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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April 11th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
I have a toshiba tecra m2v-s310
The problem i am having is after running my laptop for about an hour or two it freezes up. I dont move it or anything. I was wondering if you have seen this before and if there is anything i can do about it. When it freezes up it will show the screen but nothing responds, or if i hard shut down then go to start it back up it will freeze and still show the boot screen. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
April 4th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
[...] Why Toshiba Tecra TE2100 laptop locks up or will not boot at all? [...]
April 4th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Tamsey,
There is no such a code like B1. Check it again. Emailed to you.
April 4th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
CJ
thanks for all the help I did disassemble the Tecra again and this time I removed the power card and reattached it to the system board. After reassemble it had the correct led lights for charging, the then when I tried to power up it gave me a new led error code. The new one is (read backwards) is 10110001 which translates to 177 and B1. Would you look in the tecra manual for the error code translation? Thanks dude.
Tamsey
April 3rd, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Hi Steve,
You can try to boot the laptop in Safe mode and then use the system restore utility. Try to revert the operating system before the time when your wife deleted files. It is just a guess and I’m not sure if you will be able to login in safe mode.
To access the system restore utility go to: Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools-System Restore.
You can also try Last Know Good Configuration option.
To access the boot menu you have to restart the laptop and press on the F8 key as soon as Toshiba logo appears. After that you can choose to boot you computer in Safe mode or boot it to Last Known Good Configuration.
April 2nd, 2006 at 8:32 pm
My computer worked fine until my wife deleted some files in registry to clear a virus. Now after typing the password the computer starts to load then logs straight back out again to password prompt. It’s a Toshiba satellite A25-S207. I’d be grateful for any assistance.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Hey tamsey,
We used to repair a lot of these units some time ago. We noticed that the majority of all TE2100 laptops fail to boot because of a bad connection between the system board and the power board. I cannot say witch one was causing the problem. Laptops we repaired were under Toshiba warranty and we replaced both boards.
BTW, may be I misunderstood you, but you have to reseat the power board itself not just the connectors. You have to lift it up the power board to disconnect it from the system board. The connector is located under the power board.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:07 pm
CJ you rock man.
Thanks a bunch. I totally missed the read backwards thing.
So I did disassemble the unit and tried your disconnecting the power card connectors and then reconnecting them solution. Then after reassembly. It worked and I used it 2 times, then the software locked and didn’t respond to the cont alt del commard interrupt. Then I bumped the laptop and it did the power crash again. With the same code.
Do you have any other suggestion in light of the error code?
March 30th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
Hi Tamsey,
When you translate the power LED flashing code you have to read it backward. If it flashes 01001111 you should read 11110010 or F2 in hex.
Here is what Toshiba says about F2h error for Toshiba Tecra TE2100 laptop: CPUVCC voltage is 1.08 V or less with the power turned on.
March 30th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
I have a TE2100 with the power in light flashing orange it turns out to be a hex code of 4F or 79 in decimal the binary is 01001111. I tried to find a service manual to translate this message, but the manual I found wasn’t for the Tecra TE2100 and the code wasn’t listed. The laptop is having a power problem of some sort. It charges the battery and I can reset the computer only to get the same non booting behavior and the error code flashes again. I would like to pin point the problem before trial and error disassembly. I haven’t had the best of luck with disassembly. Do you have a lead on the error codes?
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Cool manual. Looks like a fun job.