Many of us own laptops where the fan seems to run an annoying amount of the time, but it's better than a laptop fan that doesn 't run at all. When the fan in your notebook fails, the usual symptom is an overheating CPU and automatic shutdown. Sometimes the laptop runs for 10 minutes, sometimes for a half hour, it depends on the task and the power. Troubleshooting a hot CPU can be as simple as making sure you aren't blocking the airflow outside the laptop. Often times, you can access the fans and heatsink without a huge job, on this Toshiba A65, all it takes is some careful prying and two screws. As always, remove the battery before working on any laptop. The first step is removing the combination blank and hinge cover that allows access to the two screws securing the keyboard. It is snapped into place with little tabs on the long edge and a big tab on each end.

The picture to the right shows how the blank and the hinge cover are all one piece of plastic, so you have to open the screen to fully remove the blank. I should mention for desperate people with no mechanical skills, one non-invasive way to extend the length of time a notebook with poor cooling will run between shutdowns is to run it on battery and choose the most aggressive (ie, longest life) power saving mode. BTW, I'm working on this notebook because I was asked to bypass the power connector as a favor. However, the owner's got five kids in the house and I burned my finger on the metal part of the 100BaseT port after I got it charging again, so I'm afraid to return it for safety reasons.

The problem I was originally asked to fix should ha