Toshiba Satellite P15-S470 notebook/laptop overheating?

Hello,

My father's 3-4 years old Toshiba Satellite P15-S470 notebook/laptop appears to be having overheating because it turns off by itself. It can happen at any time: in Windows XP Media Center 2004 (SP2 and all updates), at the BIOS' password prompt idling, during Windows' boot up, etc. Also, I can feel the left side vent fan blowing hot air hard, the battery area being hot, and the ejected CD/DVD hot. Note that hot does not mean too hot to touch with my hands/fingers. I used a flashlight to look through the dark vent, and it looked clean (not so dusty or clogged up). I removed some small items to make more air room for the vents, and that seems to help after a few minutes.

Is there a program/software to check the laptop/notebook temperature sensor(s)? I checked the CMOS area, but didn't see one like desktop machines do. Toshiba's Web site doesn't seem to have one either.

Are there any ways to fix this (out of warranty)? I assume the fan(s) still work(s) because I can hear it spinning loudly (quieter if it is cooler). I am worried that this will get worse when the weather warms up (Los Angeles weather) especially this weekend when temperatures reach near 100 degrees(F). It's only in the low 70s in the downstair kitchen on a glass table. The laptop started doing this a few weeks ago, but seems to be getting worse when the weather is getting warmer. Also, the laptop/notebook is usually [powered on up through its AC adapter. Battery usage is rare (will try removing the battery if the problem happens again to see if it causes the problem).

Thank you in advance.

 

I recomment SpeedFan to check you CPU temperature. Also if it is a 3-4 year old laptop first thing I would buy is a can of compressed air and blow out the fan and heat sink. Also blow any dust build up off the ram chips.

 

Please refer to the cooling guide for more info.

 

OK and thanks. I hope it is easy to remove the case parts, access to them, and put them back.

 

Dude, I have this laptop And here is what I discovered digging into my own heat issue:

1.
The heat sink was only touching the CPU on the corner (it was misaligned).
I had to machine two of the heat sink mounts to get it to seat square on the CPU.
This was a tricky operation and I spent a few hours getting it done safely with a dremel and a vacuum cleaner.

2.
Toshiba used some wicked amount of runny yuk for heat sink grease.
I replaced the runny yuk with a thin coat of pricy silver paste.

3.
The heat sink fins visible from the outside will appear clean but on the inside it can be blocked pretty bad. Also they get greasy and need a good washing now and then.
The two sinks are really easy to remove without handling any fragile parts and are spring loaded so the tension is always correct when you reinstall them.

4.
I installed some large stick-on rubber feet (Radio Shack) to raise the machine another 1/16” off the table, this small added clearance will give an audible increase in the fan speed. When the fans are going, try lifting the unit with a pencil a bit and you will see.

This model doesn’t have heat sensors so I use a free hard disk temp program (HDD Thermometer) to monitor the internal temps the best I can. The max temp on most drives is 55c and mine runs at 45 when I’m defragging. At idle it’s 37c.

I hope this helps you, I know milling the heat sink mounts is prolly out of the question but you should at least check to see if it fits flat and makes full contact with the CPU surface.

Chris

 

Bad news. SpeedFan only found the Maxtor HDD temperature. I also tried siw.exe (System Info. for Windows) and it reported no temperatures including HDD.

 

Have you tried Everest or Belarc?

 

I don't have the latest Everest. The one I had was a few years old. I did try HWinfo32 which didn't show anything about temperatures either.

Where in Belarc show temperature readings? It doesn't find them in my desktop either even though I know I have them from other programs. Are you sure Belarc has temperature readings?

 

My bad. I didn't find it in Belarc either. But I did find it in Everest. Mine is 46 degrees at the moment. My version is 2.20.405. I think I downloaded it awhile back from majorgeeks.com.

 

Ugh, I was doing a NAV 2004 full scan for hours and the notebook power off when I check to see if it was done. It looks like CPU + HDD in full speed will cause a lot of heat even the living room area is only about 70 degree(F).

 

Chris, how easy is to remove, clean out dust with a cool air blower, and put things back? I will do #1 and #2 if I run out of options after #3 and #4. On #3, what does heat sink fins look like? Do we have a walkthrough with photographs showing how to open, clean, and put back the parts?

 

OK, took the notebook/laptop apart. It wasn't bad like the photographs in the http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/ToshibaP15/fix_laptop_overheating.htm link I got from someone in a newsgroup. Cleaned the inside like the fans, vents (clogged out for sure), etc. Did not do the CPU thermal paste and stuff (over my limits).

I did a NAV, SpyBot, and Ad-Aware SE scans all at once for 1.5 hours. I noticed the fan was way quieter than before. It seems to be resolved.