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!
April 14th, 2007 at 2:21 am
I tired your methods and seems i have more problems then most people . i noticed the laptop come on and i do get the check sum error i have reseated power and video to the main board a few time each and i also get lines or wierd objects on screen after playing with the video card sometimes it works without lines but the fan does not work at all , i happen to have a extra fan and tried it and still nothing does this mean the mainboard is definatly bad ? or could that portion be caused by the power board too . seems its not sencing the temperture to turn it on because when i shut it off the fan gets power for a sec only
April 11th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Xiuqiang Jiang,
You’ll find all my disassembly guides here: http://www.irisvista.com/tech/
If you still cannot access the main page, there is something wrong with your Internet access. You should be able to access my site without any problem, as any other website.
April 11th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Thanks for quick replying. It still do not work for me.The reason may be that I’m in a foreign country and could not be routed to your network .
April 11th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Xiuqiang Jiang,
This link works fine for me and I can access the guide. Try again, it’s possible the web server was temporarily down.
Does anybody else experiencing a problem with this link?
April 11th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Dear Sir,
I have a TE2100 laptop. My problem is that lots of upright yellow stripes show on screen, and now the laptop seems do not boot at all. I find your disassembly guide and want to disassembly my laptop. However I could not open http://www.irisvista.com/tech/.....2100_1.htm , Could you help me?
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Tony Pearson,
You are getting “Wrong Machine” message because the laptop has incorrect DMI string. Go to Toshiba website and download DMI update utility for Tecra 9000 notebook. Run the utility and it should take care of your problem.
April 1st, 2007 at 8:53 am
I am trying to reload the toshiba software on my tecra 9000, but when I try to re-boot from the cd the computer displays “WRONG MACHINE”
April 1st, 2007 at 1:17 am
need to unlock toshiba tecra m3 as it is asking 4 password pl help thk.
March 20th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Ian,
I don’t know, never down it before.
I believe there is only one video card (16MB) available for this laptop and you cannot upgrade it.
March 20th, 2007 at 5:54 am
hi there i have a vga card problem on a te2100, i can get the screen to work with an external monitor attached but not with the internal, so i opened the laptop up and discovered that the connector for the flat ribbon on the vga card had complately come away from the circuit, can this be soldered back on, seems a waste of time buying a new card, just cos the solder has broke. also is it possible to upgrade this card, its only a 16mb, surely by now there’d be something a bit better that would fit the te2100??