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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May 1st, 2008 at 8:11 am
First off….this site, and Justin — you ROCK!
For those of you that have removed the memory, but your computer only runs for a few seconds — you will need to clean up the solder where you removed the memory chips. I cut-out one side of the chips, and then gently moved the chip back and forth to break off the other side. Then, “raked” the solder of the side I cut toward the center of where the chip was located with a soldering iron while wiping the iron clean often. You also must remove a metal finger from the bottom of the case. This is where the “whine” is coming from when you try to boot the computer. Break it off, and then cover the exposed metal surface with electrical tape. It does work! I thought I was going to be the only one it didn’t work for…but I finally got all the shorts out and it’s working great! Only took it apart 3 times
Good luck!
April 26th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Bluemax,
either the power jack is loose and has to be resoldered or the power cable on your AC adapter is damaged. You can test the AC adapter with a voltmeter. If you get stable voltage even when you move/twist the power cable, apparently your AC adapter is fine and the problem is related to the power jack.
In order to fix this problem, it’s necessary to take the whole thing apart, remove the motherboard and resolder or replace the power jack. I linked to instructions for power jack replacement at the end of the article.
Here’s how you can reimage the hard drive from the recovery disc:
1. Insert the recovery disc into the drive.
2. Restart the laptop and press F12 as soon as Toshiba logo appears on the screen.
3. Using arrow keys select CD/DVD drive and press Enter. The laptop will start booting from the recovery disc.
4. Choose to restore the laptop back to factory defaults and follow the wizard. It’s not hard.
WARNING. This process will erase all personal data from the hard drive and reinstall everything back to factory defaults.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Hi there,
My A60 is really getting into my nerves, first, the power plug is loose, i have to adjust it so i can get power because the batteries are either dead or dont function the way it is supposed to. Now is have a corrupt part of the software. I want to re-install the OS through the recovery CD but I dont know where to start. Please help me. Thanks Great thread!
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:01 am
thank you for the info about the memory problem for a toshiba satellite A60 laptop l managed to remove the internal memory using a soldering gun and it worked perfectly l’m now using a external memory
April 19th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
steve,
Try reconnecting the keyboard. Disconnect the cable and plug it back in. Make sure it’s seated correctly, all the way down inside the connector.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I unplugged the keyboard on my A60 so I could clear out the dust. When I turned it on, the keyboard was not working, but the LED under the F10 key still lights up so it must be connected correctly. It works fine with an external keyboard. Could this be a problem with the motherboard or should I buy a new keyboard?
April 16th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
well, great thread! i have all the symptoms of bad on-board memory. i did not know what was wrong with my laptop…yet..i was actually just looking at laptop modding and keyboard replacements. glad i found this thread. i’ll be trying to remove the onboard mem (maybe have some tech guy do it) and installing a mem in the extra slot. ill get back to posting some news
April 15th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
JowW,
If there is nothing wrong with the DC jack and another known good battery doesn’t charge either, there must be something wrong with the battery charging circuit on the motherboard.
What about the battery charging LED? Does it light up when you plug the adapter? Does it light up if you wiggle the power plug inside the jack?
Yes, it should. The laptop should run on AC power even when the battery is removed.
All laptops are different but I believe on a Satellite A65 it should work this way. If the laptop is off and you plug the AC adapter, the power LED should light green and the battery charge LED should light amber. If these lights are flashing on and off, there is something wrong.
This sounds like a problem with the power jack, apparently it’s not making good connection with the motherboard and has to be resoldered.
April 13th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
My Toshiba A65 is having some weird power issues. It has been working fine since I replaced the DC jack a few months ago, but now it seems that the battery does not want to charge properly and it seems to take forever to charge it. I have a second battery and it does the same thing. The DC jack appears to be ok, because as soon as I plug it in, the green plug light in the front comes on. If the DC jack was not working, I would assume the light would not come on.
I have two questions about this laptop:
1) Shouldn’t it run off of the AC power alone, without the battery installed? If I pull the battery out, plug in the AC power and press the power button, it just flashes and nothing happens.
2) Is it normal for when the laptop is off and the battery appears to be charging, for the AC plug light (green) and battery light (amber) to just flash on and off every few seconds?
I have a Dell laptop and an IBM laptop and when the battery is charging, the light just stays on as an amber light until it is fully charged and then it turns green. There is no flashing of any of the lights on the Dell and IBM.
What setting should I use so that when it is plugged in, it will charge the battery, but it will only run off of the AC? Right now for some reason, it runs off the AC for a while and then automatically switches to the battery and the battery ends up discharging to the point that the laptop starts to hibernate.
Could the system board be going bad?
April 6th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Toshiba failed big time on this model.. My brother has this laptop and i havealready replaced the power jack for him. Both of his USB ports in the back of his computer are screwed up, the keyboard keys come off quite often, one of his hinges on the screen has broken, it over heats like a madman, and now im going to try to remove the on board ram as soon as i can as a last resort for a problem that it’s having (stringy looking lines through the picture at startup and then fails to load windows.)
Did i mention taking this thing apart requires removing billions of screws just to get the mobo out of the unit? I have a dell laptop which must have been created to dissasemble in the field like a vietnam machine gun.
Ok, enough of my venting. Great website with lots of posts!
Kyle B