Help needed Toshiba laptop overclocking.

the keen edge

I have a Toshiba Equium laptop, its only over a year old, but in the last several months in tends to shut down unexpectedly, especially when I am looking at videos on youtube etc.
Anyway from what information I can gather on-line, I think the problem is that the laptop is overheating and cleaning out the heatsink/cpu may solve this problem. I have found a detailed guide on performing this task;

http://www.irisvista.com/

Can anybody tell me if this operation is as straight forward as this guide suggests? Are there any precautions that I should take, is it imperative to wear a electrostatic discharge wrist strap? Is thermal transfer compound easily available to buy locally (I am in Galway), the guide states that I will need to reapply this when reassembling this heatsink/cpu contact.

I'd appreciate your opinion, maybe this is a job for my local PC repair clinic, though to me on the surface it seems a run of the mill operation.

Voodu Child

When you say 'overclocking', I presume you mean overheating?

The first thing i'd do is try and clean any dust out of the vents, and other parts of the cooling system (fan blades, heatsink fins, etc). Sometimes that'll be easy, just pop a panel off, other times you won't be able to get at anything at all. See what can be done anyhow, thats usually the #1 cause of laptop overheating.

the keen edge

I thought overclocking was tech speak for overheating?

Anyway thanks for your reply, although I am pretty sure that I will have to open up the laptop casing, there aren't any visible signs of fluff etc blocking vents. As such I am really trying to find out more information regarding the other two points of interest i.e. the need for wearing a ESD wrist band and the availability of thermal transfer compound.

Voodu Child

No, overclocking definitely isn't tech speak for overheating :pac:

Wearing an anti-static band is certainly safer than not wearing one. The chances of damaging something through static discharge are pretty small (and controllable to a degree), but it does happen, and a static band is pretty cheap. Your choice - some do, some don't. The safest recommendation is to wear one.

Thermal paste is readily available from anywhere that sells computer components etc. Lots of online stores, komplett, ebay, amazon, wherever. I doubt a big bricks and mortar shop like PC World would have it though. Make sure to read the application instructions carefully, including cleaning the old stuff off.

I'll say it again though, the problem is much more likely to be caused by dust clogging the vents etc. Thermal paste doesnt normally just 'go bad' all of a sudden and start causing overheating problems. Whereas vents do get clogged over time.

Snowbat

Which model Equium?

If it uses a heatpipe arrangement, you likely won't need to remove the heatsink from the CPU at all.... just remove the fan assembly and blast it (and the heatpipe fins beside it) with compressed air.



edit: Picture from the article on disassembling a Toshiba notebook here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/53660-35-notebook-laptop-disassembly-hardware-repair-guide

the keen edge

Many thanks for the help folks.:)

Voodu Child wrote: »

No, overclocking definitely isn't tech speak for overheating :pac:

Wearing an anti-static band is certainly safer than not wearing one. The chances of damaging something through static discharge are pretty small (and controllable to a degree), but it does happen, and a static band is pretty cheap. Your choice - some do, some don't. The safest recommendation is to wear one.

Thermal paste is readily available from anywhere that sells computer components etc. Lots of online stores, komplett, ebay, amazon, wherever. I doubt a big bricks and mortar shop like PC World would have it though. Make sure to read the application instructions carefully, including cleaning the old stuff off.

I'll say it again though, the problem is much more likely to be caused by dust clogging the vents etc. Thermal paste doesnt normally just 'go bad' all of a sudden and start causing overheating problems. Whereas vents do get clogged over time.

The on-line the guide gave me the impression that I would find on opening the laptop casing that I would have to remove the heat sink from the CPU to ensure a satisfactory cleaning job, or redo a possible poor contact between the two components. Therefore I thought it would be wise to have a tube of the paste to hand, I reckon Maplan may stock this product. I will however do as you have advised and try to clear away as much dust as possible before I start pulling hardware apart.

Snowbat wrote: »

Which model Equium?

If it uses a heatpipe arrangement, you likely won't need to remove the heatsink from the CPU at all.... just remove the fan assembly and blast it (and the heatpipe fins beside it) with compressed air.

Its a A300D 13X, if that makes any sense to you. Its a nice looking laptop but aside from the above problem, it is also a totally unreliable machine. Frequently it will crash with dramatic on screen visuals. Other times it will crash preceded with a ms dos type screen(a blue background with a crude white font ) I dont get enough time to read the on screen message fully, something about disk errors. In addition to these problems the battery is rarely detected meaning I have to be plugged in to the power supply full time.