Why Toshiba Tecra TE2100 laptop locks up or will not boot at all?
One of our biggest customers use a lot of different Toshiba laptops and one of the models is Toshiba Tecra TE2100. We repaired many of these units and we noticed that some of them had very similar problems:
- Laptop locks up when you move it or sometimes freezes by itself. The video is still on, but the acupoint (keyboard mouse) and the keyboard itself do not work anymore.
- You can start the laptop, but you see CMOS (RTC) battery error on start up. After you clear the error, the laptop boots fine. After you reboot the laptop, you get the same error.
- Laptop will not boot at all. There is no power or power LED blinking. There is no hard drive activity. There is no external or internal video.
- When you press power button, laptop shows some activity, but there is no video on LCD screen.
At the beginning, when we just started working on this model, we tried to fix CMOS (RTC) battery error by replacing the RTC battery. Unfortunately, it didn’t help to fix the problem at all. We found that the main culprit of the problem is a poor connection between the system board and the power board (CMOS battery is connected to the power board). In some cases you can fix the problem by reseating the power board. Carefully disconnect if from the system board and connect it back. Turn on the laptop and see if it fixed your problem. If it didn’t help, most likely you have to replace the system board and the power board. Unfortunately, I cannot say exactly which one is causing the problem, the system board or the power board. The same story with laptop lock ups, try to reseat the power board.
You can fix a video problem by reseating the video card. We noticed, that over time the video board pops up from its connector on the system board and you can get video if you push it back in place.
Conclusion: before you start replacing parts, disassemble the laptop and try to fix the problem by reseating the power board and the VGA board. My disassembly guide for Toshiba Tecra TE2100 can help you to take apart the laptop.
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November 10th, 2006 at 2:38 am
Sopunds like what happened to me, the entire XP operating system died without warning. I ended up running the XP disc, but didn’t get the downloads. It has just happened again. and I am looking for a 2nd hand boot disc (mine is lost). Prior to the crash, the system kept failing to recognise USB ports and Wireless Cards etc. So I have lost all of my information, and worse than that the time it takes to collect it.
November 9th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
Max,
I’ve seen this problem with Tecra 9100 sound before. I think you might have a failing I/O board, this board is shown on the step 14 of this disassembly guide. I’m not sure that you have a failed I/O board, but from my experience it’s very likely. Sorry man, I cannot give you a better advice because it’s impossible to troubleshoot the laptop just basing on your description.
November 8th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
CJ2600,
Good Day, I have here Toshiba Tecra 9100, I hope you could give me some tips or advice on how to fix this problem.
Problem #1: My winxp get hangs or freeze after 2 or 5 minutes. When it hangs or freeze I push the power buttom to shut it down and when I turn in on again it locks up or will not boot at all. But the A/C power, on/of light, main battery and hard disk lights up but no display and hard disk lights does not blink. Sometimes it display a blue screen after loading windows xp logo and the only message I can read is “physical memory dump” at the bottom of the message, it display so fast I can’t read the whole message.
Problem #2: I also noticed that the portion on the button where memory is located is hotter than the portion where cpu and video chip are located.
Problem #3: No audio even though it is installed in device manager and sound driver is updated to winxp sp1.
Problem #4: After Problem 1-3, I decided to disassemble the unit to clean, remove some dust and to replace the old thermal grease of the processor and video chip. I’m also looking for some leak capacitor or loose connection but I didn’t find one. After that I re-assemble it, do fresh installation of windows using recovery cd, I have notice that “NO AUDIO DEVICE” and the modem is not detected anymore. I tried to install sound driver and it says “driver not installed” and same with modem.
I have tried cleaning the flex cable of the sound board and culprit of the modem but still no luck. Do I have to resolder something here specially the soundcard IC, coz I have a friend familiar in replacing IC. Please help me to fix this problem, thank you!
November 6th, 2006 at 5:15 am
hey!
I need some help immediately. I’d set the password on my M35X Toshiba notebook. Then I wanted to delete it… I typed my old password and for the new one I press ENTER. While starting up the computer it demends the password but what password? The old one doesn’t work, pressing enter neither. I have no idea why it happened. I need to get to my Master dissertation… Please, help me!
October 29th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Sorry Issa,
I’ve never worked on Dynabook laptops.
October 27th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Toshiba satellite dynabook has a trouble of power,
the power cable indicator keep on flashing orange
pls help me rectifier it.
October 24th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
OK. I just disassembled and assembled the laptop. The screws were loose and I tightened them, BUT no help…
Still the same blink.
Could the C5V refer to the BIOS battery or something? Or could the power source just be bad?
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:17 am
please help me , i have a laptop tosiba te2100, and nothing hapened when i try to start him, only theyellow power led flashes like this: short-short-long-short-short-long-short-short. anybody can help me what;s mean this code?
i reset the power board but nothing happens .
thank in advance!!
October 18th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Manne,
You can write this code as 10101010. When the power LED flashes and you want to find what it means, you believe (do not remember exactly) that you have to revert the code and then translate it to HEX. So it would be 01010101=55. Right?
There is a translation for this error and it says: C5V voltage is less than 4.5V when the computer is starting. But I have no idea what it’s all about and what C5V is. I hope it help.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
October 18th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Hi!
Can anyone translate what it means when a Tecra 9000 flashes:
Long, short, long, short, long, short, long, short. It won’t start. It was just laying on the table… I am sorry for posting this on the 2100 thread, but I’m desperate…