My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 will not boot
The customer brought his Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 and complained that the laptop will not boot. First of all, I tried to start the laptop with a known good AC adapter, to make sure that the customers AC adapter is not a problem. The laptop didn’t start and there were no LED activity, the unit was “dead”. The good AC adapter wasn’t able to start the laptop. I started removing the laptop components one by one trying to eliminate the problem. I removed the battery, the memory module, the wireless card, the DVD drive and it didn’t fix the problem. I had just very few parts left: the system board, the CPU and the switch board. I remove the keyboard to check the power switch board and found that the switch board cable wasn’t properly connected to the system board, it was half way out. I reseated the cable on the system board and the laptop started properly.
BTW, the system board has 2 memory slots and by default the memory stick is located in the slot hidden under the keyboard. BUT, it is not enough to remove the keyboard if you want to replace the original memory module. After you remove the keyboard, you still will not be able to remove the memory because it is hidden under the top cover. To replace the original memory stick in Toshiba Satellite A85 you have to remove the entire top cover!!! It sucks!
Here’s a disassembly guide that shows how to replace a memory module on Toshiba Satellite A85.
Entry Filed under: Everyday Laptop Repair
71 Responses to “My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 will not boot”
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Pages: « 8 7 [6] 5 4 3 2 1 » Show All
September 6th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Another A85 power problem. We (wife and I) got this computer from a business we purchased. Computer has always been DOA; the LEDs on the front do not even light up when the power cord is plugged in. I took it apart, didn’t notice anything unusal, but I noticed there is a faint humming/ ticking sound coming from the fan or CPU, not sure. Any idea what this might be? I cleaned out the dust from the fan, made sure everything was seated well but no luck. Any ideas/suggestions are appreciated.
July 1st, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Hakeem Moore,
Yes you should apply thermal paste. As a last resort you can use old paste.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I have a toshiba satellite a65 s1064 that I pulled apart. When I took the fan from the video card, I noticed something that looks like thermal paste. Should I apply thermal paste before re-assembling the laptop?
Thanks in advance.
June 17th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Meadowlark Bradsher,
I do not sell laptop parts. Here’s my post about finding notebook spare parts. It might help you to find a new motherboard for your computer.
June 16th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Cj2600,
You’re doing such a great job responding to everyone here. I hadn’t realized that you had responded to my last post. That wire went to the component next to the wifi, the one that is screwed in on kitty corners. The port was so tiny, I kept overlooking it.
For the last month, I have been having data loss problems. In the beginning it was the wifi driver. Then it was other boot records. I had a lot of blue screens, usually after a disk check. When I reinstalled Windows, it would run for a while and then break down again. I remember i had once dropped the HD in a nasty way so I replaced it with another that was lying around (ATA-5 though). I thought I had fixed it and for about a week and a half I had, but now here I am again with the same problems!
Not only that I had broken my headphone jack half loose so that sound quality is always iffy. I tried supergluing it back down but honestly I don’t know how it is supposed to connect; I couldn’t find anything about those. And my adapter tore and was throwing sparks and now I use a cheap one. Perhaps I fried something, if air has greater resistance than wiring that could increase the voltage, right? V=IR?
Do you have any motherboard’s you can sell?
June 1st, 2007 at 6:07 am
CJ,
Already tried that to no avail, not sure what else to try, I dont really want to change the motherboard.
Thanks for your suggestions.
May 29th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Jim,
I don’t think that replacing the hard drive would cause the battery charging problem.
You can try upgrading/reflashing the BIOS, it might help.
May 27th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Yes CJ , It does run from the AC adapter ,My hard drive died and I replaced it at the same time. I wonder if at that time it caused a motherboard problem. Everything else is running good. Thaks for your help.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Jim S,
He’s right. Satellite A85 doesn’t fail the same way as Satellite A75.
Does it run from the AC adapter if the battery is removed? If it does, then most likely there is nothing wrong with the AC adapter and you have a motherboard related problem.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:47 am
I recently bought a upgrade battery for my A85-S107 laptop after the other died. The battery came fully charged,I ran the battery down and now it wont recharge, I already sent a battery back thinking it was the problem. The orange charging light just blinks every five seconds. any suggestions? Toshiba tech support said take it in for repair. I read where this was a problem with their A75 models. he claimed they had no history of A85’s having this problem.