“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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August 27th, 2008 at 3:54 am
hi all there. i have a toshiba satellite s29… too. for four years, i already went to 2 repairs, and now a defective screen. there is a line on it due to a shaky screen when the fan became too noisy.
now everythings fine until suddenly it always turns off by itself. i checked the old problem on its fan but found out its fine. my guess is that its on power or its adaptor. is it possible that the toshiba adopter is the cause of this suddent shut down of my laptap? by the way, my battery is already not working so i have to plug my laptap everytime i use it.
thank you for the replies…
August 18th, 2008 at 1:15 am
had the same problem first usb not working properly now it shuts down sometimes it is ok for hours then can be a problem after short times laptop toshiba A100 PS 8 windows xp pro 2GB ram 667 corsair 320 GB fitshu HD just over 1 year old out of the garantie, this is not the first toshiba, but the first one i have problems with.
August 17th, 2008 at 3:24 am
I have a A200-400 ( I think) and the sound stopped working yeasterday. At the same time I noticed the laptop is really hot around the front where to speaker and microphone jacks are.
I’ve tried un/re-installing the sound driver.
Is it a heating problem, sound card problem or some combination?
August 11th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite U205 laptop that started to overheat over the weekend and I couldn’t run any of my video programs without it shutting down and got a ton of BSOD. So I pulled out my Shop Vac and did as MC N’Colorado suggested and it WORKED!!!! I couldn’t believe it. Thanks for that tip. It saved me alot much time and tears.
August 10th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
drwholass,
Does it try loading Windows at all? How it fails? The laptop restarts by itself or you get BSOD errors?
August 10th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
jim boyd,
Can you boot the laptop in Safe Mode? Will it work in Safe Mode? Press F8 on startup and select Safe Mode.
Test your laptop with an external monitor. If external video output is fine and you can use entire screen, it’s not virus or spyware related problem.
August 10th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Sivaprasad,
I think there is a problem with the motherboard, I’ve seen this happening before with a couple of different Toshiba laptops. Replacing AC adapter will not help.
August 10th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Timmy D,
After your laptop shuts down the power LED is still works, right?
Try reconnecting memory modules. If you have two modules, remove them one by one. Try installing different memory modules into different slots.
I think it’s either bad memory (maybe loose connection) or bad motherboard.
August 10th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
mark,
You don’t have to configure the hard drive. The hard drive will be configured (partitioned and formatted) by Windows.
You’ll have to install missing device drivers (modem driver, network card driver, etc…) after Windows is installed but you can download these drivers from the Toshiba website.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:20 am
hi, i have a hp compaq nx9010 , which is not loading to the password screen , i tried booting it from lan but it said media test failure, i have searched around many other sites but have found no conclusion, can you help?