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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October 27th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
its done 4 hrs of memtest86 no errors. I put a new hdd in and I cant even get the windows installer to boot up.
October 25th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Colin,
Download and run Memtest86+ to test laptop memory. Will it pass without errors? Could be memory failure.
October 25th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
My laptop is: Toshiba Satellite A65-s1069
It will load xp then bsod in 5 mins. On restart it gives the ctrl+alt+del to restart screen but leaving it turned off seems to fix the problem allowing another boot to xp and bsod.
Im getting error codes “0×000000f4 , 0×00000003 , 0×84eda65c , 0×8060567e”
0×000000F4: is CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION
0×00000003: is INVALID_AFFINITY_SET
I have no idea what the other 2 are. I cleaned the heatsink and fan (Typical big ball of hair removed), reseated the cpu and applied as5 (after cleaning the old paste of coarse). It looks kinda like the hdd has a bad connection or is dieing. I forgot about it, then found it,reinstalled xp downloaded updates and a movie before the first bsod. Now after 4 days of playing with it, the bsods happen sooner. Any1 got a screenshot of their hdd bios page b/c I don’t think it shows up in bios it only shows what lanes it would uses for primary and slave. I also read on here that some1 had corrosion on their ide connector but a search for what he said he used in google turned up nothing. any1 know more about that?
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Hi guys, I’ve been reading this site on the last couple of days. I have a A60-S166 that had all the symptons for bad onboard memory. So, I removed the 8 chips, but the board won’t boot now. It turns on just for a few seconds, without image on the screen and with a high beep sound. I don’t know if this board is killed now or if it’s trying to tell me something. So, what should I do? I already cleaned the memory contacts. What could it be? I tried to turn on the motherboard inside the case and outside. Same thing… Hope you can help me. Thank you.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
To cj2600:
I have the same problem as Guamguy… and did already removed the DVD-rom, harddrive and battery… I could confirm the Motherboard does turn on and works fine… and then,,, I plugged back everything and still was working fine… but after beeing playing a movie in the DVD drive turned off and returned to the first fault condition again… so… what to do next?
September 25th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Hi.
I need some help please
I got a Toshiba A60 and I can’t remember my BIOS password. After hours searching on the web how to reset the BIOS password, I found a few advices saying to remove the CMOS battery from the mainboard to reset the BIOS password.
Thanks to your disassembly guide I could find it on step 17 the CMOS battery location. I removed the CMOS battery then after 24 hours I welded it back on its place. When I started the computer come out on a black screen the following message ”Check system. Then press [F1] Key.” I pressed the F1 key, I reset the date and time. After that I was asked to press F2 and to my surprise I am stuck again, and the BIOS password has been asked over again.
Doing more searches I read that when removing the CMOS battery that doesn’t work the BIOS have to be removed and replaced from the mainboard to reset the password.
Can you tell if is the right thing to do, if so, where is the BIOS location??
Many thanks,
J.R.
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
robert,
First of all, I would check memory modules. It’s possible that one of the modules popped out of the slot. Reconnect memory modules and try again.
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:17 am
Hello my step dad laptop recently got repaired under warranty due to it dying completely. so they gave us a new motherboard and hard drive and power adapter.
My step dad accidently let it fall off his dashboard in the lorry while it was still on. apparantly it still worked but turned it off and to use later which was when it wouldnt power back on.
Ive inspected the board and cannot find anything damaged. They replaced the power jack which still looks ok.
The mains charger is beeping an the green light goes out when connected to laptop. I checked the voltage which was 21DC.
Im completely lost as i dont know my way round laptops and the warranty ran out!!
Please help
Thanks!
Robert
September 20th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Toshiba user,
I think you have a problem with the power jack as it explained in the example 3. Apparently, the jack is not making good connection with the motherboard and has to be resoldered or replaced.
You new AC adapter stopped working at all? It’s possible that bad connection between the jack and motherboard killed the adapter OR the jack broke off completely.
It’s necessary to disassemble the laptop and take a closer look at the jack.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
ZIa,
1. Turn on the laptop so it loads windows. Do not touch or move the laptop. Now wiggle the adapter plug inside the jack. If the laptop shuts off, it’s possible that you have a problem related to the power jack. The jack has to be resoldered or removed.
If the laptop works fine when you wiggle the adapter plug, move to the step 2.
2. Apply some pressure on the top cover assembly in different places like palm rest, keyboard cover, keyboard.
If the laptop shuts off when you apply pressure on the top cover, most likely there is a problem with the motherboard and it has to be replaced.