“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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April 20th, 2008 at 4:38 am
Can someone give me instructions on how to clean my heatsink for a Toshiba A75-S209?
Thanks
Jean
April 19th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I have a Toshiba m35x-s311 and if i move the screen, the picture will freeze. I then have to wiggle the screen again to unfreeze the picture. What causes this and is there anything I can do to fix this issue?
April 17th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Way back on comment # 523 (dave), I also posted a long time ago with similar problems. In reply to David’s post, You mentioned that the video connector on a p35-s609 is permanently soldered to the motherboard. I went the same route and jammed something on top of the video connector on the motherboard to keep the color from fading, but eventually through a small mishap with said jamming, I snapped the video connector off the motherboard (!!!!). I’m wondering if there’s any possibility of being able to solder this sucker back on or if it would even be worth the attempt. Would this laptop technically have a bricked lcd screen now? I never minded using an external monitor for it, but I bought a laptop for the purpose of mobility, there’s no point in having it if it’s forced to be solitary.
Thanks.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Flim,
I would run memory test. Download Memtest86+ utility and test the memory.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
[...] Satellite A75. Even though these are completely different models, they have very similar problems: laptop heatsink gets clogged and the laptop overheats, improperly grounded top cover causes the laptop to freeze up and reboot, badly designed DC jack [...]
April 15th, 2008 at 2:54 am
I have a compaq nc6000 and sometimes it starts sometimes it doesn’t. And when it starts if you live it idle it will freeze in like 30 seconds. However, if you start a game or some kind of software program it works just fine. When you shut down the game/program it freezes immediately. Very weird. Any kind of help is welcomed!
April 12th, 2008 at 9:09 am
My 2 month Toshiba A210 Equium shuts down usually after a few hours, the screen will blank out and I have to restart. I thought it might be overheating. It happened also once when I was running a lot of functions and programmes at the same time. Though it is a 2ghz processor so shouldn’t be that? The last time it happened the disc drive popped open a few times. Can somebody help please???
April 9th, 2008 at 6:53 am
This is such a life saver!!!! Thanks for the advice…..almost gave up on my Toshiba laptop this morning
April 7th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I have a Toshiba A75-S125. It shuts down 2 minutes after I started Disk Defragmenter or Disk Cleanup. Compressed air can did not get much dust out of the laptop. I decided to use my leaf blower and it worked great!
Notes:
- have someone hold your laptop, else it’ll be blown away.
- turn the blower on for 10 seconds to let all the dust come out
- block your laptop fans so that they won’t spin (I used a small electric wire)
April 6th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I have a Toshiba M55-s3294 which tends to lock up at least once a day. It sounds a lot like the static dischaged problem other Toshiba laptops suffer from, but I guess it could have something to do with overheating. The laptop doesn’t restart by itself or anything, it just locks up almost entirely (every minute or so, the cursor will move a little bit). Does this sound familiar to anyone? The fan and heat sink don’t look clogged, and I clean them with compressed air regularly…