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!