Yesterday I had my first experience with Toshiba Satellite A105 notebook series. I had to replace the laptop motherboard because it was completely dead. The disassembly was easy and fast. I like the way this model was designed. Laptop disassembly instructions.
What I like in this model: The hard drive has a very nice rubber protector. Both memory slots can be accessed from the bottom of the laptop. There are no screws under the keyboard and it saves some time during disassembly. The power jack connected to the motherboard via cables and if it fails you do not have to replace the entire motherboard. There are very few cables connected to the motherboard. The laptop disassembly process is very easy and logical.
What I didn’t like in this model: There is no hatch for accessing the CPU fan and the heatsink without taking apart the laptop. It took me some time to remove the top cover assembly because of some hidden plastic latches. It is not very easy to disconnect the video cable from the motherboard. The touchpad has 2 cables connected to the system board. The second touchpad connector is hidden under the flat cable and can be easily overlooked during disassembly and the cable can be damaged.
Here’s another guide for this model. Removing laptop LCD screen.
July 28th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Hi there !
I had a problem with the LCD of my A105-S4334. The screen got dark, and the toshiba support website tells that it could be caused by the pin that is used to detect if the display lid is shut.
The problem is that this model does not have an external pin for the lid, so I wonder if you know where do I find this sensor on this model.
Thks in advance !
July 20th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Stephen, they told you wrong this model you have has an advanced Bios management program that can’t be broken, and if it can you won’t be able to afford it. That battery is soldered and even if it came out that password if it’s the one I’m thinking is in the Hard drive.What your thinking I’ve tried and what will happen is that drive will no longer work.The board on the HD had it’s own management and it communicates with the program in windows.If you swap the board with another then neither will work when it’s put back together.Advanced possibilities would include Bios psswd memory shorting(2 pins on Bios chip) or just replacing the HD. There was one post I did see that he claimed to by desoldering the battery and then applied AC power on,shut down resoldered battery then presto.I don’t condone it so good luck you’ll need it.
July 17th, 2007 at 3:38 am
Hello. have a toshiba satalite a105 ..when i bought the laptop used it had a bios password on it…i was told if i took it apart and took the cmos battery out and reseated it, it would reset the password…i have the laptop apart …but about the battery …can i take it out and reseat it?
July 12th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Hi,
I have Toshiba satellite A105-S4074 model laptop.
As per user manual this model also Play DVD when it is off. But I am tiring to play DVD on it by pressing right side media button it get boot up my laptop and launch windows xp and play in window media player.
How can I use my laptop as DVD player when it is off?
Please help me!
July 11th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
hi i have toshiba Satellite A105 and i recently d/l a antivirus protection and it said for the new software to go into effect to restart my computer and when i did all that happens now when i cut it on is a blue screen comes up the say recently download stuff won’t allow my computer to boot up and to try to switch it to different kinds of modes (safe mode etc…) but it does the same thing it always goes back to the blue screen could some one please help me.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:44 am
Just wanted to say thanks for the guide! I had a half disassembled computer on my hands - the pictures helped me finish taking the rest apart.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
have a tested 15.4″ lcd screen for you. $150 for screen and $20 install. If interested, let me know. thanks.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I have a toshiba laptop screen that needs replaced on a satalite a105. Someone gave me a laptop off another toshiba laptop and everything seemed good except the harness that the back light plugs into is not the same. I was wanting to know if anyone knows if it is okay to cut and splice the wire or what.
Tommy
June 12th, 2007 at 1:51 am
Hi,
My toshiba notebook screen 15.4″ is broken. Where can i find a cheap/ 2nd to replace it?
my notebook model : Toshiba Satellite A105 S4143.
Intel Core Duo
2G RAM, 120G HD
Any body can help me??…how much the cost??
June 9th, 2007 at 8:55 am
well I tried the disassembly and now the a105 laptop tries to boot 3 times with no display drives click and keyboard blinks….any ideal what I’ve done? i reseated all cables but no luck.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Hi, I’m trying to get my Toshiba A105 running a bit faster. I have problems when i try to run more than two applications at a time. Would a RAM upgrade fix this, or should I upgrade the CPU instead?
I was looking on newegg.com for upgrades, and saw that there were several different numbers of pins for RAM and sockets for CPU. Which one do I need to get for this laptop?
Thanks!
May 29th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Stephen,
If you cannot find the wireless card on the bottom then take a look under the keyboard. I believe some A105 laptops have the wireless card installed under the keyboard.
May 29th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Also has anyone been able to upgrade to a DVD burner or the sound or video cards
May 29th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Jessica, if you still haven’t got it fixed try a system restore, I had a scratchy sound when I scrolled, tryed everything, finally did a system restore and it worked like new again.
Has anyone accutally gotten any other processor to work good int their A105-s101
Thanks
May 28th, 2007 at 12:45 am
I have a A105-s4254 at the moment, i was looking to replace my wifi card because of 3945abg incompatibilities with some operating systems i wish to run. However I cant find my wifi card inside of my laptop. In your picture yours is in a different spot as to where mine is. It looks like my regular modem is where your wifi is and i couldnt find the wifi. any ideas?
May 26th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Instead of disassembling the A105 to get to the fan, I took a knife and cut out the two furthest-right pieces of the vent. This let me grab a large dust-ball with a pair of tweezers resulting in a 20C drop of my average temperature. I guess the fan wasn’t moving before. I decided to cut, since I did not want to disassemble every time for a fan cleaning as mentioned in the ‘cons’ section above.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Will,
The only thing I can think of that would stop a system from powering on is bad/stuck power button, electrical ground problem, or bad power supply. Try turning the system on with the bare minimum connection(like just motherboard with cpu and ram).
May 19th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Im trying to find a update for my soundcard. For some reason i cant play music through my soundcard. Is their any upgrade that i can buy or install? Any information would be glady appreciated
May 18th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Hey guys,
I dont know if anyone can offer any insight to my issues. But I basically did a “textbook” disassemble of my notebook (a105, was grounded, removed all power sources removed all periphials etc etc.) in an attempt to upgrade the CPU now I have done this quite a few other times with other notebooks, Dells and HPs. However after I reassembled the notebook (and i repeated the process of rebuilding and and swapping cpu cores about 6 times) I can not get the notebook to powerback on. THere is no response whats so ever when hitting the power button. I have tried swapping ram positions make sure all cables are connected correctly and facing proper position all screws are in there proper place. Nothing! Doesnt even try to boot no fan no nothing. The only thing that happens is when you add the straight AC power adapter the plugged in LED on the front of the notebook lights up. Then if you plug the battery back in the 2nd LED lights as if it were charging. And thats all it will do. Right now I have the notebook completely reassembled with the orginal 1.6 core in it and its just sitting there. Nothing appears visually to be fried… Usually in my expierence you can sometimes see a little smoke or will feel or sense heat. Or there are even visual indications that something is fried. I have examined it thoroughly and everything looks completely in tact. I am completely baffeled and humbled at the same time….. First PC in my life I have not been able to repair.
Thanks for you thoughts in advance.
-Will
May 16th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Jessica if it’s almost a year take it back because it should still be under warranty, if not,then if it’s not coming out of your laptop speakers or the headphone plug the you sound chip is usually gone. Check in sound and audio devices again to make sure that the driver is in,you will see the maker of your sound card(realtek,sis, etc…)If you don’t or do then in systems properties try uninstalling and reinstalling the sound driver.
It’s a long shot but if the sound driver is still installed there’s pcmcia sound card that would over ride the bad ports(internal speakers,headphone) but the sound driver and chip must be working. Other than that the sound chip is gone and that’s the motherboard.
May 15th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Hi, I got my Toshiba A105 almost a year ago. At first it played songs just fine, kind of quiet but oh well. Then, up until about a week ago, all I would hear when playing a song is scratchy sounds and no music. Now, I have ZERO sound. No scratchy noise, no music, no beeps, no nothing. I’ve tried buying new speakers and lowering the volume of the master volume control and that doesn’t work. I don’t know what else to do and am getting very frusttrated! Please help! ):
May 15th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Thanks for this great resource!!
Are all A105 motherboards interchangable? I have A105-S2716 with a bad video chip (integrated on motherboard). I would be comfortable replacing it if I can get my hands on one and it would be convienient if I didn’t have to have the exact model to pull from.
Thanks again!
April 28th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
hi..
i have no video on lcd of Satellite A105 but when i press on the top of lcd then i get video.
thanks
April 18th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Hello,
I gave my Toshiba A105 1.6 GHZ Celeron Mobile for repair, the person told me that its BIOS is not functioning and needs to be changed. but here in Pakistan we dont have BIOS chips available. Can i get the BIOS chip anywhere??
Regards
Sajid
April 9th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Carrie, if you go to page 3, step 21 you will see a blue circle next to the lowest red circle drawn,around the bottom screw to be removered. That blue ring encompasses the battery, the battery is soldered to the motherboard.Your board may be slightly differrent but it should be in the same vacinity.
April 1st, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Where is the CMOS battery in a A105-S2101 computer?
Thanks
March 25th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I just swaped out a Cel to a dual core chip, seems stable now, might be running a little hotter now, gonna wait and see ( A105 2201 )
March 24th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
This guide is great. My keyboard had an unfortunate encounter with a glass of soda. Removing the cover panel to get to the keyboad screws was a bit tough, but I got through it.
As a recommendation for future guides, I’d say add a little more detail about steps like this. — two tags on each side, four in the front then lift the back off the hinges for the LCD.
Thanks!
March 20th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Hi, your disassembly guides are great. I tore down The Satellite A105-S2141 in a breeze. My purpose in doing so
was to look for the bios chip except that I can’t find info on it see which one. They are SMCS KBC1108-nu, PS5120,ISL 6227CA2 or ? Any ideal which one it can be ? Thanks.
March 20th, 2007 at 9:57 am
My a105-s2716 just quit. The AC and Battery power lights are on, but the on/off, hard disk drive, bright media adapter lights are off. The power on button also has no response. We had power fluctuation the other night and, stupidly, I was connected to the wall socket without surge protection. Any comments on how I diganose the problem. If it is the motherboard, where do I get areplacement? This is a great site. Thanks for any help!