling fan on Satellite L25 comes as a part of the heatsink. Here’s the Toshiba part number for the heatsink and fan: A000004350
October 25th, 2007 at 2:28 am
I’m have the same problem with a Satellite L25-S121 I’m trying to repair. Computer starts but shutsdown at any given time. Tried removing and replacing hard drives, removing mobo and reseating the cpu heatsink, blowing out fan and heatsinks, changing bios config back to default, updating bios, but still same symptoms continue. Seems as though when the processor is required to work at a speeds other than idle, the computer shuts off. Any recommendations or suggestions would be appreciated before I replace the mobo, heatsink and fan. Thanks.
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I have a two year odl Toshiba Satellite A-75 that now gets so hot I could use it to make a “keyboard waffle” if I only had some mix standing ready when it shuts down. I’ve used a vac to such the lint from the fans several times each month but that no longer seems to work. I purchased a $7.00 mini desktop fan at the local hardware store on Sunday that now blows on the back of the computer whenever I’m using it. It has not shut down since I bought the fan but after reading this very helpful page, I’ll be looking at the heat sink next. thanks for the help. Now where’s that Bisquick!
October 19th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I just bought my A215-S7462 not 2 weeks ago. I’ve had it shut down on me 3 times. The second time I had been alternating between my lap and the table, but the other two were on solid funiture (glass once and wood the other). I’ve used laptops for years in the military and never seen this kind of heat problem. Even the power adapter gets hot. Now I have the back (under screen) lifted up on a small phone book hoping more air will equal longer work hours. I’ve been looking at the cooling pads. Why do they all pull air instead of forcing air up to cool the bottom of laptops? There would surely be more air-flow. Have to look that route since I will be using this computer so much. There are othe computers out there, so maybe I should look at how hot they run and return this.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
jessica,
If your laptop overheats because of a bad fan then I would assume you’ll have to replace the fan. For a Satellite L25 the cooling fan comes as a part of the thermal module. You can find a new thermal module by this part number: A000004350. But in order to replace the fan, you’ll have to take the whole laptop apart and remove the motherboard.
October 18th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
my Toshiba Satellite L25 _S119 is over heating the Fan is not working at all, What the heck happened please help me
October 17th, 2007 at 6:04 am
I have Toshiba pT831C-30Qw6 laptop that is turning on but it doesnt give any display i checked up memory, its working good, may be some problem in system board so can any body give solution to repair system board ?