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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December 12th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I inherited a A65 which has heating problems and I followed your dissaembly guide, well I am at the step where u disconnect the keyboard from the connector, I took out the black plastic and out came the cable but my question is how do i connect it back
all i see is a white plastic soldered to the mother board.
How do I put it back in? does it need to go underneath that white plastic or inbetween, if its inbetween the white plastic i cannot see any space to slide the flat cable in??
can u help hope i made it clear??
krishna
December 12th, 2007 at 2:14 am
hi, I removed the bad memory chips located on the motherboard of the A60 of my brother, but it still don’t works.
Tryng to switch on the laptop completely disassembled, with only battery and monitor conected, it start sometimes, but as often as not it stay switched on for about tree seconds, and then switc off with no output. It seems that moving the heat-fan or the motherboard temporarily fix the problem, but i can’t re-assemble the laptop. Does anybody have a suggestion? Thanks.
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:13 am
Thank you CJ.I followed your advice at first it stayed on then I turned it off and connected the cd rom but as soon as it tried to read cd rom it turned off . and the same thing happens it stays on for a few seconds and then off. so I think like you said probably its the motherboard. Thanks for your time anyway. keep the good work up.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Tahir,
If you disconnect everything but the laptop still shuts down by itself after the Toshiba logo, I assume there is a problem with the motherboard. Not sure if it’s related to the memory or not, but most likely it’s related to the motherboard.
Here’s what you can try. Remove the motherboard from the laptop case, install the CPU, attach the heatsink and test this system outside the laptop case with an external monitor. All you need is motherboar, CPU, heatsink and working external monitor. The power button and RAM are located on the motherboard. If this system boots to the Toshiba logo but then shuts down as before, I would say you have a bad motherboard. If it works fine, start attaching components one by one and see what happens.
November 28th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Hello,Cj
Great read and very helpful for novices like me.My problem is My A60.Fixing it just for fun. The problem is like this.
It starts to the Toshiba logo and when it tries to read optical drive or hard drive it turns off.If I disconnect everything sometimes it stays on and tells me the usual media failure message.but when I try to connect anything it switches off. I have read all the comments and various problems relating to A60.Do you think Its the on board memory problem ?But mind you The Toshiba logo seem fine Another thing, when it starts if I press F2 key immediately I can get into bios and it stays on but after that as soon as it tries to boot it shuts off. Any ideas or thoughts will be very much appreciated.Thanks a mil….Tahir
November 28th, 2007 at 9:35 am
I have an A60 which powers on – NO post but one single post beep.
Any ideas.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Shwan Sebastian ,
Most likely yes. 256MB of RAM is barely enough to run Windows XP, moreover 64MB in your laptop is used for the video, so you have only 192MB available for the operating system. You should install more memory, you have one memory expansion slot that you can access through the hatch on the bottom of the laptop. You can install up to 1GB into this slot.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Alex,
It’s possible that thermal grease dried out. In this case you’ll have to take the whole thing apart, remove the heatsink and replace thermal grease on the CPU.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Thor Hedderich,
I agree with Ian. The touchpad and frond LEDs are connected to the motherboard through the same ribbon cable. It’s possible that there is connection issue between the cable and motherboard. You can try reseating the cable, it’s shown on the step 9 (lower arrow) in the disassembly guide. Disconnect the cable from the motherboard and then connect it back in. Make sure the cable is properly locked in the connector.
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Nelly,
It’s possible the laptop switches off because of overheating. Take a look inside the heatsink, most likely it’s clogged with dust. Try cleaning the heatsink with compressed air, it should prevent overheating.
If you lift up the keyboard, you can see the cooling fan. Blow air inside the fan so the dust goes away through the heatsink grill on the side of the laptop.
After you clean up the heatsink you should be able to run the memory test and reinstall Windows.