Laptop problem: Toshiba Satellite M35X-S149 has no video. The customer complained that the laptop LCD video just disappeared without any reason. When he starts the laptop the screen lights but there in no data on it.
Laptop diagnostics: I started the laptop normally and LED showed normal activity. The hard drive started spinning. The LCD screen lighted but it was solid white color without any data on it.
Laptop repair process: when I get a laptop for repair with video problem, I always start with checking an external video. I connected the laptop to the external CRT monitor and started the laptop. The external video was fine and the laptop booted to Windows without any problem. Usually, if the external video is fine, the system board is good and the problem is in the LCD itself, in the video cable or in a bad connection between the LCD and the system board. On the next step, I removed the keyboard and reseated the display video cable on the system board, but it didn’t fix the problem. The laptop still booted without any data on the screen. Finally, I opened up the LCD display and found that the video cable connector on the back of the LCD screen was half way out. I reseated the connector and restarted the laptop. This time the laptop started normally and I got internal video. So, if your laptop starts with solid white screen without any data on it, try to reseat the video cable connector on the back of the LCD screen.
The following guides could be helpful for you:
Complete Toshiba Satellite M35X disassembly guide with instructions
Removing LCD, inverter board, video cable
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April 8th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
JBS,
I would try replacing the video cable first, it may be your problem. The video cable for a Toshiba Satellite P25 notebook is not expensive and you can find a spare one here for $20-30. If replacing the video cable doesn’t help, most likely you have a bad LCD screen.
April 5th, 2007 at 4:02 am
I checked the output to an external monitor and the display works fine. Is it likely that I need a new screen?
April 5th, 2007 at 3:51 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite P25 which has developed a video problem. The background images and some icon backgrounds have an iridescent green flickering haze through them. The majority of screens look fine with occasional horizontal green pixels appearing in various places like the header bar and the footer bar.
I have run CheckIt Diagnostic utility on the video and system and get no error reports. Says everything is working fine.
I did have a problem booting up and on start-up I get a solid green color background (normally black) at the Windows logo screen (WinXP Pro). The system seemed to lock up after selecting the User and the wallpaper image loaded. I started the computer in VGA mode and it boots up fine and can run all programs but green color infiltrates most graphics images.
Thanks for any help.
January 29th, 2007 at 4:30 am
my display card give spots on the start up and doesnt work well it happened first when i was playing fifa and the picture went down i thought its will be ok and i restarted the laptop and played again and nothing happend but after several times of this happining the spots came without me playing the game and after the it now refuse 2 give any picture at all
the card is 128 mb
the ram is 512 ddram
the processor 1.72 centrino
and here the picture just before it stoped completely
http://i129.photobucket.com/al.....pImage.jpg
one thing more happened when left for a whole day and then open it the next day it worked well but after 15 minutes the screen went dark again
January 1st, 2007 at 7:01 am
I’am trying to restore the operating system to a Toshiba A75, when I put in the restore DVD it starts the process but stops and gives an error of “Output A:\GHOST.ERR” and gives Yes or No choices. It will then come back with an error message of cannot open Ghost.err. It continues to do this until it pops up with the message. ” The image file is corrupt”. I believe the DVD drive is bad. I have a usb DVD drive is it possible to use the external DVD drive to restore the operating system?
November 8th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Greetings,
I do repair work on most manufacturer’s laptops and recently had an m35x-s149 come in with the following symptoms: when plugged in (or from battery) the blue light would come on, fans would start, etc. for a few moments, then the fans would quiet down and although the blue light remained, nothing was working. No external video. Quite by accident I found another piece to the puzzle in that when first turned on, if you remove the power supply plug from the socket on the laptop slowly, suddenly the hard drive engages and everything works as it should. Almost as if the socket has a micro switch incorporated in it that tells the system to boot or not. Also, the Toshiba power management won’t load on this machine. Every time I try to load it, the system blue screens. Finally, task bar indicates the machine to be plugged in even when that’s not the case.
So, that’s really confusing! If anyone can add to these symptoms, or if removing the ac plug from the socket while booting works, please respond. I love a good mystery.
Thanks,
Jim
October 30th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Kenny,
Here’s what I usually do if I have to troubleshoot and repair a laptop with symptoms like yours. I minimize the system as much as I can and test the laptop after each removed part. I minimize the laptop until I get just three major parts left: system board, CPU with the cooling module and memory (usually I assemble it on my bench, outside the laptop base). After that I connect an external monitor and see if I can get a stable video output on the external screen. If it still experience the same issue as before, then apparently one of the three parts: system board, CPU or RAM is bad.
Before you decide to jump in, it would be a good idea to test the laptop with another RAM because you can swap it without going inside the laptop.
I don’t know how comfortable you are taking the laptop apart. If you are not, take it to a repair shop or you can make the problem worse.
October 30th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Ted,
When you power up the laptop and the fan turns on but nothing appears on the screen, there could be a problem with the RAM. Make sure that the memory module is seated properly, reseat it or replace with a test memory stick.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
I stumbled onto this site but am I glad I did! My situation is a doozy though…
Symptoms:
Similar to Ana Maria. Press the power button and the blue ring around the button comes on and the fan whirs for about 12 seconds. I am not fortunate enough to get the other green lights to come on though. Buttons on the keyboard like the caps lock and the cd/dvd drive do not work.
Sometimes (about 40% of time), after about 1-5 mins, the laptop decides to come on (and sometimes also because I frantically press the cd/dvd drive). When on, everything works fine until the screen just goes black. Just recently, i’ve noticed that it especially does this when i begin to move the laptop from off of my lap, but it will do it even if i stay perfectly still.
I’ve read and tried everything on your website. I reseated the memory stick from slot A to slot B: Turns on, then the screen goes black.
I’ve followed your 12 step plan to remove the LCD screen, the display video cable and the FL inverter. I then connected the laptop to an external monitor. It worked well for a second, turned off, I felt hard drive activity, turned back on and then the screen went black again.
What do you suggest I do now?
Thanks in advance for all your help.
October 29th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Hi,
My Toshiba Satellite M35X-S149 seems to have died. I tried to see if the problem was with the display by connecting the notebook to an external monitor and hitting Fn and F5 together – with NO LUCK.
When I turn on the notebook, it turns of and the fan starts to work and then it gets quiet. I am guessing that it is turning off.
I had un-assembled the notebook to fix the problem I had with the power plug not working. I soldered the plug as described in one of the posts I found on the web. The notebook worked after the fix and I was able to use it for a big portion of a day. I turned off the computer and put it away. Then when I tried to use it, is when I got the black screen.
I dis-assembled the notebook again and checked the asembly again. I bought some good silver compound paste and applied it to the CPU and the GPU, after cleaning them from the previous application. I didn’t do this the first time when I had re-assembled the notbook PC, since from a visual inspection it seemed that the previous application on the CPU and GPU looked OK.
What could be wrong? How do you suggest that I trouble shoot the unit?
Thanks for your advice.