Toshiba Satellite M35X Overheating problem (please help)

Ok, so my mom bought a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S114 3-4 years ago and I always thought it ran a bit too hot. Now it has gotten to the point now that it's so hot, the computer automatically shuts down without warning (30 mins on). I don't know if this model has a poor cooling system or it's a manufacturer defect. I was guessing that it's the CPU that's overheating, but I felt the back of the laptop where the ram is placed and that area felt VERY hot. I really don't know what to do. I'm going to try opening that ram compartment again and use canned air in the vents and ram area. The only upgrades i've really done is just adding 512mb of ram to the 256mb that it came with. Personally I really hate this laptop and I don't think it's that good of quality with this overheating and very poor battery life (maybe I just got a very defective model). Anyways she knows that she may have to get a new laptop, which she'll have a very hard time affording and I want to do what I can to figure this out. Please give your input on what to do about this overheating issue. Thank you.

 

download rmclock and monitor the cpu temps....
normally cpus can withstand temps upto 100*C....and the bios shuts down the system at about 85-90*C....also check the bios for the shutdown temp or check the windows power settings....
if nothing works get a passive cooling pad which wud help

it shud be out of warranty....so if u r a power user....apply a bit of AS5 to the cpu....u wont be able to do speedstepping unless it is at least a core solo....!!

 

Blowing out the vents sounds like a good idea, or else just take it apart completely and see if there is dust in there clogging up the airflow. Can you hear if the fan is coming on?

 

fans usually always running on the highest. I think what I gotta do is take out the actual heatsink and use canned air to unclog it.

 

I just tried the canned air in the vents and the laptop still runs its fan at the highest. I'm assuming that the heatsink and fans are clogged with dust. I've letting the notebook run, observing how long before it automatically shuts off. I guess I'm going to buy some phillip screw drivers and open this thing up . Removing all the screws on the bottom of the notebook (excluding the three at the battery place, will get me to the CPU, correct? I don't want to have to remove the keyboard.

oh and btw, this laptop doesn't have a CPU temp sensor, but since the fans run on high all the time, which means it's running hot.

*update* after using the compressed air, the notebook was able to run for an hour 20 minutes rather than around 30 mins only. It could have probably run longer, but I stopped monitoring it.

 

use temp monitoring software to exactly determine the temp of the cpu....and in most laptops u have to completely strip them to get to the cpu....urs might be a celeron 350 so there wud be no sense in undervolting it since it wud just make it even more slow....if u have to open the whole thing upgrade to a pentium m....it wud be much better and can be easily undervolted....it is even cheaper than screwdrivers these days....!!

 

i already told you, the temp of the cpu doesn't display, I've tried about 3 different softwares and I tried checking if it shows in the bios.

 

Ok....if u want since u are opening the laptop....just upgrade the cpu....pentium m's are really cheap now....personally i think the pentium m 1.7 wud b fine for ur mom and with speedstep u cud get lower temps and more battery....the key is that both the celeron and pentium m support mmx,sse, sse2 and ur celeron was made of the pentium m microarchitecture so it shud run fine....and has the same socket type too....
here is a list of both the processors....if u wanna go for something else....u may have a look....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Celeron_microprocessors#Mobile_processors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_M_microprocessors

 

I think your best bet is opening it up and blowing out the vents. Look at http://www.irisvista.com/tech/ for a guide on disassembling the laptop.