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.
July 9th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Ok, i did some testing. My laptop will freeze if i tilt it, if its perfictly flat on a desk it boots up just fine. So im guessing something is ethier disconected or barley conected. any thought to what might be cause of this?
July 9th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Oh no, i think i may have jumped the gun. I go into desktop then the computer froze. So i restared it, then No screen! what do you think my problem is? Ive tried to restart it a couple times now and still no screen.
July 9th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Everything seems to be working again, Thank you cj2600. You are realy nice person to go to all this trouble to help people with thier laptops with no cost. Is it possible to donate $?
July 9th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
holy crap!, after taking my hardrive out and putting it back in, i just started it and now i have screen.
July 9th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
well, i noticed it would shut off after getting realy hot. So i was going to see if something was cloging the heatsinks or fans. When i got that far i noticed that there was a large clump of fuzz and dust. After removing it i put everything back together and pressed power and blooop no screen.
July 9th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Yes, it should turn on after you reassemble the laptop. Try to unplug the screen from the motherboard and turn on the laptop with an external monitor attached. If everything is fine, you should get a video on the external monitor.
By the way, why did you take it apart? What was wrong?
July 9th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
hmm, shouldnt the screen turn on at all?
July 9th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Kyle,
Check all connections. Make sure that all of them are seated properly; check if the memory is seated correctly. Most of the time a laptop will not boot after disassembly/assembly because of a not properly seated connector or part.
July 9th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Ryan,
The video cable connector doesn’t have any lock, so you just have to gently unplug the video cable from the system board. Do not pull for the harness (even though I’ve done it myself many times and it didn’t damage it). Use your nails or a small screwdriver and carefully disconnect the video cable connector by its edges.
You would be able to connect the video cable back to the system board any time you need. It’s just a regular mail-female connector with many pins inside.
July 9th, 2006 at 7:34 am
err well, my dvd drive works, but i cant seem to get my LCD to turn back on! what could i have done to make ths happen?
July 8th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
CJ, I need to ask you an important question. I’m pretty much on step 14 in your guide but I still have not disconnected the LCD cables from the system board in step 12. Will I be able to reconnect these cables later on if I disconnect them in step 12? I actually still plan on using my monitor so I want to make sure about this. The second thing I want to ask is how exactly to disconnect them. Do I simply pull on them gently until they come loose and seperate from the system board?
July 7th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Hey, i was having some overheating issues and wanted to clean my fans and heatsink. I followed the directions and put everything back together and now my LCD isnt working, my Dvd drive wont open, but it powers up. i also cant see the light my wireless switch would light up when activated. Please help
July 5th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Yea, when i say palmrest i mean the top cover w/touchpad…so maybe i should just call toshiba and get a few replaced!
too bad we don’t have any 2GB sticks lying around to test out!
Thanks again!
lol, have a good one man,
Brandon
July 5th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
BeeHay,
Here are some answers:
Manufactured date. I’m not sure if you can find a laptop manufactured date, but you can find out when this laptop was sold to the customer. Go to Toshiba support website and then go to limited warranty entitlement lookup page. It’ll give you the information when the laptop was to the end user.
Memory. Toshiba Satellite A75 has onboard memory and one slot available for upgrades. Onboard memory could be 256MB or 512MB and Toshiba says that you can install up to 1GB into an available slot. I think that it is possible that BIOS will recognize a 2GB stick. You can find it out only if you try. I’ve never tried it myself.
Just recently I bought Palm T|X and the specification says that it supports up to 2GB SD card. I bought 4GB and it works perfect. I’m happy. So, just try it.
Palmrest. When you say palmrest, I think you are talking about the entire top cover assembly. Satellite A75 model has a know issue related to improperly grounded top cover assembly. I described it in details here. I believe that at this time Toshiba will replace the top cover at no charge, even if the laptop is not under warranty anymore.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:24 am
One more thing, how can I find the manufactured date of these units?
Thanks man!
July 5th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Thanks for your fast response! Our shop as of late has seen a rash of M35X systems, and was wondering if we could find a place to get newer revised palm rests, thats why I asked about a place to find new ones.
Oh yea, can the A75 unit take a 2GB stick of ram?
Anyway, thanks again!
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:42 pm
BeeHay,
1. Are you asking about a power jack problem? I think that all A70 and A75 units might be affected by a power jack problem, because they all have a similar design for all models. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
The top cover assembly was fixed on newer units. I don’t know exactly when Toshiba started assembling laptops with already modified covers.
2. We do not repair LCDs either. I wouldn’t try to remove the lint myself, you can permanently damage the screen.
3. I don’t think that you can find any specific place for buying new revisions of hardware. Most companies sell refurbished parts and do not differentiate them by revisions.
4. Never seen.
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:49 am
Hello, I just recently acquired an A75-S229 laptop and had a few questions possibly you could answer quickly and easily for me. I work at a laptop repair shop and a customer brought this machine in claiming overheating/power issues. I purchased the machine off him for $50 before researching the mass of problems these unit have. Since I have stripped down the unit, fully cleaned it, artic silver re-grease, removed the d/c jack and resoldered it, and re-assembled it. The machine has yet to show signs of any overheating or power problems. The battery completely charges and runs about an hour on max settings.
Q’s –
1 – Are these power issues even Toshiba recognizes showing it’s head in all these unit’s? Or just a nice large batch?
2 – For some reason there is ‘lint’ behind the glossy part of the LCD. Is there any easy way to remove the top plastic and blow that out? (our shop does not do LCD repair)
3 – Is there a place to get NEW revisions of hardware, i.e. palm rest/power boards/system boards/batteries?
4 Have you seen of anywhere that offers 3rd party or even possibly Genuine ATi video bios flashes for this unit?
That’s it for now! Thanks, Brandon
June 28th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Don,
Steps 11-13 shows how to remove the display assembly (you don’t need to follow steps 3-5). You don’t need to cap any wires. After the display is removed, assemble the laptop back. You’ll be able to use it as a desktop computer, except the internal wireless card. The wireless card antenna cables are located in the display assembly, witch you’ll remove. For wireless networking you’ll have to buy a wireless PC card.
June 27th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Screen on A75 ruined, balance of unit working perfectly. Since screen replacement appears to run $400.00+ I would like to use unit as desktop. External monitor works well. How do I safely remove LCD screen with top cover and are there wires that will require capping?
June 26th, 2006 at 4:44 am
Thank you sincerely THANK YOU for your disassembly instructions.
I have the overheating problems and live remotely in Australia and would mean a two week minimum trip to get fixed. With the disassembly instructions and information on this forum I feel reasonably confident about tackling the job. Thankfully I have some suitable heat paste on hand to replace whats there.
June 24th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
Eric,
Can you get video on an external monitor? Check if the memory is seated properly. Check the video connector on the system board.
June 24th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Steven,
If the jack itself is not broken, then it would be enough to clean it up and re-solder.
June 24th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Maryam,
In this model the heatsink is located on the bottom side of the motherboard and you have to remove the motherboard from the laptop base if you want to access the heatsink. Try to clean the heatsink with compressed air first, it might help you.
Your second problem might be related to the power jack. I cannot be sure 100% without looking at the laptop. It’s very unlikely that spontaneous shutdowns can damage the adapter.
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.