Toshiba Laptop Cooling System Warning

I was on an airplane, working on battery power with my Toshiba laptop for a couple of hours when I got this message:

System Warning

Warning: A problem with the cooling system has been detected.  Please turn off the computer immediately and return it for service.

Needless to say, it scared the crap out of me.  I immediately turned it off and thought that my machine was toast.

I operated it entirely the next day without a warning.  This morning, the innocuous dialog box with the same message popped up.

The thing was pumping out heat from the fan.  I immediately got a can of compressed air and sprayed every orifice under the laptop.  Dust and crap and all sorts of stuff came out.  I was amazed at the amount of dust and particulate matter that spewed out.

I then googled the problem on another device, and came up with this URL : http://botcrawl.com/warning-a-problem-with-the-cooling-system-has-been-detected/

This URL suggested that uninstalling the Toshiba Value Added Package.  I did this for good measure, but I noticed that after spraying the compressed air and getting all of the dust and junk out, the heat was no longer being pumped out of the fan ports.

My laptop does run cooler now.  Prior to this I had never used the canned air to blow out the dust, but I did notice that my computer would definitely run hot out of the fan port and it now runs cool.

All this to say is that I solved the problem.  I think that it was a bunch of dust and crap accumulated in fan assembly, because my computer runs cooler.  Problem solved without a trip to repair shop.  I am going to keep a can of air around and regularly give the holes in the underside a good shot every once in awhile.

Toshiba Satellite Lap Product Review

I just purchased a new Toshiba laptop because the old HP dual core just died. Actually it is in the process of dying. It is having mini-strokes. When I boot it, it doesn't boot. It doesn't POST. It just sits there and the HDD disk light flashes orange. This usually flashes orange when the accelerometer detects that the laptop is moving and parks the disk heads. After a while, the thing boots up, runs for awhile and then dies again. It is a crapshoot as to whether it boots and how long it takes.

So onto the Toshiba. It has a dual Core i3 genuine Intel processor and the hard disk is half a terrabyte. It should scream, but it comes with Windows 7 so it just marches. Nothing like an old XP for speed. (Did I mention that Microsoft sucks?).

Well, I am generally pleased with the laptop except that for human factors engineering, it is a FAIL. The keyboard is all wrong. When I am typing without looking and want to hit the shift, I hit the control. The shift on the left is way too small, and way too high. The return key is small below but enlarges into the row above, where the little pinkie on the right hand can't reach it. It is a pain to type on.

Other ergonomic things bug me. It takes me forever to find the little button to eject a DVD or CD. The delete button isn't handy. The track pad is over too far left. It is not centered like on any other normal computer.

The other thing that is slightly ticking me off, is that it regularly makes weird noises like a chirping for a few seconds then quits for a couple of minutes. I have to debug this one.

So while the computer seems okay, it is a bit of a pain to operate it. I have to learn to live with it, because Future Shop, where I bought the thing, had the wrong price on it, and they honored the tag that said it was $120 less that it should have been.

Update: The keyboard is huge pain, but I love the way that it runs cool compared to the HP.

And it really boots up fast and shuts down fast unlike the HP. I used the like the HP, but this

one is growing on me. The keyboard is still HUGELY frustrating though. But there are no more cooked skin marks on my thighs from an overly hot laptop.

Update 2: The speakers on the Toshiba sound tinny compared to the HP laptop. Still having difficulty with the keyboard, and now the sound sucks. But I really like how cool it runs. The HP actually left burn marks on my lap when I took the computer outside to program on the balcony overlooking the water.