Let’s talk about problems typical for Toshiba Satellite A60 and A65 notebooks. Do you own one of these laptops? Is it working fine for you?
Here are some typical issues I’ve notices with this model.
1. First of all – overheating
Does your laptop shuts down without any reason when you ran CPU intensive programs? If yes, then most likely it happens because the laptop overheats. It happens because overtime the heatsink gets clogged with dust. A layer of dust collects between the cooling fan and the heat sink (dashed line on the picture) and heat produces by the processor gets trapped inside the laptop. As a result of that, the processor overheats and the laptop shuts down.
There are two different way to clean the heat sink and fan in these models:
- Buy a can of compressed air or find an air compressor and blow off the heat sink through the air intakes on the bottom of the laptop.
- Remove the keyboard (steps 5-9) and you’ll get an access to the cooling fan. Blow off dust from the fan and the heat sink.
In some cases the laptop overheats because of defective cooling fan. The fan should start working as soon as you power up the laptop. If the fan will not star, most likely it’s bad and must be replaced. You can find a new heat sink cooling fan for Satellite A60 and A65 notebooks by the following part number: V000042110.
2. Defective onboard memory
Here’s another common problem – bad onboard memory. This memory is integrated into the motherboard and if it goes bad you’ll have to replace the entire motherboard.
If your laptop starts with some weird characters or lines of dots on the screen, most likely you have a faulty onboard memory. If you test the laptop with an external monitor, you’ll see the same defective video on the external monitor too. You can test the onboard memory with Memtest86+ utility. Remove any external RAM modules and run the memory test. If the onboard memory fails, you’ll have to replace the motherboard.
The integrated memory module is located close by the memory extension slot, under the foil.
UPDATE: If you have bad memory, you should read comment 93 submitted by Daniel on September 28th, 2007.
3. Last but not least – power jack issue.
With Satellite A60 and A65 notebooks this problem is not as common as with Satellite M30X, M35X, A70 and A75, but it’s still a problem. Overtime, the power jack might get loose and the positive pin stops making a good contact with the motherboard anymore. As a result, the laptop switches to the battery power even though the power adapter is still plugged in. Usually you can temporally fix the problem by adjusting the power adapter plug on the back of the laptop, but after some time the problem reappears.
In this case you’ll have to disassemble the laptop, remove the motherboard and resolder the power jack. I’m buying new power jacks here.
Do you experience the same problems or you have another issue with your Satellite A60 or A65 notebook? Please share your experience.
Instructions for replacing laptop power jack yourself
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November 5th, 2007 at 3:38 am
*********************READ THIS********************************
I am completely amazed. After confirming damaged onboard memory I removed the onboard memory and installed a 512Mb memory module (cost a whopping £24) I only wish I had the courage to buy a 1gig module now (not knowing whether my surgery would work or not). When removing the onboard memory I did develop a useful technique which made life easier:
TIPS:
1. When removing the chips I cut down one side of the chip first by scoring with a craft knife over and over again(as close to the chip as possible) until all the legs were cut.
2. then slid the craft knife under the chip and bent it up so it was attached only on one side.
3. By gently bending up and down (without twisting) the legs snapped off the body of the chip and were left in the solder. However, they were so perfectly spaced they didnt need taking off at all(just like big lumps of solder really) so this meant I only had to clean up half of the connections.
4.The side of the chips which were cut were much messier and needed removing. – I got a 99p craft knife with a sharp point and individually bent each leg up and down until they snapped off. It was a bit laborious but after all better than binning the laptop.
5. As the technique above wasnt used from the start I did use a soldering iron to start with. To get rid of excess solder I had something called “copper braid”. Its a small ribbon made out of plaited copper wire. You put the copper braid on the solder then put the soldering iron on top. The copper braid soaks up the excess solder by capillary action.
I DID SAY SEVERAL TIMES WHILST CARRYING OUT BRAIN SURGERY ON MY MOTHERBOARD THAT IT WOULD DEFINATELY NOT WORK AGAIN. BUT IT DOES (AND WITH TWICE AS MUCH MEMORY NOW!!)
GOOD LUCK
when removin
November 5th, 2007 at 1:11 am
does anybody knows what component is locate on the left beside r530 bottom of thin heatsink a60 motherboard? its blow up.
November 4th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Got a working laptop again after removing the main motherboard memory. Memtest showed the onboard RAM to be bad – snipped it all out and put in a separate RAM chip – all running now.
Thanks to the guys who mentioned that here!
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:51 am
RE post 106 by me. Never mind getting the “hidden latches”. I turned on another light and saw that there was another 2 screws. SO I’ll be able to proceed. and check out the on/off switch
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:25 am
followed online instruct re taking laptop apart. Got all apart (hidden screws, keyboard etc.) BUT- except the top is secured in the front by (seemingly two latches. I tried various pushing, holding in etc. in the slots on the front top but still have the top caught on the front.
My problem is that powe 0n r switch used to be intermit and now can’t get it to work at all so suspect either bad solder connection or switch is bad.
October 31st, 2007 at 6:33 pm
For item 102 the memtest showed all on board memory bad. I guess I’m either unsoldering or just dumping it.
How is it that the onboard memory all of a sudden goes bad without warning on an operating machine?
October 29th, 2007 at 5:20 am
I have a toshiba satellite a65 and it stopped working, when i start it it says the system was turned off wrong and stuff and it gives me the options: safe mode – last configuration that worked – normal system, i’ve tried all of them and it always restart the machine never get in windows with any choice always restart, can you help me with that?
October 27th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Jerry,
Rut the memory test, it’s possible that Windows will not install because of bad memory.
October 27th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
great site for A60/a65. I gotta a strange problem. I installed a new toshiba hard drive and booted the restore CD. Everthing loads and than the screen pops a message “Please wait”. Than nothing. I booted an XP install disk and everything loads OK. Than I get “Starting Windows” and nothing else happens. I’ve loaded the latest BIOS, the fan was replaced so it’s not overheating. BIOS shows harddrive is OK. I have another harddrive and the same thing happens. Both drives run OK in other machines.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
roberto,
How dark the screen is? Is it still possible to see a very dim image on the screen? If yes, most likely you have a faulty screen inverter board and have to replace it. The inverter board is located under the LCD bezel and it works as a power supply for the backlight lamp. When inverter fails, the backlight fails too.