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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January 3rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Hi there,
I have a Toshiba A60 which had the pin missing from the DC Jack.
I took it apart and changed the jack as instructed on this web site (well done by the way great instructions)
Once finished put it back together and powered it up works and charges fine on problems.
BUT….. The dvd-rom will not show up in my computer & device manager, but it powers up and spins when a disc is inserted into the drive itself………its just not recognized by the laptop…
Please can anybody HELP me…..
Jonny
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:49 pm
hey my laptop has a similar charging problem i’ll try what you have just said. thanks
December 16th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I have an A60 that will not charge the battery while the laptop is on(battery decreases even when plugged in) also it will not run on AC without a battery installed. It will charge the battery when the laptop is shut down any ideas anyone
December 13th, 2008 at 5:52 am
Help and Support error. I click help and thats what pops up. It says start the service named “Help and Support”.
I also can’t do a system restore. It keeps saying not able to protect your computer. Please restart then run again.
This all happened at the same time. No other problems before that.
Any ideas?
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:51 am
Great blog. I had the memory problem #2 with red dotted virtical lines on the screen. It was solved by removing the onboard memory as in posts #19 and #23 : ) Was about to throw out a perfectly salvagable laptop!
thanks
November 20th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
How can find out cmos battery and reset.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:03 am
i have make stupid mistake in begin phase used my Notebook.
I have remove Windows XP and install Windows 98. After setup get error blue screen dead! Than copy system.dat user.dat the register of other computer on my toshiba notebook and run Windows 98,. Problem can not install ATI mobility. Sometime computer turn of overheats when play Grand prix 2. ,remove windows 98 i know that can damage computer. Now used Windows 2000 Professional.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
This is a great website.
I figured reading all the posts that I have the bad memory problem.
I opened up the laptop (with the motherboard still attached to the plastic casing) and removed the black/coppery maskingtape that covers 4 rectangular memory chips. I just removed those.
If I understand the comments correctly, I should unscrew the motherboard, flip it and there should be another 4 RAM chips on the other side. Is this correct? Is it on that other side that there is some kind of metallic finger that I need to get rid of (along with the offer 4 chips)?
Thanks for the input?
October 27th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Hi guys,
I have a problem with my satellite A65 and do not know how to fix it. When I power one, the red Toshiba sign on the start screen has black stripes running though it, then it goes into a black screen with the command prompt and stays frozen.
If I restart the computer and apply some pressure (with fingers) below the space bar (and to the right) the toshiba red sign is just fine and the computer loads fine. However as soon as I remove the pressure it freezes again. I opened up the computer and search for faulty connection/stuff not pushed all the way down. I tried cleaning up the inside and checked everything inside but it did not solve the problem.
Any innput would be greatly appreciated.
Greg
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:02 am
I am fixing a friends A65. First it had the power jack issue. I managed to replace that and get it working. Then i reassembled the laptop and discovered the fan had stopped working and it was overheating.
After taking it back apart i realized the plug for the fan had broken off the motherboard. Reattaching was not possible, so i soldered three fan wires (red, blue, and yellow) directly to the motherboard. If i test the potential between each one and a ground i get 3.3V on the red, 2.7V on the blue, making the 5VDC that i know this is supposed to use. Unfortunately, when i start the computer the fan still wont start and it still overheats.
Does anyone know how this fan is supposed to be wired? Is there anyway i can test the fan to make sure it is working without attaching it to the motherboard? A battery or something?
This is the same problem as the first post on this forum, and it seems that was never resolved, so any help would be great.