Toshiba Satellite A70 and A75. Taking apart notebook.
I repair Toshiba Satellite A70 and A75 laptops almost every single day and I like to work with this model. I think that Toshiba Satellite A70/A75 is one of the easiest Toshiba laptops for disassembly. Unfortunately, this model has some issues. About 90% of all laptops we repair have one of the following problems:
- Not properly grounded top cover. The laptop will shut down or lock up when you touch it around the speaker or touchpad area. This problem could be fixed by replacing the top cover assembly.
- Overheating problem. The laptop will shut down by itself without any reason. To fix the overheating problem you have to take the laptop apart and clean up the heatsink.
- The power jack issue. The laptop will not charge the battery. The laptop LED flicker when you wiggle the power jack. To fix this problem you have to replace or resolder the DC jack on the system board.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:42 am
Update on previous post. When I take the battery out, the same thing happens with the power light if I plug in without a battery present. Could this be the battery, or is there something on the motherboard that can cause this? When the computer is off, the battery light is on solid, however, when you try to run the computer off the battery, it powers on for about 2 seconds and then shuts off.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:46 am
I have an A70. I am not sure if the problem with the top cover or not. What the computer does is this. It boots up, but as soon as the fan starts, it stops. Both the power and the battery lights are on. After booting into windows, the computer just shuts down, the battery light goes out, and the power light blinks rapidly. If you unplug the power cord, the power and battery lights come back on and the computer will restart to go through the same thing again.
June 19th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Hi, great website. Noticed alot of people have problem with A70 failing to boot after rebuild. Had the same problem and finally as a last resort thought I would remove the RAM card. Amazing! The trusty (?) old A70 booted up normally, however, due to lack of external RAM too slow. So I cleaned up the contacts on the suspect memory card (until the contacts were shiny - they had dulled quite a bit) and hey presto! everything back to normal. Now the toshy can live for a while longer…
June 15th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I have a A70, bought used. It ran just fine with my copy of XP Pro, then MS Server 2003. The server OS was an evaluation copy I got with my text book, I’m a student. That OS was just fine. I’m now having problems trying to load Fedora. It will load about half of the packets then, just shuts down. It doesn’t even load XP or server completely. Can you give some advice on where to look?
Thank you
June 13th, 2009 at 6:41 am
Dear Sir,
I had the overheating problem, and the battery charger issues; I did exactly what you recommended to do and the laptop worked as new. Thank you so much for that!
Unfortunately after several months something happened, and I do not know what to do…
I plug the AC adapter, and the power light does not turn on (neither the orange one that indicates that the battery is charging), the power button does not light up when I press it, etc.
I tried with a different AC adapter (I thouhg that it had died…) but it did not work either. Any clues?
Thank you in advance for your help!
AZ
May 23rd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Good dsy sir
I’ve been successful with reformatting my A70, but now am trying to join it to our wireless network and the laptop doesn’t seem to be detecting the wireless network adapter for some reason. The wireless was working fine before we reformatted it so not sure why it isn’t now. Hope you have some pointers as to what it could be. All i have is the lan(wired connections in my network connections.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
byawan,
Basically, a Satellite A70 and A75 is the same model with different names. The parts should be interchangeable.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Are the plastic parts the same for the A70 & A75
(bottom case, touchpad/palm rest, LCD case, keyboard etc)
Is most everything interchangeable?
April 17th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Hi I have an A70 which had the loose jack fixed last year done at a Toshiba service centre under warranty.
The problem now is that when I plug the AC power in the green light comes on (not flickering when wiggled)but the battery wont charge and it wont run on AC it just starts up then shuts down… any ideas ?????
April 6th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I’m having the same problem that was brought up earlier where the computer will start, the power button will light up, the fans will turn for a couple seconds and then the whole machine will go quiet. I can feel the hdd spinning and warm air coming from the heat sink vent but it doesn’t seem to be booting and no video is coming out of the lcd or an external monitor. I have checked the processor (using your wonderful instructions, thanks) and everything necessary is plugged in tight
March 24th, 2009 at 7:12 am
do you know where i can locate an original a75-s213 restore cd or an iso of the cd?
thanks
March 15th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
I have my A-75 completely dissassembled, but the dc power jack seems to be also epoxied (black in color) to the motherboard and doesn’t feel loose.
I’m having all of the same symptoms mentioned here and the motherboard was replaced a couple of years ago under warranty due to the overheating problem.
How do I remove this jack since it is also glued in? - some of the glue even seems to be partially covering a resistor or two. Can I leave it in place and install the radio shack workaround plug (mentioned on other sites) next to it and just run wires to the + & - on the motherboard??
Thanks for the great site and help!
March 11th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
If you are having the problem with the loose solder connection on the AC adaptor connector, do yourself a favor and replace the connector. They can be found on ebay for less than $10 shipped. Also solder a wire from the bottom to the top on the positive 19V because a lot of the time the little eyelett that passes through the motherboard becomes loose and doesn’t supply the 19V from top to bottom.
March 6th, 2009 at 3:50 am
sorry i forgot to say that i have a 1905 toshiba . thanks
March 6th, 2009 at 3:47 am
hi can you tell me if i can bypass the antenna on the mine wireless card . for some reason the antenna switch does not work so i get can find a wireless connection . thanks for any help.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I hava a toshiba sattellite A70. I purchased a new battery to replace the old battery with about 5 min life. The new battery does not work at all. Shows full capacity but PC goes down upon removal of outlet power. Put original battery back in and ok. How can I test battery PA3383U-1BRS? How can I test the internal PC jack to make sure it is charging correctly. Current test of internal PC battery jack shows one post with more voltage than others and middle post with none.
Thanks
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
You guys F’ing rock! My sister is a broke student and needed some work done on her laptop.
I am in the electronics business currently and entering the IT industry in Jan so I figured I would see what I could do for her.
With your hepl, I have the computer running properly again.
Thanks for the help!~
November 11th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
It’s been awhile since I did my repair so I don’t remember exactly what my symptoms were when mine wouldn’t boot. But I do remember the solution. That little ribbon cable from the touchpad to the MB was not seated correctly. It’s really short and rigid and even more difficult if you have big hands. FWIW…
November 11th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Stealth:
Do you have aftermarket RAM installed? If so, pull the RAM and reboot. If it comes back up, shut down and re-insert RAM and see if it boots. I have this problem when my RAM was going bad.
Barbara
November 11th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I disassembled my A75 and discovered one of the little gray rectagular boxes (specifically pc77 on bottom near the right side of the copper fins) was barely attached. Do you know what these gray components are? Can I desolder/resolder? I found reference to someone resoddering one of these they popped the part (overheated?).
November 11th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I have the A75 model and disassembled for cleaning. And my problem is like most people on here; the system won’t boot after assembled. I had dis/assembled the laptop several times to check all connections, processor lock n secure, video card, ram, HDrive, mouse,keyboard, and even used external monitor. However each times, the power button light blinks and no boot(quiet). Maybe after few continuous pressing, the fans run and shuts off but the power light stay on. Plugin or battery only, it’s the same symptom. I read through almost all posts here but still haven’t find the exact solution. Many replies was told to secure lock the processor and I checked it thoroughly. Please anyone can help me out. And the laptop work/boot fine before I took it apart to clean.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Jack :
You said that you put in a new Hd and installed it, Then what you need to do is a complete wipe that writes zero’s to the Hd and then do a fresh install if the recovery disk is not installing right, so any info on the drive should be saved, so hook it up usb to another computer, transfer the info and do a clean zero wipe with WD Zero wipe that can be found on Hiren’s disk. This happens alot when reinstalling or trying to redo windows over on recovery from OEM
dealers cause it doesn’t read right.
October 18th, 2008 at 6:07 am
I put new hard drive in A75. Used recovery CD with no problem, but some issues with Windows XP and registry. I then did repeat recovery. Now recovery runs to about 25-30% and computer turns off. I tried recovery CD at least 5-6 more times with same result. With Recovery CD out, I get error that I can not access drive.
This happened in past and I brought to local repair shop registered by Toshiba. They used software in shop that fixed recovery. Shop closed for weekend. Any ideas?
October 14th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite A75-S125 I opened it up to cleaned up the heat sink and everything went smooth a year later i started having the same problem I opened it a few days ago cleaned it and now when I turn it on nothing shows it just a black screen, no bios show up no nothing any ideas what this could be?
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Hey have a question for you. I looked through the posts to see if any had to same question to save time but alas I seem to be the only one and since you are the expert let me see if you can help me.
I cleaned out my A75 about 8 months ago from all the dust to fix the overheating and it seems to have worked great. All the sudden about a week ago the lcd screen has been twiggin out. The display kinda flickers or the image shifts or seems lighter colors than it should be. If i adjust the Top of the laptop(start to close it or adjust the height) the flicker/ shifting changes and sometime fixes it. I guess I might have a lose connection but I find it odd that it all of the sudden started happening.
Please any suggestion on where to look would be helpful.