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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June 9th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Gary R,
1. Bad memory.
2. Motherboard failure.
June 9th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Hi all I have a A60. When i plug in the power jack the lights come on @ the frount of the laptop as normal. I then push the power botton and the power turns blue and that it. no fans , hard drive or screen. anyone got any idears?
ps sorry about the spelling
May 31st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
rafael_brasil,
That’s strange. This sounds like a problem withe the video memory, witch in your laptop is a part of the main memory. Apparently, your problem is related to the video chip. There is nothing wrong withe the memory, but the video chip itself is going bad. In this case removing onboard memory will not help.
May 31st, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Beagrie,
It’s relatively easy to troubleshoot the motherboard on a Satellite A60/A65.
Here’s how you can do that. Put the motherboard on your desk. Install the CPU and attach the heat sink. Nothing else. After that plug an external monitor into the VGA port, plug in the AC adapter and turn it on (press on the power button on the motherboard). If there is no video on the external monitor, most likely there is a problem with the motherboard. CPU failures are not very common.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:27 am
I have a Toshiba Equium A60-181 that has been sat in its bag for almost two years now as it died a while ago. I got the lines down the screen, the windows blue screen, reinstalling any operating system failed. Running memtest confirmed it was the memory, but at the time I couldn’t find any solutions other than buying a £400 ($700?) motherboard replacement.
So I’m looking on ebay earlier this month and I stumble across a load of Toshiba laptops. I manage to win a bid for a spares/repairs A60-156, which I figured should have parts I can use, and if not it was only £50.
So far I haven’t managed to get it working, but I did come across this article and figured, what the hey, I’d given the motherboard up for dead anyway. I removed the onboard ram chips as stated earlier (comments #19, #23) plugged everything back on and booted it up. It all fired up as normal, hdd, fan, lights, but nothing on screen and then after a few seconds it died.
I don’t know whether it’s worth pointing out but it did the exact same thing when I tried the motherboard from the A60-156. I’m hoping it’s not a problem with another component (hdd etc) I’ll be trying the unplugging everything method after work tonight. What I’m hoping is someone has come across this and can say what it’s like to be and how to fix it.
So, anyone comes across this?
May 26th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Dear CJ2600
Congratulations for the site. I´ve seen a lot of people solving their problens. I hope you can help me.
I have a Toshiba A60-S159 laptop. I used memtest 86 version 1.65, and I got no errors (I ran it through multiple times). I am on Windows XP Pro with SP2. The computer is running but I have a lot of dots and lines, first in toshiba openning screen and also in windows. I try to re-install the video driver a lot of times, but the dots and lines in the screen remains. I´m afraid I can lose the computer soon.
Should I try remove the onboard chip memory, even if the test says it is ok? Do you have any idea what´s going on? I have tried everything I can think of. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
May 11th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Ron Holland,
These part numbers should be the same for all Toshiba Satellite A60 and A65 laptops:
- display latch: V000912750
- display latch knob: V000912760
- display latch spring: V000912770
If you buy these parts separately, they are expensive. Here’s what you can try. You can buy the whole LCD bottom cover assembly. The part number: V000040370
I believe the LCD cover assembly comes with latch, knob and spring.
If you search for V000040370 here, you’ll find this cover starting $10+plus shipping.
May 11th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Does anyone know where to find LCD latch spring and knob for A60/A65 series (15″ screen)? The latch itself is OK but I need the spring and knob. I think the latch/spring are P/N V000912750 and the knob is V000912760; are they the correct P/Ns? All the LCD latches I’ve found are seem to be out of stock/NLA or excessively (>$50US) priced. I’ve already googled the P/Ns; a LOT of companies seem to be using the same inventory listing. One requires $100 minimum/order, most are NLA.
TIA
May 10th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I have owned a Toshiba Laptop A60 for over 3 years. I know in laptop years this is really old. However, over time i have replaced the fan (15 months into owning it) and now the power connection is going. My problem is that the battery life has been reducing over time, and is now at 3 mintues before the computer shuts down. I also have problems with the connnection.
My big problem is that i was moving the wire around and a few sparks started to fly. This scared me alot. I want to know is there any way to retrieve my files from my laptop without pulling it in even though my battery life is ony 3 minutes.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Sounds exactly what memory problems I’m having too: vertical blinking lines on screen, bsod, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (an oxymoron). I’ve replaced the power jack and cleared out the dust in the heatsync fins, and I no longer have heat problems, but now I must remove this bad memory from the motherboard. I think I’ll wait until I’ve lost all patients with it. I’m writing this on the A60, so it does boot eventually. When it’s up, it stays up.
Without Wax,