toshiba satellite a500-18x turns off while gaming

Hiyya redcherry mate a few things first up run Speccy for a look at the temps mate Speccy - Download < from piriform.

Now I can tell you now the power adaptor is cactus or the power jack is broken more likely the former. Now if you can test the volts on the adaptor and then take out the battery and with the power adaptor plugged in see what the volts are at the battery connections.


Now being four years old if it has never been cleaned then I am guessing it is sort of quite dirty inside. But the temps will show up any irregularities.

Now lastly are you capable of working on the machine if need be? I can guide you through a bit if you are happy with that.

Ok Vick cactus means - has had the Richard - eaten the biscuit - gone to God- dropped its bundle -thrown in the towel etc etc LOL!

Seriously all you need is a multimeter a digital one very cheap these daysand plug the adaptor in and set the meter to say 100v on its dial put the twoprobes usually red and a black one to one of the adaptors output lead terminalsone to the other and see what the reading is. If it measures up at about 19v(typically) it is ok then then do the same on the battery terminals in thebattery bay and see if the supply is coming through.

Well just one thing you can do is overturn the machine onto its lid - shinea very bright light into that air intake where the small fan is and look to seeif there is a lot of dust on the fan. Then keeping the light source there lookinto the exhaust vents on the side of the machine and see if any light iscoming through that small radiator. If there is very litle light coming throughthen the cooing "rad" is blocked and the high temps will cause theCPU to shut itself down.

Now as for cleaning you can suck from the fan aperture using a vacuumcleaner and / or blow it with a can of compressed air - cheap to buy . Cleaningthe rad you can use pipe cleaners to GENTLY push the dust lose form the outside.

but one word of WARNING ifyou blow the air into that fan opening please place say the end of a cable tieinto the blades first because the compressed air will spin the fan at more thanit s designed speed and could wreck the bearing !!

To take it apart is easy for me and at a shop expensive for you take a lookat this

http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/Toshiba-Satellite-A505/removing-optical-drive-1.htm

In the pics the rad and heatsinks are from another model but most are fairly similar and typical

The CPU temp I should myself like to see below 5-C at least when you run Speccy.

madcratebuilder said:

Check this DIY. This laptop looks fairly easy to work on. Cleaning four years of dust should help with temps. Like Prof.Tinkerer Tink said, check the voltage from the power supply.

Yep a site I use a fair bit too Mad and like you say the things are reasonably easy to work on and the first tim is always the worst LOL!! Plus there is usually a few Youtubes that will help but avoid the nine year olds mate they use Klingon for a language LOL!!

Now some TIPS Vick if you decide to give it a go I ALWAYS work on top of a spread out white bath towel taped to the hard surface top to stop those small screws from skidding onto the floor and the Abyss because you will invariably lose one or two if they do get on the floor. Plus get a reasonably strong magnet (the ones you get out of hard drives are really good) for magnetising the screwdrivers by stroking the blades along the magnet :)

Mate th CPU is running too hot for my liking the Tcase is 105C and that does not give you a lot of leeway especially in a hot ambient temperature plus what you have I would be careful in giving the thing a hammering. ARK | Intel® Core

It would be interesting to see what the temp is with Core Temp Core Temp as we could see the cores differently.

The battery well if the charge is going in and the battery isn't going to full charge and the board is telling you different then maybe the board is going south.