“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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December 28th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I Put New Ram In Actually, and it seems to be running fine at the moment but i think it may just be the power cord, its a targus 90W and the toshiba satelitte reqs somewhere between 75w and 85w. Now with the current power cord that is 90w its working but on the battery now it fails :/
December 21st, 2008 at 8:50 pm
WE HAVE A TOSHIBA LAPTOP A210-STO (canadian model)
it normally shuts down by itself when it is being used (the repair shop leaves it on ,lets it sit all night and the problem doesn’t happen)
however when it shuts down at home i remove the battery and immediatly replace it..with the same battery within seconds it begins to work
since the repair shop cannot spend the time typing on it the problem does not occur and since they cannot find the problem they can’t fix it HELP!
December 21st, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I tried the vacuum trick and it worked!!!!!!!
Yahoo! That saved me a few bucks and lots of trouble.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:51 am
i have a satellite a 200 laptop but the cord that is plug into the charging ie,the adapter plug is getting so hot that it could boil my coffe
December 14th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
William Reece,
Do you experience any problem with your laptop?
December 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
o.d,
Most likely your laptop shuts down because of overheating. Check the heat sink and if it clogged with dust, blow it off with compressed air.
December 14th, 2008 at 5:38 am
I ran memo test from cd all night and it show only 1 error. is the memory still bad. a45-s121 notebook
December 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I have a Toshiba Tecra 8100, my lapto’s screen is broken
everything is fine except the front screen.
I can not see any thing clear
any body have idea how to change my laptop screen and whre can I get it
I am from India near by Delhi
Regards,
Amjad
Dehradun, India
December 9th, 2008 at 7:21 am
hello, if i run the memory test and it shuts down suddenly during the test, whats the probs?
and, when run in safe mode, its fine coz in safe mode i basically cannot do anything and just let it on.
it normally shuts down when using app that requires high memory like photoshop and games in facebook like pet society.
can u please help me? its not the fan, coz my laptop is new and there;s no dust.
December 7th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Roger,
What was wrong. Why do you think they broke the laptop?
Did you test laptop memory? You can use Memtest86+. Run the test an let it finish a few passes.
From my experience, CPU failures are very rare. If the laptop works fine in Safe Mode, most likely your problem is not related to the CPU.