Help! - my laptop thinks its an iphone :(

SuperVeech

Hi,

I bought a toshiba equium 18 months ago and all seemed perfect. In the last two months however it has developed a habit of shutting down if I try to view flash content in full screen mode. The problem occurs when using on demand services like 4od and rte player.
The laptop works fine if I leave the player in regular size but after 10 seconds or so in full screen mode I can hear the fans start to take off promptly followed by the machine shutting down.
I have tried cleaning the fan with a vacum cleaner but its makes no difference. Apart from this problem there are no others, the software seems fine its running on vista and is a 32bit version.

Anyone have any ideas

Voodu Child

Sounds like thermal shutdown.

Install CPUID HWMonitor on your system, and then watch the temps as you play a flash video.
Link. Specifically the CPU temp, and GPU (graphics card) temp. If they shoot up to very high temps before it shuts down, then that's likely your problem.

I can go into solutions afterwards. First confirm whether temps are indeed the cause.

SuperVeech

Hi Voodu

Thanks for your tip, after doing what you suggested I took a screengrab with the software running while rte player was playing. The results are down below, I expanded the details as much as possible not sure if the graphics vcard is included, hope this helps you help me



no battery read out because its plugged into the mains.

Thanks again for your advice

Alanstrainor

That is WAY too high for a laptop just playing a video on rte iplayer.

EDIT: Just to give you an idea. My Dell D430, which is quite bad for cooling itself down by design (It's very small), shows a max temp of 30 degrees Celcius after 15 minutes of watching a video on Rte iplayer on full screen.

x in the city

indeed, very high.

you need a complete revamp of your cooling system my xps with a 9800 gt sli only get to 80 degrees and that's while gaming flat out.

SuperVeech

would it be cheaper/easier to get a new laptop ?

I am sure I could not revamp the cooling system, I even forget to check my car for oil.

Voodu Child

Yeah, so basically it confirms that thermal shutdown is the problem.

Every laptop has a temp limit programmed into it, and if it goes above it, it will shutdown to prevent damage being caused. Usually it is somehwere around 100C +/- obviously depending on the exact components. And going by the 90-ish temps your screenshot, it is likely that your laptop is hitting the max temp after a few minutes of the CPU being run at full load.

Something in the cooling system isn't working properly, thats why the temps are going so high. There's a few things that could be at play, but lets start with the most likely:

-Dust clogging the vent and/or heatsink fins
-Heatsink not making good contact with the processor (or any other component it is supposed to be drawing heat away from)

The first one is the easiest to troubleshoot. Ideally you might be able to take off a bottom panel and give it a blast with some canned air. It depends on the laptop; some of them are awful hard to service and get at the insides.

x in the city

Voodu Child wrote: »

Yeah, so basically it confirms that thermal shutdown is the problem.

Every laptop has a temp limit programmed into it, and if it goes above it, it will shutdown to prevent damage being caused. Usually it is somehwere around 100C +/- obviously depending on the exact components. And going by the 90-ish temps your screenshot, it is likely that your laptop is hitting the max temp after a few minutes of the CPU being run at full load.

Something in the cooling system isn't working properly, thats why the temps are going so high. There's a few things that could be at play, but lets start with the most likely:

-Dust clogging the vent and/or heatsink fins
-Heatsink not making good contact with the processor (or any other component it is supposed to be drawing heat away from)

The first one is the easiest to troubleshoot. Ideally you might be able to take off a bottom panel and give it a blast with some canned air. It depends on the laptop; some of them are awful hard to service and get at the insides.

why buy a new one, as what voodoo said.

or a sensor could be shagged, when it comes to cooling a few things can be the root cause

1/ excessive dust
2/ fans fubared
3/ temp sensors gone
4/ poor heatsink die contact/ thermal paste issue


open the bitch up and dont be a pussy...!

SuperVeech

ok so, report back tomorrow