Your Sony laptop overheats and shuts down? Apparently it’s time to take it apart for cleaning. Thank you to this site for illustrated laptop cleaning instructions.

A brief search of the internet revealed that the main shortcoming of the VAIO series of laptops is the lack of cooling capacity. Apparently the overall design of the system is barely sufficient, which is exacerbated by some real design problems. For example, the intake is located on the bottom, which is frequently sitting directly on your leg if you (ironically) hold the laptop in your lap. In addition, the ductwork and heat sinks are easily clogged with dust, which severely limits their efficiency. At the very minimum, this leads to very noisy fan levels, ultimately resulting in spontaneous shutdowns as the internal temperatures begin to exceed critical levels.

Read the rest of this entry »

This easy to follow Asus laptop maintenance guide will help you to open up the computer and clean the cooling module witch included heatsink and CPU fan. This guide was created for an Asus v6000 series laptops but will work for some other Asus models too.

Due to the size constraints, notebook fans are usually small and come in small amounts, usually one or two depending on the size of the notebook. It may not sound like much, but the fan is a vital part of a notebook, and can make a difference whether or not the notebook will function well and at times, the lifespan of the notebook.

If you maintain your laptop often and clean the cooling module on a regular basis you will avoid all heat related issues:
Read the rest of this entry »

Your Advent laptop overheats and shuts down without any warning? Check the heatsink, most likely it’s clogged with dust.
This article explains how to access and clean the heatsink with cooling fan on an Advent 6000 series laptop.

I decided to take the laptop apart to investigate the cause of the overheating. My gut feeling was the fan on the processor broke! But when I took the laptop notebook apart the culprit of overheating was dust blocking the airways.

Read the rest of this entry »

Does your laptop shut down in the middle of doing something without any reason and warning? Does your laptop run much hotter then before, the keyboard and the bottom part of the laptop feels very hot? If yes, your laptop overheats and has to be cleaned. It happens because the heat sink is clogged with dust and lint preventing normal air circulation.

These are all the symptoms of a laptop overheating problem in or around the cooling system. The fan and the heat sink have a small gap in between them, this is where dust will be sucked into and will accumulate. Once all the dust and lint is removed, re-assemble your machine. This procedure is something that should be done periodically to ensure that your laptop overheating issues will be a thing of the past.

Read the rest of this entry »

Your laptop is running hot? Maybe it’s time to replace thermal compound on the CPU. This guide will explain how you can replace thermal compound in a HP Compaq nw8240 laptop. This guide should work for many other HP laptops too.

For those wishing to make their laptop perform cooler overall, adding a high-grade thermal compound to the interface between the chip and the heat sink is a great suggestion. I use Arctic Silver 5 for my hardware, since it’s the proven best thermal paste on the market today. It seems a bit expensive for the amount you get, but it’s well worth it.

Read the rest of this entry »

These instructions explain how to access and remove the CPU from a HP zd7000 notebook computer. Fortunately, you can easily access the CPU from the bottom of the laptop, all you have to do is remove the fan cover. Also, if your notebook overheats, you can follow the above mentioned guide for cleaning cooling fans. It’s not difficult. Just remove the fan door and clean fans and heat sink with compressed air. Spray air inside the fans until the dust stop coming from the openings on the side of the notebook. Some people clean their notebook fans with a vacuum. Warning! If you are cleaning your notebook with a vacuum, do not touch the motherboard or other parts. Vacuum creates static electricity and it can kill the motherboard. Cleaning fans once a month will prevent overheating and keep your notebook much cooler.
Read the rest of this entry »

These instructions will guide you through taking apart your Sony Vaio laptop.

UPDATE: the page I was linking to is gone. Here’s another source for Sony Vaio manuals and here’s one more source.

You can use these instructions for:

1. Removing and replacing the laptop keyboard
You can find brand new Sony keyboards at SparePartsWarehouse. I purchased a few Sony keyboards from them and was very pleased with the provided service.
2. Removing, replacing or just cleaning the cooling module – heatsing and fans
If you laptop runs hot and overheats, it might be not necessary taking it apart. You can clean the cooling module with compressed air without taking it apart. Buy a can of compressed air in any local computer store and spray it inside the cooling module through the holes on the bottom of the laptop. It should take care of the overheating problem.
3. Removing and replacing the CPU
Be very careful with the CPU pins, they are fragile. After you replace the processor, do not forget to lock the socket or your laptop will not start up after you assemble it back.

I’m not sure 100% but I think the above mentioned disassembly guide will work for the following Sony laptops:

PCG-K12FP, PCG-K12P, PCG-K13, PCG-K13F, PCG-K13Q, PCG-K14, PCG-K15, PCG-K15F, PCG-K17, PCG-K20P, PCG-K23, PCG-K23F, PCG-K23Q, PCG-K24FP, PCG-K25, PCG-K25F, PCG-K27, VGN-K20P

I own a Toshiba Satellite A75 notebook and after a while it started experiencing the overheating problems. Even with the laptop raised with plenty of air flow, it still shuts down sometimes.
What type of cooling pad or stand should i get? Is there a certain model that i should get? Should I get someone to open it up and clean it? Would this make a difference?

Read the rest of this entry »

I have a Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 laptop and lately, it’s just always shutting off. I don’t know why. I’m not doing anything special but surfing the web, and i never have lots of sites open. The right side is always warm and i can hear the fan going. It’s not very loud.. and the battery looks fine when i take it out. What’s wrong with my laptop? Please help! Thank you!

Read the rest of this entry »

My laptop was shutting off all the time and was getting very hot when it did so. I figured the CPU was overheating because of dust. After blowing into it a bit it stopped shutting off, but a few months later it started shutting off again. So I decided to try and take it apart to get rid of all the dust. After taking all the screws out that I could find (I’m pretty sure I got all of them) I still couldn’t get it to completely open. It seemed to be stuck near the floppy drive so I pried it open a bit and vacuumed whatever dust I could find and put everything back together. When I turned it on again for the first time the screen just stayed black and my CD/DVD drive was also clicking a bit but when I pressed the button it came out as it should. I tried to hook it up to my external monitor but the screen still stayed black. I haven’t been able to find a guide on how to get the laptop completely open so I can’t see if I unhooked anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have a HP ze5375us notebook PC.

Read the rest of this entry »