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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May 2nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
I had to break in and see what was up, as the )_*(^) thing didn’t respond at all. I found a little oxidation on some of the ground contacts, noting major. (Also a loose and mismatched W2 screw, perhaps from when the power plug was resoldered under warranty. But it was trapped where it could have done no harm.) I treated the contacts with a pencil eraser & auto dielectric grease. Nothing else looked bad, fan was clean, I reassembled and found it was still dead.
Except.. I could now lift the keyboard and press directly on the metal shield covering the BIOS chip. That worked every time, but I had to keep pressing. Hard. A tab on that shield contacts the BIOS I took it apart again, and bent the tab to keep pressure on the BIOS chip. Now it boots every time, but will eventually shut down abruptly. The first time it was 15 minutes, but now I rarely finish the boot. Maybe I now have the overheating problem! If I ever get it up long enough, I will use Ultimate Boot CD to check the temp.
Anyway, seems to me it’s either a bad contact on the motherboard that flexing the board connects, or a badly mounted BIOS chip. Any ideas how to fix that? It seems permanently glued on the motherboard.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I had been able to defeat this problem on my Toshiba 35x-S149 for over a year by pressing briefly on the silver cover behind the keyboard just to the left of middle; the on-disk LED came on and away it went! I had the power jack replace under warranty after 5 months, and they changed the silver cover then. It had been getting harder and harder. Now it doesn’t work, and Kyle Smith and I are in the same boat.
But today I discovered that removing and replacing all power, then pressing the spot WHILE pressing the On button works, but I have to keep pressing the spot or it stops. Since I’m not much of a one-handed typist, and my hand gets tired, this is not a good solution. I will dig into the case & see what I can see, & get back to you all.
HP, you say? Sounds good right now.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Hi I am having the same problems as Kyle Smith, However after trying the memory diagnosis test, after trying to switch on, no beeps or anything, not a sausage! does anyone have any clues, sure the motherboard might be busted, but any idea to narrow down what might be gone? specifically?
December 4th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Kyle Smith,
Check the memory. Try reseating the memory module. Try replacing it with a known good module.
You can try this. Remove the memory module/modules and try starting the laptop without them. Normally, this model will give you a beep error when memory is not installed. Does it beep when you remove the memory in your case?
If not, you might have a problem with the motherboard.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I was wondering if anyone could help me with this issue I’m having with my M35X-S114. It won’t boot. When I power up, the fans go on for 5 seconds, then stop, and I get nothing on my screen. This happens no matter what: no battery with power cord, battery no power cord, no hard drive, different hard drive, recovery CD, no difference! Please help!
November 25th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
M35X
Just got the Toshiba M35X back from Toshiba Repair. This is the third system board that Toshiba has replaced.
Warranty ran out Nov 7, 2007. I am not happy.
September 15th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Both of these links no longer exist.
http://www.a70m30xsettlement.com/notice.pdf
http://www.a70m30xsettlement.com
This is the link at the bottom of the “no longer available” page that comes up…http://www.gardencitygroup.com/
Is there a way to put in a different motherboard for this m35x confuser? would it make any difference?
September 11th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Hi there,
I have been using /repairing/ configuring laptops for 3 years.
I have many minor problems with Toshiba which result to unusable machine. Costly to repair.
If you need the total solution for sturdy machine and flexible software solution. IBM is the first one you should think of, and HP the second. If you don’t mind another option, why not a MAC, all advanced features are in there before the PC gets there.
Cheers.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:13 am
Toshiba is horrible. I have had to change the main boaed 5 times. The extended warrenty is going to be up in November 2007. The machine is worstless. I paid good money for garbage. Toshiba should do more, or we should let people know not to buy toshiba.
August 6th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Hi I have had my m35x-si49 for 2 or 3 years. Works great, droped it 5 or 6 times. Stumbled over it yesterday and dropkicked it 4 feet. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking as they say. But the new HP looks awfully tempting. It has as many goodies for the price as Toshiba, maybe even more. Don