vanya blogger: Posts filed under 'Everyday Laptop Repair'

Very strange hard drive failure symptoms

A few days ago I had to repair a notebook with symptoms that didn’t look like a hard drive failure at all. But the problem was fixed after I replace the hard drive.

It was Toshiba Satellite A70-S249 notebook with the following problem.
When I press on the power button, the laptop starts up as usual and a red Toshiba logo appears on the screen. After a moment the logo disappears and the screen turns black without any faint image and flashing cursor. The blue light around the power button stays on and fans continue to spin normal but nothing appears on the screen. I noticed that the hard drive LED blinks green on the startup and after that shows no activity at all. After a closer inspection I noticed that the screen is not completely black (like dead black), it didn’t have any image on it but it had a very faint backlight (I would say about 3-5% of normal brightness). I was able to see that there is some backlight after I pressed on the lid close switch and the screen turned to completely black.

Here are my troubleshooting steps that I went through to find the problem.
First of all, I replaced the memory module and didn’t get any changes. Removed the wireless card, still had the same problem.
After that I removed the hard drive and started the computer. This time I got something. The notebook successfully passed the Toshiba screen and started looking for a boot device. I got some activity on the screen. To make sure that the notebook itself works fine, I booted it from Knoppix (live Linux CD) and successfully loaded the Linux operating system to the desktop. So, that’s the hard drive problem!
I installed the hard drive back in the laptop and tried to boot it again. The same failure occurred again; I got a black screen with a very faint backlight and no hard drive activity at all. I tested the hard drive with Hitachi DFT test and failed an advanced test. The problem is detected!
Finally I installed a new hard drive, reimaged the drive with a recovery DVD and got the laptop back up and running.

By the way, even though the customer’s hard drive failed the DFT test, I still was able to access it from another computer. The customer had important personal files on the failed drive. I connected it to our recovery desktop computer using IDE adapter. The “failed” hard drive was detected without any problem and I was able to recover the data.

33 comments November 3rd, 2006

Laptop turns on for a few seconds and then shuts down. No video appears on the screen.

Today I was able to fix a “dead” notebook simply by reseating connectors. The customer brought in Compaq nx5000 notebook with the following complaint:

“Laptop shuts down on power up. When the power button is pushed, the laptop flashes green lights for several seconds and then powers down. Unit will not stay on with battery or when plugged in”.

I plugged the AC adapter and tried to turn on the laptop. After I pushed on the power button, fans started spinning and were active for a few seconds and laptop just turned itself off. The video never came on. I tried to power it on for a few times with the same result.
Here is how I fixed it.
First of all I tried simple stuff: remove the battery and start the laptop with AC adapter plugged in, reseat and swap the memory module, remove the hard drive, the DVD drive, the wireless card. Nothing helped to start the laptop normally. After that I went a little bit further. I opened up the laptop case, removed the LCD screen assembly and reseated the video card and… Surprise, surprise, the laptop started fine with an external monitor attached. Just in case I restarted it 3-4 times and each time I got video on the screen. After I assembled everything back, one more surprise was waiting for me. The laptop failed to boot again with the same symptoms. So, the only part that I added before it failed was the LCD screen assembly. I unplugged the video cable from the system board and the laptop started fine again with the external monitor. Now I know that the problem is somewhere inside the display assembly (of course, if the video connector on the system board is fine). The next logical step would be opening up the LCD display assembly and check if all connectors are seated properly. Bingo!!! I wasn’t very surprised, but I was very happy. The video cable was half-way out from the connector on the back of the LCD screen. The laptop started perfectly fine as soon as I plugged the video cable back in place. Fixed!
That was my first experience when improperly plugged video cable prevented entire system from booting.

Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?

HP Compaq laptop manuals

99 comments July 5th, 2006

Toshiba Satellite A105 battery charging problem

Today I got Toshiba Satellite A105-S2712 for repair with the battery charging problem. It is a new model and we do not have a lot of experience with these laptops. The customer complained that the laptop will not charge the battery when it is plugged into the AC outlet.

The laptop failure symptoms:

The laptop will not turn on when I try to start it from the battery. When the laptop is turned off and plugged into the AC outlet the battery charge LED doesn’t light up. I know that the battery is not charged and the LED should light up when I plug the laptop into the AC outlet. The laptop starts fine when it is plugged. When I move the mouse over the Toshiba Power Icon in the lower right corner, the balloon will pop up and there is a line in there: Battery Remaining: N/A.

The problem repair procedure:

You can easily fix the problem just by updating the BIOS. Toshiba says that the BIOS version should be at least v1.30. So, go to Toshiba website and click on Downloads. Select your laptop model and find any downloads for the BIOS. In the BIOS change history you will see the description of changes.

After I updated the BIOS, the battery charging problem disappeared.

98 comments May 23rd, 2006

“Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt” error on startup

Today I was scheduled to repair Toshiba Satellite Pro M10-S405 laptop with a “software problem”. The customer complained that he is getting the following error right after he turns on his laptop.

ERROR
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
System32\Drivers\ntfs.sys

I started the laptop and got the above mentioned error right away. Restarted it again and on startup a different file was missing:

System32\Drivers\pci.sys

If you search on the internet for these errors you will find a lot of tips how to fix it. Unfortunately, on most websites this error is mentioned only as a software problem. They say that you can fix it if you replace corrupted files from a Windows CD using a recovery console. I guess in some cases you can fix the problem by replacing corrupted files, but from my experience I know that these kinds of errors are very often caused by a faulty memory module.

I started testing the memory on the laptop with Memtest 86+ utility and the memory failed right away. The laptop had 2 memory sticks installed. I tried to eliminate a bad stick by removing and installing modules one by one into different slots on the system board. The same pattern occurred on startup:

- the laptop booted to Windows fine when only slot 1 was populated (tried both memory sticks)
- the laptop wouldn’t boot at all (there were no video) when only slot 2 was populated
- the laptop booted with a missing file error when both memory slots were populated

Unfortunately, it this case the error was caused by a defective memory slot on the system board, not just a bad memory stick. To fix the problem I had to replace the entire system board.

Conclusion: if you get a missing file error on startup and replacing the corrupted file doesn’t help, check the memory sticks on your laptop.

31 comments March 14th, 2006

Toshiba Satellite L25-S1215 does not play DVDs correctly. The video and the sound output distorted.

Toshiba Satellite L25 Laptop

“My DVD drive is not operating properly. It can play music CDs but when it plays DVDs the video and the sound are distorted.” It was my customer’s complaint about his Toshiba Satellite L25-S1215 laptop.

The following laptop troubleshooting steps helped me to fix the problem. The laptop booted to Windows pretty fast without any errors, with a normal hard drive sound and spinning CPU fan. I restarted the laptop couple times and didn’t notice anything abnormal. I tested the optical drive with a generic data CD and a DVD movie. The drive recognized the data CD and all files on it but refused to play the DVD correctly. The video and sound output from the DVD movie was choppy, skipping scenes. It looked like a defective DVD drive and I ordered a replacement from Toshiba under warranty. I was pretty sure that a new DVD drive will fix the problem, but it didn’t. After I replaced the DVD drive the same problem occurred right away. The laptop had 256MB memory installed and 64MB were reserved for the video memory. I blamed a lack of memory and installed an extra 512MB memory stick and it didn’t help either. My guess about a corrupted video driver was wrong too because after I downloaded and reinstalled the driver the DVD video still was distorted. In cased like this, when we are not sure what is causing the problem the software or the hardware, we always install a test hard drive and reload the original factory software. I installed a test HDD and reloaded Toshiba Satellite L25 restore CD. After that the problem with a distorted video and audio output was fixed and I was able to play the movie for 2 hours without errors. Most likely, the problem with playing DVD occurred because of corrupted software.

If you have a similar problem with your laptop, do not rush to replace the DVD drive. Backup the important data and run a restore CD, it might fix your problem.

19 comments February 27th, 2006

Toshiba Satellite M45 laptop freezes up after playing a DVD movie for about 30 minutes to an hour

One of my customers complained that his Toshiba Satellite M45 laptop freezes up after playing a DVD movie for about 30 minutes to an hour. First of all I booted the laptop to Windows to check a basic functionality of the computer. It booted fine and Windows OS appeared to be in a good shape. The laptop was fast and responsive. I left it on for 30 minutes and it didn’t fail. After that I launched a DVD player and started a home made DVD disc provided by the customer. After playing the movie for about 25 minutes, the laptop locked up. The video on the display froze up and vertical lines of flickering white dots appeared on some areas of the LCD screen. The video still was on the display but the laptop didn’t response to any keystroke and needed a hard reboot. I connected the laptop to an external monitor and tried to play a different DVD disc but it didn’t make any difference. The laptop locked up after 20 minutes and the same patter of vertical lines of dots appeared on the external monitor, so it’s not the LCD screen problem. From my experience I know that this kind of failure may occur because of bad memory modules. I started testing both 1GB memory modules with Memtest 86+ utility but the laptop locked up before I finished testing. Only after I removed both memory sticks and installed a good known test memory module I was able to play the customers DVD overnight and the laptop didn’t fail. To make sure that both memory slots on the system board are fine I installed my memory into the second slot and tested the laptop again. It worked fine.

So, the laptop didn’t fail with my memory stick installed into both memory slots on the system board. It means that the memory slots on the system board are good and the system board is good itself. Now it is time to test customer’s memory. I installed my 512MB memory stick in slot 1 and first customer’s memory stick into slot 2 and put the laptop on my bench to play a DVD movie. The laptop didn’t fail for 1 hour. After that I installed my 512MB memory into slot 2 and second customer’s stick into slot 1 and started the movie. The laptop didn’t fail again. OK, both 1GB memory sticks work fine with a combination with my 512MB memory, but do not work together. For some reason the laptop can manage 1.5GB of memory but cannot manage 2GB. Oh man! I do not know why I didn’t do it before, may be I didn’t sleep enough at night. Only after I spent all these time troubleshooting memory sticks, I decided to check Toshiba website for a new BIOS updates for this laptop. The laptop had BIOS v1.0 and this version was not even listed on Toshiba website. I guess it was some kind of pre-production version. The current version was 1.10. After I updated the BIOS I didn’t see the problem with the video output anymore.

Attention!
Before you spend time troubleshooting a good working hardware, CHECK for BIOS updates first. It helps a lot.

7 comments February 20th, 2006

Toshiba Satellite 1415 notebook runs very slow

I spent about 4 hours trying to repair this laptop. The customer brought in Toshiba Satellite 1415 notebook with the following problem: Laptop runs very slow, sometimes locks up. When playing DVD movie, the video output is choppy and freezes up. He reloaded Windows XP from a restore CD but it didn’t help.

We see these kinds of laptops every day and this one didn’t look scary from the beginning. As I always do, I started the laptop waiting for the problem to occur. The laptop booted to Windows fine but much slower than an average unit. During the boot process I was listening for an unusual sound from the hard drive. It was a little bit loud; but nothing critical like a grinding sound. After the notebook booted to Windows, I tried to play a DVD movie and it took me more then 2 minutes to open WinDVD player software. It took one more minute to start playing a DVD movie. The video and the audio output were choppy. Replacing the DVD drive didn’t help. I was blaming the hard drive and started testing it with Hitachi Drive Fitness Test but it didn’t fail. Just in case I installed a test hard drive and reloaded the original factory software. Same problem occurred right after I rebooted the laptop. I tested the memory with Memtest 86+ test. It took me over 2.5 hours to test 512MB of memory but it didn’t fail the test. Usually this test runs much faster. Just in case, to make sure that the memory is not a culprit I swapped both memory sticks with a good known test memory but it didn’t fix the problem. After I excluded the hard drive and the memory I guessed that overheating was a problem because the laptop was running hot. If a laptop runs slow, I always check if the CPU heatsink is clogged with dust and lint. In this case cleaning up the heatsink, regreasing the CPU and reflashing the BIOS to the latest version didn’t help either. OK, I tried all easy stuff, now it’s time for hardcore. I started removing parts one by one trying to narrow down the problem. I removed the modem card, wireless card, DVD drive and left only the system board, the CPU, a good know hard drive with a fresh Windows load and a good known memory stick. The laptop still was running slow. After 4 hours I gave up. After I excluded almost every possible part, it must be a bad system board or a bad CPU. Replacing any of these parts wouldn’t make any sense because it would be more expensive than eBay price for a similar working laptop. I called to the customer and explained the situation and he just declined repair.

16 comments February 8th, 2006

My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 will not boot

The customer brought his Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 and complained that the laptop will not boot. First of all, I tried to start the laptop with a known good AC adapter, to make sure that the customers AC adapter is not a problem. The laptop didn’t start and there were no LED activity, the unit was “dead”. The good AC adapter wasn’t able to start the laptop. I started removing the laptop components one by one trying to eliminate the problem. I removed the battery, the memory module, the wireless card, the DVD drive and it didn’t fix the problem. I had just very few parts left: the system board, the CPU and the switch board. I remove the keyboard to check the power switch board and found that the switch board cable wasn’t properly connected to the system board, it was half way out. I reseated the cable on the system board and the laptop started properly.

BTW, the system board has 2 memory slots and by default the memory stick is located in the slot hidden under the keyboard. BUT, it is not enough to remove the keyboard if you want to replace the original memory module. After you remove the keyboard, you still will not be able to remove the memory because it is hidden under the top cover. To replace the original memory stick in Toshiba Satellite A85 you have to remove the entire top cover!!! It sucks!

Here’s a disassembly guide that shows how to replace a memory module on Toshiba Satellite A85.

65 comments February 3rd, 2006

Toshiba Satellite A70 laptop has no video on LCD screen, backlight works fine

The customer complained that his Toshiba Satellite A70 laptop doesn’t have video on LCD but the screen lights up when he turns on the laptop.

Laptop diagnostics and repair:

The laptop started without any video on the LCD screen, but the backlight lighted the screen. When you have a problem like this, always try to connect the laptop to an external monitor. If the external video is fine, then most likely the system board or the video board in the laptop are fine and the problem is somewhere between the LCD screen and the system board. I connected the laptop to an external monitor and got a normal video output. To find the problem, I opened up the laptop display assembly and found that the video cable on the back of the LCD screen was half way out. After I reseated the display video cable, the laptop started with the internal video.

18 comments January 24th, 2006

Toshiba Satellite M35X-S149 laptop video problem

Laptop problem: Toshiba Satellite M35X-S149 has no video. The customer complained that the laptop LCD video just disappeared without any reason. When he starts the laptop the screen lights but there in no data on it.

Laptop diagnostics: I started the laptop normally and LED showed normal activity. The hard drive started spinning. The LCD screen lighted but it was solid white color without any data on it.

Laptop repair process: when I get a laptop for repair with video problem, I always start with checking an external video. I connected the laptop to the external CRT monitor and started the laptop. The external video was fine and the laptop booted to Windows without any problem. Usually, if the external video is fine, the system board is good and the problem is in the LCD itself, in the video cable or in a bad connection between the LCD and the system board. On the next step, I removed the keyboard and reseated the display video cable on the system board, but it didn’t fix the problem. The laptop still booted without any data on the screen. Finally, I opened up the LCD display and found that the video cable connector on the back of the LCD screen was half way out. I reseated the connector and restarted the laptop. This time the laptop started normally and I got internal video. So, if your laptop starts with solid white screen without any data on it, try to reseat the video cable connector on the back of the LCD screen.

The following guides could be helpful for you:
Complete Toshiba Satellite M35X disassembly guide with instructions
Removing LCD, inverter board, video cable