Laptops Toshiba Satellite A100 Issue, help needed

bbthumbhealer

bbthumbhealer

Adept
Hi Guys,

I'm having a Toshiba Satellite A100 Notebook ~3yr old. From the past few days, a problem has started to occur, the screen freezes in between and the laptop stops responding at all. I have to shut it down forcefully as even task manager refuses to pop up.

Now the bigger issue, even after forcefully starting the laptop, the display is blank with just a black screen at boot, nothing else.

Overheating isn't an issue and the laptop is quite cool, as i had it cleaned up myself ~ 2-3 weeks back.

The display cable also seems to be fine, otherwise the display would have acted weirdly when the laptop works.

After a bit of googling, i found out that there could be a BIOS Issue also, so i flashed the BIOS to the latest version before posting this thread, but still the problem persists.

The display driver is ATI Mobility x1400, laptop is running on Windows 7. ATI last updated this driver for Windows Vista only, but i can't think this as a cause, because lappy has been running on Win7 since last year.

Pls help me diagnose the cause for the same.

TIA

BBThumbHealer
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If the laptop is usage is more, pls consider that hard drive might be corrupted.

a disk check using some HDD software is highly recommended. Also install a hard drive monitioring software.

Did you install some software recently which mighthave caused the issue ?
 
Its the Bad Capacitor NEC TOKIN 0E907 placed right under CPU socket on opposite side of board

Open up the laptop, remove the bad capacitor & replace with 4 X 330uF 2.5v SMD capacitor.

Check here for more details

http://www.techencla...e-l300-problem/

Almost all Satellite series manf back 3-4 yrs have same problem, poor quality capacitor.
 
#[member='siril_k'] : thanks for that awesome pointer
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#[member='nish_pinto'] : how did u ascertain that the capacitor was acting as the culprit ? Can you please shed some light on my case as well.
 
bbthumbhealer said:
#[member='siril_k'] : thanks for that awesome pointer
happy19.gif


#[member='nish_pinto'] : how did u ascertain that the capacitor was acting as the culprit ? Can you please shed some light on my case as well.
Click to expand...

Well I had a L305 with same problem, just replaced NEC cap with 4 X 330uF caps, worked like new thereon
 
#[member='siril_k'] : Well mine is a A100, will the NEC cap be there or not ? I don't think there's any other way to confirm it apart from opening the laptop.
 
the NEC caused problems like laptop freezing when the charger was plugged in. In short, the NEC/TIKON chip was responsible for supplying core volt to the processor. So, the capacitor isnt the OP's problem here. Probably the North bridge or the Ati chipset will have to re-balled to reflown. And also check with you HDD, one friend of mine had a similar problem, Got to know it was the HDD that was creating trouble.
 
nish_pinto said:
the NEC caused problems like laptop freezing when the charger was plugged in. In short, the NEC/TIKON chip was responsible for supplying core volt to the processor. So, the capacitor isnt the OP's problem here. Probably the North bridge or the Ati chipset will have to re-balled to reflown. And also check with you HDD, one friend of mine had a similar problem, Got to know it was the HDD that was creating trouble.
Click to expand...

once or twice, it happened only when i plugged in the charger. The laptop stopped responding. Then after i forced shutdown it, removed charger and restarted, i worked fine but then again all of a sudden thing snapped in b/w.
 
if nec tokin cap pack is not present under the cpu socket then ati chip is the problem, temp solution is to reflow or reballing the ati chip.
 
bbthumbhealer said:
if i open the laptop, first how can i check whether its really a bad capacitor ? I mean is there any instrument for the same ?
Click to expand...

You cant really check if capacitor is working or not, only thing you can do is remove the capacitor, once removed you can clearly see the damage with a black spot between the dielectrics of the capacitors which means its burned off.

Its Manf Defect from Toshiba which had affected almost all Satellite Series in 2008-09
 
siril_k said:
You cant really check if capacitor is working or not, only thing you can do is remove the capacitor, once removed you can clearly see the damage with a black spot between the dielectrics of the capacitors which means its burned off.

Its Manf Defect from Toshiba which had affected almost all Satellite Series in 2008-09
Click to expand...

ok .. one more thing, is there any possibility that the capacitor doesn't even exists in this particular model, can i check without opening, like if i can procure a circuit diagram of the lappy over the net ? I'm a bit apprehensive abt dismantling the laptop cos last time when i did it, had a tough time !
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not sure but the problems you mentioned are pointing towards the capacitor issue rather than display chip issue since a display issue would give you a garbled display hang ups
 
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