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Toshiba Satellite heating up problem

... and how I fixed it.

After a few heat-induced shut-downs while playing Starcraft II, I decided to investigate why my Toshiba Satellite A505 was heating up so much. I tried a cooling dock, installed SpeedFan to monitor temperature, and tried the vacuum-cleaner trick… Nothing really improved the situation.

In the end, I found this video and decided to try it myself. Long story short: I went from ~100C (that’s celsious, yeah) to ~65C tops while playing Starcraft II. No more resets, no need for a cooling dock anymore. If you’re having this problem, you HAVE to do this.

What you need?
:: Small screwdrivers. If they’re magnetized, even better.
:: Several cups, of different shapes and/or color. You’ll be dealing with a lot of screws.
:: Something to write on. (example: “keyboard screws > red cup”)
:: A camera. (phone camera worked great for me)

The exact steps:
1. Flip laptop upside down. Take out battery.
2. Take out all visible screws.
3. Remove lids for RAM and Harddrive.
4. Remove harddrive. RAM can stay in place.
5. Flip laptop again and remove keyboard. (here’s how to).
6. Remove the 2 F6 scews holding the DVD drive.
7. Flip laptop upside down again, remove DVD drive (just push it out).
8. Remove 3 screws below the DVD that hold the front cover. (the front cover is where the touch-pad and speakers are).
9. Flip laptop again…
10. Carefully unplug the cables you see in this pic. Just open the black plastic thing and pull the cable, should come out smoothly. NO FORCE REQUIRED AT ALL.
11. Remove front cover. Just pull it out, comes off easily. Just a few clacks and that’s it.

It gets tricky, don’t panic:
12. Take a picture of everything, and carefully unplug everthing you see connected to the motherboard.
13. Also remove all screws that hold the motherboard.
14. Now remove this piece and the screws under it.
15. Now you can lift the silver piece that used to hold the DVD. Just lift it a little bit and the motherboard should be loose.
16. Remove the motherboard and flip it around.
17. Unplug the fan connector and remove the 2 screws that hold it.
18. Remove the fan.
19. CLEAN THAT SHIT!

Put everything together, going step by step backwards in the guide.

IMPORTANT: Before putting the front cover back in, check the wireless switch, you have to put it in place or else it won’t work anymore.

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