Need Help Diagnosing/Repairing Laptop

CharleyFoxtrot

CharleyFoxtrot

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Hi guys thanks ahead of time for the help. I'm a little inexperienced so don't judge me here but I'm scratching my head at this laptop thinking that there has got to be more I can do for it.

I'm working on a Toshiba Satellite A665-S6070 that won't boot. The power supply appears to work, as when I press the power button it glows blue, the power indicator LED on the front of the machine lights up, and the fan turns on, but that's it. If I hold the power button for 5 seconds, the machine will turn off, and then if I turn it back on the battery will charge and the battery charge light will function normally (aka orange if charging and green if fully charged).

So maybe it's the motherboard, I'm thinking. I tried to check the power button connection to the motherboard, but it's just a thin ribbon and I don't know if there's much I can do other than check to make sure it's plugged in tightly, which I did. Because it's a laptop, the power supply is external and I have several identical ones and I've tested them all successfully on other laptops so I know that's not the problem. I know that there might be a short, but I'm not sure what would cause a sudden short in a laptop like that or if there is anything I can do to fix that.

What should I check before determining that it's a bad motherboard that needs replaced?
 
Have you tried removing the battery and then trying to start it just on AC power? Also flip it around and try with just the battery and no AC power.

Test the CMOS battery w/ voltometer.

Removing, cleaning and reseating the RAM chips can't hurt.

Can you get any boot CD's to run?
 
I have tried both with just battery and just AC. Same thing either way. I don't think the motherboard is even starting. The LCD stays completely black, there's no beeps from the computer, and the hard drive is not spinning up. The DVD drive does have power, and will eject, but it won't boot at all, not even into the CMOS let alone a bootable CD or USB drive. I did try booting with a known working 2GB RAM chip taken from an identical model Toshiba laptop, but no dice. I even tried it seperately in each of the RAM slots, just to be sure.

I have not tested the CMOS with a voltmeter. This one is soldered to the motherboard, which I have not dealt with before. Can I test it without unsoldering it?
 
I can't even find that model on Toshiba's site.
Usually the CMOS battery is inside a little vinyl casing with little wires that connect to the MB. I've never seen a MB that had the CMOS battery soldered on.
 
It's on Toshiba's site here

us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/A660/A665-S6070/

The battery has two paddle shaped leads soldered onto it, and those leads are soldered onto the motherboard. Would a dead CMOS battery mimic a dead mobo? I've had CMOS batteries die on twice before. The first time I noticed because my pc time and date would reset to 1979 or something, and the next time I actually say a "CMOS Batterly low" message during POST.
 
To clarify, are you seeing anything on the screen when you turn it on or is it just black? Have you tried connecting an external VGA monitor? IS there a lid switch that is somehow being pushed in when it shouldn't?
 
NO there is no video, no signal to external, sorry I should have mentioned that I've gone through all the standard diagnostic steps. No boot, no video, no beeps, no hard drive spin. The power button lights up, the power indicator LED turns on, as well as the AC indicator and/or battery indicator LEDs, the fan spins and the DVD drive has power and will eject. No video to the LCD or external, no beeps, no hard drive spin, no keyboard response, no POST. I've ruled out bad RAM by replacing the sticks for known good ones. I've tried unplugging the keyboard, speakers, USB daughter card, and all the other accessories one by one to see if a short in any of these things might be preventing the system from working. Even if I just put AC power to the motherboard with all accessories removed it won't respond.
 
And you tried a universal AC adapter and still no luck. I think it's safe to say that it's the MB. Look for bulging capacitors. If this is your own computer and MB's are expensive then you could try unsoldering the caps that bulge a little and then soldering new ones in there. I recently did this for a friend, using a cheap little $15 soldering gun, and some caps ordered from China via Ebay. I replaced 2 caps and the thing is still working for my friend after 3 months. That was my first try at replacing caps. Not bad for a first try. For customers I wouldn't go to this effort though. Get a new MB. It's possible but very highly unlikely that the CPU is bad or bad too. Someone around here with a brick and mortar shop said that they only see about 2 bad CPU's in a year! Gotta be the MB.

Give the hard drive a drive fitness test to be sure that the drive isn't fried too. A MB and a HD could get expensive!
 
RegEdit said:
It's possible but very highly unlikely that the CPU is bad or bad too. Someone around here with a brick and mortar shop said that they only see about 2 bad CPU's in a year! Gotta be the MB.
Click to expand...

2 a year??? Whoever that is must do a helluva volume of repairs :eek:
I think in the 25 years I've been in this biz I've seen maybe 1 or 2 total bad cpu's
 
I got an A665 coming in for a new fan in a few minutes. I will poke around and see if I can think of anything else you could check on yours.

In the mean time check all connectors for any pin damage. Starting to see alot of machines with crushed USB port pins and that can cause non-booting conditions.
 
Last edited:
If a hard reset fails, reseat the RAM and drive(s) just to make certain.

In any case, it's likely a BIOS or voltage problem. In other words they're likely in for a new board.
 
from what it sounds like, it is most likely a bad board. I see that that model has an nvidia vga chipset. Those tended to get hot. if you feel comfortable doing it, you could try removing the board and using a hot air gun and directing the airflow to the northbridge/gpu for like 5 minutes. remember to keep the dc jack, top panel that houses the power button, a stick of good ram, and an external monitor handy. after about 5 mins of direct airflow on the gpu/northbridge quickly hook everything back up and do a quick post test. if it works, then instead of ordering a new board you could send that one somewhere to have it reflowed.


*Note: I take no responsibility if this is done incorrectly and your house catches fire or the board melts. You should only do this if you have had reflow repair experience beforehand. Good luck.
 
I second the crushed USB pins. Replaced a motherboard recently and THEN remembered to check the USB ports and wouldn't you know, one was totally jacked up and causing the short.

One of the first things I check now!

Wil
 
The port was physically damaged. The plastic was gone and exposed the metal prongs. The prongs inside the port were either touching each other or touching the case. This caused a short and when I straightened the prongs and separated them the laptop booted up.

Wil
 
jfmiller52 said:
from what it sounds like, it is most likely a bad board. I see that that model has an nvidia vga chipset. Those tended to get hot. if you feel comfortable doing it, you could try removing the board and using a hot air gun and directing the airflow to the northbridge/gpu for like 5 minutes. remember to keep the dc jack, top panel that houses the power button, a stick of good ram, and an external monitor handy. after about 5 mins of direct airflow on the gpu/northbridge quickly hook everything back up and do a quick post test. if it works, then instead of ordering a new board you could send that one somewhere to have it reflowed.


*Note: I take no responsibility if this is done incorrectly and your house catches fire or the board melts. You should only do this if you have had reflow repair experience beforehand. Good luck.
Click to expand...

This can truly damage a board beyond repair. A proper rework station is needed. The gpu is the problem since the laptop is turning on fine but with no video. Just fixed 6 of these HP series laptops with the same problem.
 
Just as a learning experience I'm going to keep working on this machine, since I told my buddy the price of a new motherboard and he said I can just keep the machine because he doesn't want to fix it.

I disagree with the last post that it is a GPU problem, or at least that it's "turning on fine". There's definitely no video, but there's no beeps either and the hard drive doesn't spin. All that happens is the power button glows blue, the power indicator LED lights up green, and the fan turns on (full blast, btw). As far as I can tell that just means the power supply and power board are working. I ordered a heat gun and I'm going to see what happens with that. The laptop is scrap metal at this point so no harm in trying, even if the most likely outcome is that nothing comes of it. My girlfriend has wanted an embossing gun for a while anyway.
 
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