Toshiba Tecra S2 - Over heating problem

I have a Toshiba Tecra S2, which is now about three years old, and now has an expired warranty.

The problem is, when I power up this machine the chassis cooling fan, located on the bottom of the case spins for approximately 30 - 40 seconds, and then stops. It appears that cooling fan is only running during the period of time when the computer is under control of the RomBios. It appears that as soon as the computer begins running from Windows XP (on local C the cooling fan stops running. Windows continues to boot normally, but within a short period of time, (less than 15 min) an overheating condition occurs, and the machine shuts itself down.

I have tried booting the machine from various utility CDs such as Norton Ghost, but the fan stops once the Dos located on the CD begins to load. (Did this to isolate the problem from Windows.)

Since the cooling fan stops regardless of the machine booting from local C:, or from bootable utility CD, Is it safe to assume that the fault is with the cooling fan (or motherboard) and not a software issue?

Also, can anyone tell me if this fan is prone to failure? Is this problem likely caused by the fan itself, or by supporting circuitry on mobo?

 

Are your fan vents clogged up with dust?
If so, then buy a compressed air canister and blow out the dust from your heatsink an fan.

Make sure that the system is elevated a little in the back, so that air can circulate under the machine.
You can prop the back of the laptop up with a 1" book and that shouls help out.

Unfortunately there is no fan control for your laptop.
Here is what I recommend:
-you can take your system apart and reapply arctic silver to the heatsink
- Download a copy of core temp, that will allow you to see the temperatures from your processor. If the temperature rises to over 160F or 80C than you have a problem.
-You can try to undervolt the processor with CPU rightmark. Undervolting will cut some of the voltage running to your pentium M, resulting in lower temperatures.
-If you have XP, go to power options, and set the power setting to balanced or maximum battery.
-Go to task manager when the system is running, is there a process which is forcing the cpu load to 100% ?

K-TRON

 

Hello KTron,

Yes I have already tried cleaning the fan itself. Even before I cleaned it, it didn't seem to have too much dust in it. Now it is completely clean of dust, as I have throughly cleaned it.

I can actually hear, and see, the fan spin up at post, and then silence after that. (The fan appears to sound normal, without any vibration or grinding.)

Also, even with moderate use, the temperatures will climb above 80c within 15 min at the latest.

Do you know if there could be a hidden setting some place in the bios for the fan? Or did Toshiba come out with a patch for this problem?

Any advice will be appreciated.

 

Did this ever get resolved? I have the same/similar problem. My fan will only run when I boot up on battery power (then shut off). It will run constantly if I dock it.

 

The only thing I can think of, is undervolting your processor, so that it takes longer for the processor to get hot. There is nothing else you can really do, other than what I stated in my post, in March.

I do not think there are any fan control programs for Toshiba laptops. Try propping the back up with a book, and that should help cool the system down.

K-TRON

 

perhaps you can try speedfan- it may work. only other things i can think of are notebook coolers, undervolting (as ktron said), if u have the big bucks get an ssd, and perhaps applying thermal paste.

 

K-Tron you have addressed several work around, is that because you fear it would require MoBo replacement and $500 just isn't worth it? I mean we do agree the fan mechanically functions (post)? But does not trigger when OS is in control? And there is an underlying problem? Thoughts?