Something in my lappy is overheating, but I don't know what??? Plz help!

[gallacher2001]

I have a Toshiba Tecra A2 lappy running xp pro with SP2 with a centrino chip its 3 years old. I recently installed a new hard drive a toshiba 60gb to replace the 40gb HD that died. I also put in an extra 512 mb ram of memory but that was at least a month ago. Before the HD died the ram was fine no problems at all. After I had installed the new HD the lappy has worked fine for 6 days but its just recently started behaving weird by freezing all the time. It would freeze and the only way to fix it was to mannualy shut the pc down and reboot. Now I have tried the following:

RAN SCANDSK = HD ok
RAN EVENTWNR.MSC = Log showed a few errors on program hangs but no biggies

RAN AVG ANTIVIRUS = No viruses
RAN ZONEALARMS ANTISPY WARE SEARCH = Found 2 but low priority tracers

DOWNLOADED AND RAN SPEEDFAN AND THE RESULTS WHERE =

LOCAL TEMP: 34C
REMOTE TEMP: 70C
HD0: 26C
TEMP1: 28C

CPU USAGE SHOWED UP TO 80% AT ONE POINT IT WAS UP AND DOWN WITHOUT ME DOING ANYTHING. The REMOTE TEMP : 70C had a wee flame next to it not suprisingly so assuming that something was too hot I shut the pc down right away.

I am assuming that a fan somewhere in the lappy isn't working, but which one? since the HD temp seems ok it cant be anything related to it, but could it be the mobo fan or that my graphics card is toasting?

The really weird thing is that for curiosities sake I rebooted and ran the program again and this time everthings fine REMOTE TEMP: 38C and cpu usage 1% at it's max reading??? Is it possible that whichever fan it is it's not died yet but needs replaced?

Any and all help as always appreciated.

Cheers
Frazz :)

[gallacher2001]

I tried using the lappy on the internet and playing a cd and whenever i am doing anything both the REMOTE TEMP: 59C and the LOCAL TEMP: 43C go up and just keep going!!!! I know Ill have to put the lappy into a pc shop for repair but I just wanted to get an idea of what exactly is wrong before I do that. :(

[Nacimroc]

My laptop started shutting down due to overheating about 6 months ago! Didn't check what it was, I just went the high tech route and stuck 2 blocks of wood under it so the fans would work better!

If it was your graphics card your hard disc light would still flicker when you pressed keys or the mouse! If it was your HDD, chances are it wouldnt start when you reboot straight away. You could try another HDD in it to see will it work! Not sure on any of them though!

[gallacher2001]

Well the HD light does still flicker on and off when it's frozen and sometimes it does it for a while then comes ok, funnily enough the last time it froze I was running a virus scan and although the pc was frozen and I couldn't do anything the scan carried on and finished!!!

[Nacimroc]

I'd definetely try plugging it into a monitor to check if its the screen! If not then I'd go with a graphics card problem! Sounds like everything else is ok!

[backup2k1]

over heat problem down to the fans on the cpu might need cleaning
but its a common problems with these laptops its a well known fault

try to get a laptop cooler fan that you connect at the bottom that should stop it locking up

[gallacher2001]

Ok small update. I did check the screen and it's not that. I opened up the lappy and took out the heat sink and fan and there really wasn't any dust on them at all. The thermal paste though was non existant! just a little left round the edges so I got some cooler master paste and applied it, trouble is I don't think I put it on right, think I put it on too thick, so thd pc really isn't cooler and Ive had to use speedfan to adjust the fan to have it on all the time, thats doing the job though. Ill try to reapply the paste thinner and smoother and hopefully that will help.

Cheers guys.
Frazz