Hi, I have a problem with my computer, it keep over heating and cutting out. I would normally get a bigger and better fan and heatsink, however since I have a laptop that does not seem like a posibility.

The laptop is Toshiba which is about a year old with a P4 3.06Ghz Prosessor, 512 RAM, 60GB HD.

Any sergestions?

Greetings Ragnarok,

Notebook computers can be easily overheated. Here are a few reasons why:

For Windows users, there may be a process running in the background that eats up alot of the CPU. When this happens, your computer thinks harder causing it to overheat. The svchost.exe issue did that to a notebook I previously owned, and after a while it fried out the hard drive. Try looking in your Task Manager for any high "CPU Usage", and try to disect which process is doing that.

Another tip, try elavating the notebook from solid surfaces. Try to find an object and place it under the back part of the notebook so it looks as if the notebook is escalating. Just rising the back part of the notebook should allow more circulation and air-flow.

Notebooks tend to heat up when constantly thinking, mostly.

I recently replaced my Notebook hard drive, and installed SuSE Linux 9.1 on it. It's quite nice now, and I haven't had any overheating problems lately.


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The over all useage of my CPU usually is about 20 to 50% atm its jumping between 0 and 2. The only time it really cuts is when Im playing games so it would tie in well. When ever I do play games I usually have my desk fan on so its not a huge problem. I will try elevating the back of it, its sertainly woth a try.

I have to stick with windows untill I have finished my collage course, I have to have access to Dreamweaver MX 2004, and my laptop is the only computer in the house with enough RAM to cope with it. Otherwise I would be on Linux Mandrake already!

Thank-you for your advice

Check that your fan vents arent dust filled. This is a common overheat issue on laptops. Also verify the fans operating properly. Another thing you can check is to see if the heatsink has a factory thermal pad that has broke down to the point of not being able to or making complete contact w/the cpu.

yeah. I once replaced the factory thermal pad with a newer one and that fixed my heating problems.

I read a great article entitled "PC Heat Stroke: What to do when your computer overheats" at www.ITInfoOnline.com

Hope that helps!