I'm having two problems with my newest (14 months old) Toshiba laptop, a Satellite A75-S213.

Problem number one. For some reason, it doesn't appear that my web browser (MSIE 6.0) is caching web pages or images as it should. Standard now is, it loads every web page as if it was the first time I visited it, each time I logon, or jump between websites, and sometimes it does a reload after viewing a link and going back to the main page (like clicking on a message here). I clear the temp files on a regular basis, but this doesn't seem to help. Any ideas anyone?

Problem number two, and this is more serious than number one. This laptop has run hot since the day I bought it. The processor is a 3.3 gig Mobile Pentium 4, and I just figured a chip that powerful was going to generate a lot of heat (the machine has two internal fans and an exposed copper heat sink on the back outer edge).

At first, I bought a dual fan cooling platform, and that worked for a while. The machine started running hotter, so I tried a more sophisticated
cooling platform (puts the machine higher above the surface and has adjustable fan locations). That helped a little, but not for long.

I started using the high four-corner platform with an external high velocity 4-inch fan blowing from the rear of the machine. That helped a little, for a while, but this problem has graduated at each turn.

Two external 4-inch high velocity fans, one on the side and one behind the machine got me through the end of the racing season last year (if you want to get some weird looks, set up a laptop in a media center with fans blowing air all over your computer!), but now, not even those are enough.

The machine has some kind of heat triggered circuit breaker that shuts it off when it gets too hot. I hear a click and the thing is off. It doesn't act like a standard Windows (I'm running XP Home) unexpected interruption, in that after letting it cool down and turning it on again, it boots up like nothing happened -- no message that my previous session was interrupted, no prompt to run scandisk.

It has gotten to the point that sometimes the machine won't run for more than 10 or 15 minutes, depending on what I'm trying to do. Working on, or loading, websites that are heavy in graphics generate the most heat and the quickest shutoff. An example, tonight I relisted two auction lots on eBay, and barely had time to do those before the breaker shut me off. Relisting takes less time than starting from scratch, so, as one who is trying to generate a little extra income on eBay, this problem is getting very frustrating.

I did a search, looking for info on others that might have been having the same problems, and I found nothing.

Most of the heat (since I have fans blowing in from the rear and sides) seems to be coming from the center of the laptop, which is also the location of the battery. There was a major recall of Sony laptop batteries last year because some of them were catching on fire! But, my laptop isn't a Sony! I found a place that sells recon'd batteries for $50 (factory list on a new one is about $320!), and will see if that helps.

I was thinking that it could be a virus of some kind, but I can't keep the machine running long enough to do a full virus scan! Anything that has the CPU running full speed heats the machine up and it shuts off. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance,

Bob