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.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
December 3rd, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Hi CJ,
Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded the Hitachi utility and ran the advanced test. It came with a problem detected – disposition code 0×70. The manual tells that the drive can be erased and the problem can be fixed, but the utility will not erase non Hitachi/IBM drive. Is there a utility you can recommend to erase the Toshiba hard drive or should I give up and try to buy another disk drive?
December 3rd, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Es,
Test the hard drive. Download Hitachi drive fitness test utility and run an advanced test. This utility is free and I find it very reliable, works on most laptop drives. If the hard dive fails the test, probably you have a bad drive.
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:52 am
Hi CJ,
I have a TE2100 and I have this minor problem recently.
When I use my headphones, audio only comes out from the right side. I thought something was wrong with them, so I bought a new one. But the same problem occurs.
I tried the new headphones on another laptop, and it turns out that they are fine. So it is not the headphones’ fault. There is nothing wrong with the soundcard too; the audio works just fine when played from the speakers.
So I think something is wrong with the connection somewhere to the audio-out port.
Can you show me which part(s) might be loose and may need soldering?
Thanks.
December 2nd, 2006 at 9:40 pm
I since ran the boot in Safe mode and found out that it pauses after loading the following drivers: drvmain.sdbm, compbatt.sys, BATTC.SYS, VolSnap.sys, Mup.sys and finally after alim1541.sys. Tried to play with msconfig – loading only basic config – no change. Reinstalled XP SP2 – no change. I am getting desperate. Please help!!
December 1st, 2006 at 3:02 pm
I have just installed Windows XP with SP2 on Toshiba TE2000. Everything went well, except when the laptop boots, it takes very long time to get to the XP screen. I can hear the hard disk noise, then the striped bar appears, then it starts to cover the stripes from the left, chunk by chunk, until it is one whole bar and only then the Windows screen apears. The whole process takes almost 5 minutes. During that whole time I can hear the same sequence of the HD head. Can anyone help?
November 22nd, 2006 at 2:26 am
My problem is on toshiba laptop satellite dynabook model ps181n-q6×0 that has stardby light blinks but does’t boot
November 22nd, 2006 at 12:11 am
Mhax,
Did you mean that the power LED on the laptop blinking orange? Usually a blinking power LED indicates a major power grid failure.
May be that’s your problem? If the laptop is labeled for 15V-5A, then you must use an adapter that outputs 15V, the amperage could be 5A or more.
November 19th, 2006 at 7:43 am
cj2600,
the blinking error code is 01001011 and we find out that the voltage output of the adaptor is 18v. but in the label of the adaptor it says 15v 5a only.
November 17th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
cj2600,
My friend toshiba 9100 no boot at all and when you press the power on button the adaptor indicator blink into color orange. what is the meaning of this?
November 11th, 2006 at 10:36 am
My TE2100 won’t boot. When I try to turn it on the all the LEDs light up as they should except for the HDD light. The LEDs do not flash. There are no POST beeps when I try to start up either.
The screen is black though I was having problems with it flashing so I reseated the FL invertor and the VGA card. I have also reseated the power card.
I have tried a known good HDD in the TE2100 but I get the same results. When I start the TE2100 without the HDD installed the HDD LED is lit but still no screen message or POST beeps.