Laptop Cooling

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MONKEYMAN

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I am a little concerned about my new Toshiba Satellite L305-S5894. This has become my main computer I use at night on my desk. In a recent thread some members experienced high failure rates with Toshiba laptops. Love this laptop, but am scared it may not last. Today I went out to InkStop to get a cooling pad (that I am returning tomorrow). It kept the laptop cooler but had a noisey/defective fan. Looked at some cooling pads at NewEgg. This Zalman one looks sweet, but pricey.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834998051

This Vantec ones is more within my budget but may not be so good.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834999412&Tpk=vantec cooling pad

Or, do I need to worry about it at all? My fan does run more and I get more heat when AVG does a scan while I am using the computer. I am not very knowledgeable so any help is appreciated. This laptop is 15.4 inches.
 
I would HOPE that Toshiba would have resolved this issue by now. But I no longer use their products, so I cannot advise you on that unfortunately.
 
All the Toshibas that I have owned or sold have normally run hot, but only under high CPU load. The current one I have that is running Windows Vista seems to run very cool. I would check to see what processes are running in the background and possibly try to kill some of them that aren't needed. If you are running VISTA drag the CPU/MEMORY Meter to the Side bar to monitor the usage. Mine floats at about 2-5% while surfing the net and listening to music. Laptops aren't designed for intense applications and throttle down the CPU cycles to save power and to reduce heat due to their smaller form factor. If you Laptop doesn't have a lot of RAM in it this can also make it run hot as it is constantly having to swap information in/out of the swap file on the hard drive. Using more CPU cycles and excess hard drive use, creating more heat. Just some thoughts...
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Use the Toshiba power saver utility on your system. This throttles back the CPU, thus creating less heat.

Vista has "power saver plans" that work quite well for tweaking power consumption. Dunno if the Toshiba utility trumps the Vista-supplied one or not.
 
I'm running the Toshiba utility in VISTA and it seems to work very well, but then again I have 3gb or ram in my laptop and next to no swap file...
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on my toshiba A25-s2792, the fan was on full blast all the time, the CPU was running so hot, the laptop would shut off by itself. I took it apart and found a triple thick layer of dust over the heat shrink. I removed it and the fan stop running full blast after that. After cleaning all the dust out, I didn't even notice the fan running when it was on low speed anymore. I know your toshiba laptop is new, but maybe dust got in there somehow?
 
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I can vouch for this issue, I had a friend that has a 4 year old Toshiba that I just fixed with the same problem. Kept freezing and shutting down on him. Was running hot like you could cook eggs on it. Blew out the heat sink through the vents using compressed air and now it's super fast, fan is quiet and it doesn't get hot at all.
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MONKEYMAN,
The issue we were referring to was on older model Toshibas. My old one used to expell a lot of hot air until I took an air compressor the fan and heatsink, which then resulted in much cooler air being expelled.

I'm not familiar with those particular cooling pads, but some of the pads don't blow air towards the computer. Instead, they pull hot air away. This idea would be great if the laptops still vented on the bottom, but they now inhale air from the bottom, so blowing air up towards the computer is the more effective option.

Best advice I can say is take an air compressor (at least 70 psi) to the fan and vent/heatsink every 3-4 months. I've seen plenty of incidences like Cutehumor's so keeping that free of heavy buildup will keep any heat related issues from showing up.
 
You guys are great! I have to go to work, but later will look into some of the suggestions. I totally understand how computers in general suck. I have a lot of Dells that could be used as vacuum cleaners. Been cleaning them for years. Tonight I am going to make sure the table is spotless. The fan pulls up from the bottom and vents out the side. The most intensive thing I do is use AVG. Otherwise the fan is off most of the time. I have 3 gb of RAM. Also, not following the advice here, I have almost 4 gb of Ready Boost activated. I know, it is not supposed to help, but how else am I supposed to support Panda Bear? My last 3 flash drives have all been Sandisk.
 
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I just bought a 16gb Sandisk Cruiser for $40 at wally world on Boxing day. It's really great!
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I like their products!
 
I have the infamous Dell Inspiron 5150 that's notorious for overheating. I have to keep my processor at half speed or it'll get to 65-70 degrees C when doing intense processing, especially if the heat sink has dust on it.

I blow out the dust every few weeks, and with it at half speed (still 1.6 ghz), it won't even go above 50 C.

Might want to use that Toshiba power savor utility and clock the processor back a bit.

I've tried using a cooler pad with fans and it didn't do squat for CPU temps. Made the hard drive a bit cooler though.
 
My Toshiba Satellite A105-S4084 is about 2.5 years old and has never had any heat related problems. I don't really take any special precautions to keep it from overheating either. The only time it seems to use the fan a lot is when I play GTA San Andreas.

So far, my Toshiba seems to be pretty reliable. Maybe only certain models have overheating issues?
 
It's more of the environment it's in rather than the models, but there are some exceptions. If it's used around dusty/dirty environments then it'll get really bad. Also if you're a smoker, the ash will make it pretty nasty as well. One time at work this lady brought in an old HP that had 3 fans on it (2 primary, 1 small extra) and the fans were constantly running (and loudly). My coworker took it all apart and blew all the dust out of there and then we could never get more than one fan to run, even while running a disk defrag and a virus scan together.

Now as for a few select models, such as the Inspiron 5150, when the rubber feet wore off, it'd sit so low to the ground that it would pick up all the dirt and clog up the fan and heatsink.
 
Originally Posted By: StevieC
32.gif
I just bought a 16gb Sandisk Cruiser for $40 at wally world on Boxing day. It's really great!
wink.gif
I like their products!


My 8 gb Cruzer was $15 at Office Depot before Christmas. I thought it was a great deal.

OK, I was able to find Vista's power options and set it to power saving mode instead of balanced. So far I am not hearing fan sound on my laptop. I cleaned off my desk and there was some cat hair. I pet two cats while surfing. Guess I will need to clean the area around the desktop more often. So I will keep things clean inside and out and keep the power setting lower. I could not find the Toshiba utility and I uninstalled my gadgets/power meter (I think). Anyway the cats and I thank you!
 
Originally Posted By: MONKEYMAN

My 8 gb Cruzer was $15 at Office Depot before Christmas. I thought it was a great deal.

Newegg had 16GB Kingston USB thumb drives for $16 with free shipping just before Christmas. I ended up getting a few as Christmas gifts for my friends.

I see there are 64 GB thumb drives out there now...
 
I like a properly designed laptop. I've never had an ASUS notebook overheat.

But they have incredibly well engineered cooling solutions. No need for throttling or cooling pads. My A7V runs 24/7 and has for two years.

A good laptop doesn't need mickey-mouse solutions to compensate for poor engineering.
 
If I had the money and need I would look at a ASUS notebook. My Toshiba was more on the lower end of price. About $550 after tax. It seems to be running pretty cool after throttling things back a bit.

I am used to Mickey Mouse solutions. It is called having limited funds and knowledge. Tomorrow I hope to duct tape the rip in my car seat.

I did order the blue cooling pad from New Egg. It just seemed like the thing to do, more to keep the hand rest area cool. That seems to be the part that is getting a little too warm for my comfort.
 
The hand rest heat is a common issue. The one my client had issues with would get hot enough to be uncomfortable on your palm.
 
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