Hello-

Every time I try to perform a full system scan through Norton Antivirus my laptop turns off. It does not shutdown, just turns directly off. Any help you could provide would be appreciated.

Thanks for your time,
Anna

If you are having problems with Norton, try another anti-virus software like AVG Free or Avast.

Hope this helps.

LT

Hmm, How old is your laptop and what are its specs? Norton is a real resource hog, depending on your computer maybe its just to much to handle and the computer will shut down. If you have had Norton for awhile and never came across this problem until now then its probably not the case and someone more knowledgeable can help you

I have had Norton for a couple years and never had a problem. I tried running Spybot earch S&D and the computer turned off as well. Could it be some kind of virus or spyware? I disabled Norton and ran AVG. It scanned the computer and the computer didn't turn off, but it didn't find any infected files.

My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite, 1.5 GHz Intel Celeron processor. 504 MB RAM. Windows XP, Service Pack 2. I can give you more info of you need it.

Thanks!

I don't believe so, but you could try going through these steps HERE, and if a infection turns up and doesn't get cleaned you can get the experts to check a HiJack This log by starting a new thread HERE.

Maybe go through it as a precaution.

Hope it goes well,

Mike

QUOTE (amcgra20 @ Feb 7 2008, 01:49 PM)

Hello- Every time I try to perform a full system scan through Norton Antivirus my laptop turns off. It does not shutdown, just turns directly off. Any help you could provide would be appreciated. Thanks for your time, Anna

Hi,
This should be a hardware issue related with Toshiba laptop design from many years ago and here is why I am saying so: I have two Compaq Presarios: 900 Athlon XP 1800MHzh and 1200 XL07 K6-2+ 550Mhz with Windows XP and 98SE respectively. I used both McAfee 5 and Avast Free 2008 with them perfectly. I then bought a very old (1999) but in perfect condition Toshiba Satellite 2060CDS K6-2 that passed every diagnostic test that I had: Memtest86+, BurnInTest, Checkit, TuffTest Pro, Sandra, TestCPU, etc. I installed Windows 98SE and Mandrake Linux 8 and worked perfectly with both of them for a week. I then installed Avast Home Free Antivirus 2008 and started to scan for virus (all hard drives Thorough) and left. When I returned found the laptop turned off. I turned it on, loaded windows and started virus scanning again; 5 minutes later the laptop turned off abruptly without prior advice as if it didn’t have batteries nor electrical power. I repeated the operation 5 more times with identical results except for the time before shut down but never exceeding 10 10 minutes. I was taken by surprise; I have never seen a behavior like this before! I tested power supply, batteries, and even laptop temperature: every thing was normal but the laptop could not complete a full scan. I now I see you report about a 10 years newer laptop with similar behavior! If you simply use other programs under windows 98 everything works right, but not with Avast, or McAfee in your case.

I may have some good new for Toshiba users. As I mentioned before, my “OLD” Toshiba laptop (I have had it for a week) turns off abruptly in Windows 98SE when I try to perform a full system scan either with McAfee VirusScan 5 or Avast Home Edition 2008 in less than 15 minutes. After searching the Internet I found this problem affects different and newer models of Toshiba laptops and seems to be an overheating issue. It was interesting to see that neither BurnTest Pro with its intensive apps and 3D animations, nor Memtest+, nor a Genetic Algorithm Program with a lot of integer and floating math running continuously for 24 hours were able to do what an antivirus could in just 5 minutes; I would never expect that (I have a CS degree). If you search the Internet you will find that a group of customers sued Toshiba for these overheating problems.

Some users suggest opening the laptop and cleaning the CPU heat sink, air duct and fan; I would try that tomorrow. For those willing to disassemble their laptops I highly recommend to look for the service manual or disassembly instructions, could be on the Internet. Toshiba uses 5 or more different types of screws and requires removing some components before reaching the heat duct. If you have a warranty you may return your laptop but it seems the replacements tend to fail again after a couple of months when some dust clogs the air duct inside.

But here it is a simple and fast solution that worked for me: Waterfall 1.23. It is a free software cpu cooler that works by inserting HALT (similar to sleep) instructions to reduce temperature. I knew this program many years ago and noted my Compaq laptop run cooler at least when not running intensive apps, it effectively increased battery duration a little. Well, It tried it on my Toshiba Satellite 2060CDS with Win98SE and allowed me to perform successful scans at their toughest setting that lasted 8 hours each with both McAfee and Avira, one after the other, no turn offs or crashes. Funny, isn’t it? Other alternatives include Waterfall Pro and Rain program. I don’t know how these programs behave with XP or Vista, you will have to find it out. Perhaps you can archive something similar setting your laptop for better energy conservation and less performance or using external fans. A BIOS ACPI upgrade can help too in some cases as stated by Toshiba itself.

Finally, although I didn’t like this problem and not longer think Toshibas are perfect laptops, I have to say something in favor of them: Their laptops should be turning off when overheating because of the activation of a protection circuit in their boards. An overheating AMD K6 CPU will never turn off by itself and will continue running until it crashes without a permanent damaged in the short term in most cases. My two Compaq laptops never had an overheating problem and they perfectly run any virus scanner or any other program I want. But I performed an experiment some years ago turning on one of these laptop with the heat sink mounted but unscrewed: it hanged after 5 minutes but didn’t turn off, it simply froze. I think it doesn’t have any overheating protection circuit or it has a not too sensible one, I can’t tell it for sure. Toshiba in other hand will turn off by itself.

That is a known problem: we want faster (hotter chips) and smaller (more difficult heat dissipation) laptops.

Thanks!

Hi,

This is hopefully my last post here (for better understanding please read my other two posts and those from the other users). But be careful, this is not an orthodox solution and surely not one approved by Toshiba and many technicians. It could be unreliable with today’s extremely hot CPUs.

I disassembled my “new” OLD Toshiba laptop and found everything pretty clean inside without any dust accumulation. For an 8.5 years old machine its last owner either seldom used it or took it for maintenance recently, or perhaps overheating problems kept him away from this machine! The fan worked great producing a strong blow. So why was this laptop overheating?

The motherboard CPU temperature sensor is a small brown plastic strip cable that rests on a black foam cube and touches the CPU from beneath. I removed the K6 CPU and pasted an 0.75”x0.75” aluminum foil under it using two pieces of double sided thin adhesive tape placed side by side taking care not to touch any of the CPU pins with the aluminum (keep a distance of at least 1 mm to the nearest pins). The idea was to insert one layer of aluminum, one of plastic tape and one of adhesive between the CPU and the sensor making this last one less sensible. Since heavy-duty tasks increase CPU temperature very fast the fan activation will be delayed only for a second or two due to the slightly less sensible sensor. The heat sink will continue dissipating some heat without the fan. CPU tolerances will allow a small temperature increase if necessary (have you ever heard the word “overclocking”?). Most important, sensor will not trigger the immediate shut down function as easily as before. Notice that the contact between the heat sink and the CPU surfaces remained untouched (although I applied thermal grease between the CPU and its sink for better conduction). I only modified the opposite side of the CPU that touches the temperature sensor.

If the new insulation material proved to be too much the fan would seldom work or would not work at all, risking a system crash caused by real overheating. A good test could be to perform a complete anti virus scan: the fan should work as usual but the system should never turn off by itself. If the system still turned off, more insulation material would be needed. If the fan turned off often less insulation material would be required. This solution WORKED for me: a full deep (through) Avast virus scan was successfully completed after 5 hours; the computer never shut off but the fan remained always on as expected. No other assistance was used: no Waterfall, no external fans, no power saving features; the system was in the full performance setting.

I am planning to always use Waterfall (mentioned in my previous post) for extra protection but now I fell more confident with this machine.

One last note: yesterday, before applying this “insulating” solution, Waterfall made such a good job that the fan turned off sometimes during a full Avast scan. My solution by itself does not do this, and that for me is good news.

Thanks and good luck!