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 7th, 2007 at 12:48 am
greetings all,
i have toshiba satellite A65-S126 Celeron (R) CPU 2.80GHz has the following problem:-
It cant come on when you switch on….error System32/DRIVERS/isapnp.sys is missing or corrupted….instruction is to boot from original cd and press r at the 1st screen to fix BUT when you boot from cd error code 4/7/14 with the msg ntkrnlmp.exe is missing or corrupted. I took to toshiba agent in my country they said motherboard problem…the issue for me is sometimes you can succeed to install but if you shut down then it fail to come up again,any idea please.
Best regards.
May 6th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
this is a great read glad i found it- so i bought one of these laptops for $50 and the lady said it needed a new motherboard- but for $50 i took the risk- well it had the #2 symptom (bad onboard memory) so i thought what the hell- i removed the onboard memory with soldering iron and works like a charm now- also reslodered the DC jack for good measure while i was in there- glad i found this thread
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I have had all of the problems mentioned. My bad onboard memory was diagnosed by one computer repair business, but I was unwilling to shell out the 5 to 7 hundred dollars to replace the motherboard. I eventually had my motherboard shopped to a company that repairs motherboards. It turns out that the overheating and jarring from transporting my laptop around campus had broken connections, that could be resoldered, between the cpu and the motherboard, and the memory and the motherboard. $250 plus shipping was the cost for repair. Three days after it was returned repaired the power jack broke off inside the power supply adapter.
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:04 am
Here’s my opinion.
Either buy it cheap on eBay or move on and buy a new laptop. Are you ready to pay over $500 for a “new” motherboard at sparepartswarehouse.com? Are you kidding me? For these money you can buy brand new laptop with warranty.
Moreover, the “new” motherboard will not be NEW, it will be a refurbished one and nobody knows how much time it will work.
I wouldn’t spend more then $150 on this computer. Buying stuff from eBay is not too bad. If you find a good, reliable seller and communicate with him you’ll be safe.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Any recommendations on where to buy motherboards?
impactcomputers.com , getpartsonline.com & sparepartswarehouse.com all have a wide selection, but not overly attractive prices. I’d also prefer to avoid eBay if at all possible.
Thanks so much for your help! You certainly have earned your donation…
-J.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:43 pm
J. Tharsen,
Here are three different motherboards listed for your laptop. All three motherboards have 512MB onboard memory.
Part numbers: V000041510, V000041560, V000041490
The fastest CPU listed for this model is Mobile Intel Pentium 4, 3.33GHz. Part number is: V000042950.
I don’t know which CPU you have right now and not sure if it will work in the above mentioned boards.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:17 pm
No problem, that’s what I had figured — many thanks for the quick reply!
*grumbling about stupid motherboard design engineers*
I’ll post this on the blog as well, and the last question, which is: now that I have to replace the board, what kind of an upgrade can I make? Does the CPU or some other component require the specific model of board and/or would it work just fine and be worth it to put in one with more RAM? Any recommendations?
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
J.Tharsen,
The original (onboard) memory module is permanently soldered on the system board and you cannot remove it yourself. I’m sorry, but it looks like you’ll have to replace the entire motherboard.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:42 pm
I have a Toshiba a65-s126 that I bought about 3 years ago which has been a great desktop replacement while I’ve been living abroad in Asia, but as of about a month ago I started getting all kinds of memory errors (STOPs, BIOS not ACPI-compliant, more page faults than I can count). Since the machine is out of warranty and I am a former IT pro (now grad student in ancient Chinese) thanks to your helpful guide I feel confident I can fix this myself.
My question is, would it be at all possible to replace only the memory modules or do I need to replace the entire logic board? Toshiba lists the built-in 256MB RAM as “on-board”, but the real question is, can I replace it without prying out the chips and sottering new ones in (not worth the trouble). I did run memtest86+ after removing the extra RAM card, and got thousands of errors, so it definitely seems like the original memory is the culprit. Any suggestions / further tests I should do?
Many thanks, I plan to donate some $$ to you for your hard work and to encourage you to keep it up, please reply when convenient.
Best,
J. Tharsen
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 am
Thanks CJ.
I was hoping you’d know of a way to remove the keyboard on this model as it seems the hard drive is under and to the lower left of the keyboard. I can hear it under there
I’ve used your manuals before on my previous Toshiba’s, so I know you’re really good with this stuff.
I really don’t want to take all the screws out of the bottom of the machine if there is an easier way from the top/keyboard area.
I’ll keep poking around. Thanks again.