What can be done about overheating?

The symptoms of an overheating Vaio are these:

• It works fine as long as you don't run any CPU-intensive applications on it. But when you stress it, it works for a while and shuts down.
  
  
• Once it does shut down, it will shut down sooner if you restart it without giving it time to cool off. Then the cycle starts again.
  
  

The solution takes place in several stages (depending on the severity of the problem):

1. Some computers overheat because they are simply overloaded by programs their users don't even know are running. First, run a spyware-removing program such as SpyBot Search & Destroy. If the computer still shuts down after a while, run msconfig and disable all of the programs in the Startup Group. If you know how, you can also do some registry edits that will stop things from automatically loading and executing. This is only for experts.
   
   
2. Using the instructions at the bottom of the page, open the top of your computer. Either unplug the cooling fan that sits on top of, or adjacent to, the CPU, or put a little piece of folded cardboard in the fan blades to prevent them from turning. Blast canned air in through the exhaust slots on the back or side of the machine to remove dust from the CPU radiator and fan. Vacuum cleaner suction applied to the intakes on the side, top, and bottom sometimes also works. Plug the fan back in. Make sure the fan will turn freely (sometimes a dust bunny will hide in it). When you're using the computer, always be careful not to block the intake slots on the bottom or sides.
   
   
3. Remove the fan and heat sink, clean out the old (probably cracked and fried) thermal compound between the heat sink and CPU, and install new Arctic Silver 5. Here is a link to get you started: http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm
   
   

Most Vaios have one or two hidden screws that start the disassembly procedure.

• In laptop models, they are almost always on the left side, either exposed or under a peripheral cover; removing them allows you to slide the speaker panel to the right or left to release it upwards (be careful not to pull on the ribbon cable that connects the power/speaker panel to the mother board).
  
  
• In notebooks, screws across the rear of the bottom (typically numbering three) will release the keyboard. Since there are about two bazillion Vaio variants that are all different, that's about as far as we can get with these self-help pages.