For all “happy” Toshiba Satellite M35X laptop owners.
I just received a very interesting comment for one of my posts. I think that this comment would be very useful for many Toshiba Satellite M35X laptop users and deserves to be published as a standalone post. The comment was submitted by user Hack.
In the following article the author mentions the picture posted here: Toshiba Satellite 1900. Laptop loses power and shuts down without warning.
Here it is:
Well I have arrived with the same problem as the rest of you. I bought a M35X-S149, my first mistake. Let me say that I think Toshiba robbed us all. What a LEMON. My LCD backlight inverter burnt out at 3 months, and now at 12 months and 2 weeks my laptop won’t charge. I called Toshiba and they WILL NOT SEND ME A #041011, nor will anyone who will repair the board for $150-$200. The spring in the audio out jack that holds a plug snug is shot, all output is crackling and worthless.
Talk about pissed. Oh yea I almost forgot, the recall too. The idiots forgot to install proper shielding for the motherboard causing freezing and reboots; of course Toshiba never notified me about the problem. Anyway my anger is causing me to loose my focus.
The author is 95% correct, resolder the circled points in the picture and you should be back in business. Although if the jack itself has problems like mine did, all resoldering the jack will do is PISS YOU OFF. The way that the jack is designed provides a poor connection. There is only one tiny piece of metal that makes contact to the outer negative part of the plug.
Don’t be fooled by looking at the jack from the outside. All of those daisy petals that look like they hug the outside of the plug don’t do anything electrically; they just attempt to hold in the plug in place against a tiny contact at the bottom of the jack in between the daisy petals. The power connection was gradually getting harder and harder to get the orange light to stay lit so it would charge. That was my jack slowly wearing out or quickly wearing out. It took about a month or two. Then finally the jack was noticeably loose, that was the day that the solder point on the positive connection broke loose. It didn’t break loose from the board; the metal pin broke loose inside the solder itself. The craptop would no longer show any lights at all except the blinking orange light of rage. Someone please call Toshiba and tell them to USE FLUX!In the photo, the two solder points on the left and the right hold the outer shielding over the jack and hold it in place. At no point does the outer shielding make contact with the inside of the jack, even though on the board they are all connected. The top center solder point is the negative connection, and the bottom center is the positive. That tip is for those who want to do what I did to fix my craptop.
A new Motherboard is $250 F That
I soldered the wires from an adapt plug [part #64-026] from Radio Shack directly to the board, and then the male version [part #273-1742] to the freshly beheaded power cord. Make sure to only cut the end off, just the plug. If you attempt this you will need some solder wick and at least a 25w iron to pull the jack from the board. Use a 15w iron to solder the new wires in place. Make sure you don’t plug the wires in backwards. The + on the male must line up with the “tip” stamped on the female side, that is the only point of caution. Don’t leave your fixed craptop alone in the presence of useful idiots.
I would just recommend going with the pig tail method for the simple fact that the jack itself is cheap and will stretch and stretch until your craptop no longer charges. So really, who wants to take their laptop apart 2x. The first time my laptop wouldn’t charge unless I slightly pulled it to one side or the other I took the board out only to find only the solder points on the board were solid. The temp fix for that was to make a tiny L shape with a paper clip, crimp it flat, then get it inside the jack and bend out the daisy petals a little bit so it holds the plug in a little better. That fix lasted for a month, the second time 3 weeks, and it wasn’t worth a third attempt, because at this point the wiggle made it obvious that the jack was now loose on the board.
If you want some solid laptop advice, buy a HP/Compaq I Image laptops and desktops in a 3,000+ workstation environment day in and day out. All the machines are HP. I can’t speak for the new models, but the N610c is a nice. I have seen at least 200 of them after 3 years of abuse in the field, and not a single one with a power problem.
Related posts:
Toshiba Satellite M35X, A70 or A75 locks up, freezes up or reboots when you touch the laptop speakers.
Toshiba Satellite 1900. Laptop loses power and shuts down without warning.
Toshiba Satellite M35X and Satellite A75 power jack and battery charge problem.
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January 18th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Chris,
The system board is not new, it’s refurbished. For an experienced technician it’s really hard to screw something up because this model is very simple, there is nothing to screw up. Probably you just got a bad motherboard.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:27 am
I have an M35X, and had the loose DC-jack problem. Toshiba was actually very helpful, and although it wasn’t supposed to be covered under the warranty, they fixed it for free. I got it fixed at an authorized repair center (in which I was severely dissapointed with). I got it back yesterday, and they had replaced the system board. I turned it on, and all worked well for about 20 minutes, when it suddenly just kept restarting itself. When it stopped that, the screen went out. I just kept turning it on and off, trying to figure out what was making it do what it was doing. I finally put it on the desk (rather than my lap), and it stayed on for some time, until I went to move it. In addition, it began locking up. I know that it’s the electrostatic discharge issue, because that describes it precisely. I just wonder if when the repair center put in the new system board, they didn’t screw something up? After being out of a computer for almost 2 months, I have to send it back out again. Not happy.
As for anybody asking about the warranty, just call Toshiba for a case number. They were extremely helpful and gave me one, and when I had problems with the repair center trying to tell me it wasn’t covered, Toshiba called them directly and said it was.
I’m looking to buy a new laptop now, because as a student, I can’t afford not having my computer–and it’s worth the money to me if I can stop the frustration this no-good hunk of machine has been causing me since I’ve had it.
January 18th, 2007 at 2:36 am
Thanks CJ2600 for the response. I took it to the Authorised service centre in INDIA and got the repsonse that my warranty is expired. I showed the class action lawsuit email and even then it didn’t help much. They need a mail from toshiba directly saying that my warranty is extended till Nov 2007. How can i get that mail from Toshiba? Thanks once again and very much appreciate your response for this.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Moorthy,
I’m not sure if you will get a mail from Toshiba but until November 2007 they will fix your laptop for free, it’s true.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
I purchased an M35X-149S in October 2004 and the only problem I had seen was that the battery life was really horrible. Fast forward to last Saturday, and I was using it as I normally do, on my lap in the living room, and then… black screen. The blue power light was still on, but everything else was off. I removed the battery and unplugged it, waited a bit, plugged it back in and turned on the power. After about 5 seconds, the fan shuts down and the power light remains on. I left it off for about a half hour, turned it on again, and at least got to the part where I can boot in safe mode, but it hung up at the 440agp.sys part and then after a minute, it turned to black again, power light still on.
I took it apart to see if it could be the fan, it wasn’t. I applied the thermal compound to both the CPU and video chip, and the same thing happens, 5 seconds after turning it on, black.
I purchased a device called a MadDog from CompUSA ($30 bucks) where you can place the 2.5″ HDD into the sleeve, connect it to the USB ports on a desktop (that I fortunately have) and I could at least access the drive like it was an external HD. Unfortunately, I could only recover some of my data. Some of it was corrupted (like photos and videos), others could not be accessed due to the fact that I removed sharing on the Owner folder.
I guess I’ll be taking it to a Toshiba service center (I had purchased the extended warranty so I would be covered even without the 12month extension from the lawsuit). The thing is, I didn’t do anything to generate a static shock, but even so, would that cause corruption in the HD? I’m glad (and I’m not glad) that other people are having a similar problem with it. Even after it’s fixed, I’d still be leery of using it. I’m probably going to move to Mac, especially with the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros and being able to run XP natively if necessary.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:58 am
Hi,
I have bought M35X-S161 Laptop (Big Big Mistake) on Feb 2005 (in USA) with 1 yr warranty. It got expired now. When i switch on the Laptop, it will be ON for 5-10 secs (sometimes) and after sometime the screen got completely black (black out). Also, it has static near the speakers and the back and to add on to that it heats up very quickly. I took it to the authorised service center (in india) and got a reply that i need to change the mother board. The cost for the repair they are coming up is more than the cost of the laptop. I got a mail saying that there is a class action law suit and the warranty will automatically extended to 1 more year effective Nov 2006. Will it true? If yes, i can wait till Feb 8, 2007. Do i get any mail from toshiba that my warranty will be extended till Nov 2007…Please help me..
January 14th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Lonmower,
Yep, sounds like a bad hard drive. You’ll find a discussion about “PXE-E61 media test failure error” message on laptop startup here.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
I had the same thing happen on my M35X. Everything internal pretty much had to be replaced, and my machine just happens to be 18 months old. Believe it or not I think it was actually an elecro-whatever that caused it (which was the basis of the lawsuit). Thank God for the warranty extension that resulted from the lawsuit. Of course, I hadn’t backed my system up, and I suffered serious set backs. Good Luck!
January 8th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
IS THERE A PASSWORD RESET ON A SATELITE M55 – S1001
I CANT GET PAST OR EVEN INTO THE BIOS,IVE TRIED JUST ABOUT EVERYTHNG.??????
January 5th, 2007 at 11:16 am
I have the satellite m35x-s161. Everything had been working fine until I was downloading some stuff today and I was working away from my desk and I hear a click-click. I come back and there is a read disk error. I hit a button and it says:
PXE-E61:Media Test Failure
PXE-MOF:Exiting PXE ROM
and won’t boot. It seems the hard drive is clicking too and it won’t boot up. Is my hard drive shot on this 18 month old machine. Help!!