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 24th, 2006 at 6:51 am
I took apart my Toshiba a-75 s-206 laptop to clean the heat sink and when i put it back together the monitor will not work. I can hear the laptop booting up when i turn it on but i cant see a thing because the screen is completly black. I dont know if i knocked something loose during dissasembly or what but i need to fix this problem as soon as possible. If anyone has any solutions to this problem it would be greatly appreciated.
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Thank, exactly the info i’m looking for. I got this laptop A70 Satellite for a year already. At first I was able to do a lot thing with it, playing games, burning, encoding, etc, without lock-up. Then trouble starts after 2 or 3 months. Things going that bad that I can only play card game on it… Was so pissed that I was thinking about getting a new PC but NO notebook.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:41 am
Hi, I had to fix the power jack problem. Before we screwed the laptop all back together again we tested to see if everything worked which it did. Put everything back together but we have a problem with the power adaptor. When the power cable is plugged into the laptop the LED lights dont turn on and the adaptor emitts a squeaking noise every second or so. Can anyone help?
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:49 pm
Hi,
nevermind. i already figured it out….
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Hi, I got some problem removing one of the screws connecting the top cover with the main-board (step 14). It is the one that is closest to the speaker cable and the flat touchpad cable. when i tried to unscrew, it just didnt come out. so i couldnt lift the top cover out to get to the main-board.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Instead of replacing jack, I tried to wire up a universal targus adapter and must have chosen the wrong tip. The unit now flashes all of the lights and will not charge. I can only assume that some of the surface mount components in the charging/regulator circuit are fried. Anyone familiar with those components, testing proceedures and the DMM values for determining which ones are bad.
June 20th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
hey ummm i had the same problem with the power so i opened it up through these instructions and now thats its open i c that the dc jack was burnt its all brownish black… and under where it was soldered is pretty black too… its that small corner over there thats kind of black… im not really good with laptops so i have no clue wat to do… do i just clean it up and replace the jack or wat do i do? please help!
June 20th, 2006 at 4:40 am
Hi cj2600,
I have a Toshiba Satellite A75-S229 and I have the clogged heat sink problem too and I plan on cleaning it out this weekend but do I really have to take apart the whole laptop? I would hope all I have to remove would be the back cover. Along with that, after one of the spontaneous shutdowns these laptops are famous for, I went to turn it on after waiting a while and it did not turn on (this was without a battery in it). The thing is the LED lights turn on and to get the laptop to turn on I have to disconnect and reconnect the cable that connects from the outlet to the adapter and reconnect the adapter to the laptop. This solves it but I was wondering if this is a problem with the powerjack or maybe something happened to the adapter after so many spontaneous shutdowns.
June 13th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Hey Billy,
Before you pull the cable, you have to open the connector. The connector on the picture has 2 parts: the lock – brown and the base – white. To open the connector you have to slide the brown part away from the white part, only about 2 millimeters not more. The keyboard cable is jammed between the lock and the base and when you open the connector you can easily remove the cable.
To assemble it back you have to insert the cable first and then move the lock toward the base (toward the touchpad).
June 12th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Well first off, I wan’t to say thanks to cj2600 for taking your time to help people in need. I recently came upon an A75 with no power cord. I googled up your site and I am in the process of taking the machine apart, as I want to see how it looks inside before I spend $50 on the AC adapter. I’m stuck at step 10, removing the keyboard cable. I don’t want to break it removing it, and I am just not familiar with the mechanism holding the cable in place. Does it just pull out with a little force? I would rather be safe than sorry, so I figured I’d ask. Thanks in advance and if I have any additional problems, hopefully you can point me in the right direction.
June 12th, 2006 at 9:55 am
cj2600 you were right on just lifting cover. the arrow in step 1 threw me. i was afraid i would snap any tabs off if i lifted it. thanks
June 11th, 2006 at 11:26 am
Fred,
You do not have to slide it. After the screws are removed, just lift the cover up. There are little plastic latches that keep the cover in place.
June 11th, 2006 at 11:20 am
step 1 , the cover that is againt edge of a70 laptop will not slide out. i cant lift it out either, as something holds it down at right hand edge. how know
June 10th, 2006 at 7:04 am
cj2600 for some reason I did not saw that comment
thank you very much
June 9th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Mauro,
Read this comment and the following too.
June 9th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Hi,
thanks for a very useful guide, but in step 20 I had problems, it looked like something kept the mainboard attached, and all the screws were removed, how did you do it with the volume wheel and the handle that removes the pc card?
thanks!
June 6th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
oh my god..
thanks very much cj! lol I know nothing about computer so I didnt know about that
10000 Thanks to cj ^^
June 6th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
The instructions were great. I had the “power jack problem.” The issue I have is when I reassembled everything two things happened. The first is that I get no LED now. I am seeming to get power form the adapter but no lights to indicate it. I did not go as far as to mess with the CPU. The second is my fault. I was taking the touch pad connection off and broke the clip. It doesn’t look like I actually damaged the connection but my touch pad isn’t working. Can you help me?
June 4th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
Roger,
After you cleaned up the heatsink you have to reapply thermal grease on the CPU. Without thermal grease the laptop will overheat and shutdown even with clean heatsink and fans.
June 4th, 2006 at 3:54 am
oh ic..so Brian did you put back some grease on the cpu? Is that what I should do after I clear the heatsink?
June 4th, 2006 at 3:52 am
I’ve cleaned the heatsink and put everything back, but now my laptop still has the problem… It still shut down occassionally, without any ‘warning’or the fans getting loud ….and all I did was running the Warcraft3 game..
What could be the problem other than overheat?
Also the fans slow down when I pull off the power and using the battery…. what should I do to totally fix the problem of sudden shutdown? n( I already updated Bios)
June 2nd, 2006 at 2:06 pm
The tutorial worked great!!! Pretty straight forward on how to remove everything.
I was lucky enough to have a tank of nitrogen (gas form)and an gun which took care of the majority of the dust.
Since I didn’t know the amount of dust in the machine, so I decided to take it apart anyways. When I did take it apart, the heat sink came right off the cpu with no effort. There was a hint of grease on the cpu, that would probably explain the overheating issues these past couple of days. I applied a generous helping of it and put it all back together. It still runs as hot as it normally did, at least on the back of the computer (probably because that’s where the heat sink is). But it appears that it is all back to normal. Thanks CJ!!
A note for the step 15 (removing top cover from base). If you don’t have a guitar pick around, use a credit card, student ID card or something like that. Works like a charm. If any part gets stuck make sure there isn’t a screw you missed earlier.
Thanks again CJ!!!
June 1st, 2006 at 5:59 pm
AHHHHH YOu guys are awsome. I got it out and cleaned it up but however i can’t put the mother board back in. I am struggling but i’ll keep trying.
THANKS A LOT. CJ2600 you are a good man.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
Malim, I didn’t ignore your comment, I just missed it for some reason.
Roger, thank you for your help. I also start removing the system board from the left side. One more tip. Some models have a card reader located under the PC card slot (on the left side). The card reader is closed by a rubber plug and this plug has to be removed too before you start removing the system board. After the left side is out, you can start removing the right side. It’s hard to get the right side out because of the volume wheel, the audio jacks and the USB ports. To release the right side I usually push on the right side of the laptop base with my left hand and lift up the system board with a flat head screwdriver using my right hand at the same time.
To install the system board back into the base I do next. Sit the back of the system board (with VGA and parallel port) first. After that push on the PC card button and sit the left side. Finally sit the right side.
May 30th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
oh the way I took the motherboard out is to take out the 2 screws (therer is an arrow pointing at each of them), then take out the dummy pc card. Try to press the small pc card switch inside and then pull out the left hand side of the motherboard first.
On the right hand side, you have to push the speaker/ volume inside first and pull out the motherboard..
3 sides are out so u just need to slide the motherboard backward..hope u understand what I mean
May 30th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Cj2600 why did u ignore my post. I am desperate for help. Please explain how to take the mother out of the case itself because i am afraid i can damage it
May 28th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Hey Roger,
You must apply thermal grease on the CPU or your laptop will overheat. I guess the CPU fans are spinning all the time because there is not thermal compound between the CPU and the heat sink.
The grey color thing on the CPU is thermal grease. Did you apply new thermal grease after you removed “the grey color thing”?
May 28th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Ignore my last post lol My computer works well now, i just didnt plug the monitor cable deeper into the socket
Everything works well now, however I feel that the fans are spinning all the time even I’m not loading anything. It is coz I removed the grey color thing ( dirt?) on top of the cpu ? (I removed it and also the dust inside the heatsink )
I saw the pictures also has some on the cpu..are those dust?
Thanks for cj’s help ^^
May 28th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Great Guide! Thanks for the detailed instruction and cj’s help. My Toshiba A75 has the problem of overheat and I successfully disassemble the laptop
Problem comes when I put it back together, the power is on, one of the fan spins but the monitor does not turn on, the dvd and the wireless switch doesnt work too.
What will be the problem?
May 26th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Hi there. This is great guide and cj2600 is awsome. However i got stuck on taking the board out of the case. I unscrewed the screws that are holding it to the case but i try to pull it out and it’s doesn’t come out. I am afraid to pull it hard because it can easly break. It seems that volume thing is holding it or something; however i try to sort of move it still doesn’t work. Can anyone help me out on that ?