Toshiba Satellite M35X. How to fix most common laptop problems.
Toshiba Satellite M35X is a very popular model in the United States. In general, most Toshiba Satellite M35X laptops suffer from the same problems. Here’s a disassembly guide.
Improperly grounded top cover assembly. If the top cover assembly wasn’t grounded properly, then laptop may lock up or freeze up when you touch it in the speaker area. It happens because of a static electricity discharge. This problem was fixed on some laptops, but still there are a lot of laptops with unmodified top cover assembly. This problem should be covered under warranty even if you laptop is not under warranty anymore.
Poorly designed DC-IN power jack on the system board. Overtime, the DC power jack gets disconnected from the system board. If it happens, you will experience a problem with charging the battery or the laptop may not start at all.
Read more:
Toshiba Satellite M35X and A75 power jack and battery charge problem.
Toshiba Satellite 1900 laptop looses power and shuts down without warning.
Laptop CPU overheating. It is a very common problem for some Toshiba laptops. If a laptop CPU overheats, then the laptop shuts down without by itself without any reason. Read more:
Why my Toshiba laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without warning?
You can use the disassembly guide to take apart Toshiba Satellite M35X notebook and repair it yourself. Do not open the case if your laptop is still under warranty.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Richard,
It could be a loose screw or a broken plastic latch from the keyboard cover. You will not know until remove this piece.
You can use a small flathead screwdriver to lift up one side of the cover, so you can grab it with your fingers. When one side is lifted, continue removing the cover with your fingers.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:45 am
cj2600 wrote:
“2. Remove the keyboard strip – silver cover located above the keyboard”
cj2600,what is the best tool to use to pry loose the plastic keyboard strip…a stiff butter knife? I don’t want to break the plastic prying it out.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:21 am
my Toshiba Satellite notebook was in its case on the back seat of my car and when I stopped for atraffic light, the case rolled off the seat and down onto the floor. I didn’t think anything was broken at thetime and itinitially appeared towork fine.then I developed problems with the space bar on thekeyboard not being responsive and also started hearing little pieces rolling around inside the notebook.
ordered a new keyboard and hope that fixes the problem. need to investigate what the little pieces are inside.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:11 am
thanks a million cj2600.
the top silver plastic cover on my Toshiba laptop is loose in the lower left hand corner near where a little speaker is. I can lift it up slightly with my finger. I can also hear at times little pieces rolling around inside when I pickup my laptop and tilt it. not sure what broke inside.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Richard,
It is relatively easy to replace the keyboard and you’ll find instructions in the disassembly guide I linked to in my post. You don’t have to remove anything from the bottom of the laptop.
All you have to do is:
1. Remove the battery
2. Remove the keyboard strip – silver cover located above the keyboard
3. Remove two screws securing the keyboard
4. Disconnect the keyboard from the motherboard and replace it.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Please,someone help me out.I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X notebook and the keyboard appears to be broken. the space bar,among other things,doesn’t work normally and I have to keep pressing down hard on it to make a space.I ordered a new keyboard.does anyone have any simple instructions on how to take the broken keyboard out and replace it with a new one?
any help would be greatly appreciated.Thanks
August 5th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Peter van Breemen,
In order to replace the wireless card you have to get under the keyboard, it’s not necessary to remove all the screes from the bottom. Just remove the keyboard strip, lift up the keyboard (it’s not necessary to disconnect it from the motherboard, just flip over on the palm rest) and replace the wireless card.
It’s not difficult to replace the card but I’m not sure if you can find a working driver, so your card is recognized and it works correctly. The only way to find out is replacing the card and loading the driver.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Andrew,
I’m not sure how you were able to format your laptop with M70 recovery disk. Usually, when you use recovery disks from other models you get a “Wrong Machine” message and the recovery process will not proceed any further. Weird.
Anyways, to reload the operating system on your laptop you can use recovery DVD from any other Satellite M35X. I doubt that you’ll find if fro free download but you can buy it cheap here, just search for “M35X recovery”.
August 5th, 2007 at 3:50 am
I have a M40X, which seems to have cover similar to M35X.
I want to replace the ever bad performing Intel 2200 BG wifi mini pci card by the Atheros based Gigabyte SUPER A/B/G Mini-PCI Adapter – GN-WI01H T.
To replace the card, I should only remove the securing strip above the keyboard with a thin object, the keyboard itself and the wifi cardcover to get access to the wifi card (steps 6, 7 and partly step 8). I mean, I don’t have to remove all the screws of the bottom cover etc.?
Do you think I’ll encounter problems (hardware or software) when replacing the card and get the new one working
August 4th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I got M35X-149. I also have the same problem as you guys. It had been working good since last week. I started it up and nothing come up just the sound of fan running for 5 secs. The power light is on.
After I read all the information in this Forum and I re-soder the 48 pin chip that is next to the DC jack and now my laptop Back up and running again.
Thank you all.
Jimmy
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:02 am
i have a toshiba laptop M35X-S311 with part # psa72u- 2jzoou.i formatted the laptop with M70 recovery disc when it was seriously affected by virus. the disc was able to clear the memory of the system but could not reinstall system software. please what do i do to bring the system back to life? I WILL be more grate if you can send me the recovery disc via or send me website were i can get the softwares for free download. thanks
July 27th, 2007 at 3:35 am
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July 2nd, 2007 at 11:13 am
I recently had a Toshiba m35x given to me by a friend. I found this site and decided to take it apart expecting it to be a simle power jack fix. I found that the plastic from the power jack MELTED and left a hardened pool around the power jack. What could i use to clear the hardened plastic? Has anyone of you ever even seen this happen before?
June 27th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Hey all – I know this seems to be off of the general vein of conversation but I was hoping somebody could help me out.
I’m updating the RAM on my M35xS114, but I lost my manual and can’t find any info on my mother board – do I HAVE to use DDR 2700, or can I use DDR 2700+ or a DDR2 type RAM? Anyhelp would be great.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Rodrigo,
Try reseating the video cable on the back of the LCD screen. It is possible that the video cable is not making a good contact with the screen. Also try reseating the video cable connector on the motherboard.
June 23rd, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Hi all, this is my problem…
I have a toshiba M35X S149, after replaceing the jack using the halp of the guide, my LCD has some problem.
They are more explicits in the next pics:
http://www.geocities.com/ceteclaguna/IMAG0005.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/ceteclaguna/IMAG0006.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/ceteclaguna/IMAG0007.JPG
The strange thing is that as you can see on tha pics is that the imgage its full, its not cut, it seems that theres a normal LCD and not a Widescreen LCD.
Excuse my english.
Thanx
June 17th, 2007 at 7:29 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S111. It shuts down either when it is booting or just after it cranks up the fan after the power on button is pushed.
I read all the reasons it freezes, which it did before, but now I can not even start it. It is not giving me enough time to even diagnose.
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated!
June 16th, 2007 at 12:41 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S311 Part #PSA72U-2JZ00U with Windows XP.
MY problems started when I brought the laptop out of hibernation and the mouse didn’t appear on the screen. Right clicking on the touch pad brought the mouse icon back on the screen only to be enlightened with a frozen system. I then shut the system down. When started up the system would not even show the bios screen. The blue power led, and the three yellow leds on the front, would come on, but the system would appear to go into hibernation after 5 sec. After exhausting all the closed case options I opened the case. I cleaned everything on the inside of the laptop. Started the computer up, but still had the same problem. Removing and reinstalling the battery and memory several times seemed to be the only way to get the system past the bios and into the xp login screen. Once there my laptop froze again, and I was back to the beginning. After thoroughly researching the internet I was pointed to the dc jack, and a few other problematic defects that plague this laptop series. Finally my ac jack would not turn the laptop on, so i moved the dc jack to the outside of the computer. The laptop started up immediatley without any problems at all. It even ran tremendously faster than when it was new. A few hours later my laptop froze again. Only this time several multicolored rectangles about 2mm HX6mm L started randomly appearing on the screen. I have tried removing every part one by one to no avail. All of the hardware seems to be okay. Except something in the video system\s. The power is perfect from the ac cable to the left side of the inverter, but there is no power coming out of the right side of the inverter. Laptop doesn’t get far enough to dispay anything on an external monitor, but when it displayed on the external monitor I could already see it on the laptop’s lcd anyway. The hibernation switch on the board is working just fine. Could this be caused by the laptop not sending the signal to the lcd to display anything like the original problem did? Or could a faulty inverter keep the entire system from booting?
Any pointers and help would be greatly appreciated,
Chris
June 10th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I have a m35x with the same problem that power tunrs on then the fans turn on for 5 seconds, then nothing else turns on. when you flex the bottem right hand corner, it posts good. the problem was fixed by resoldering the memory connectors. Its no easy task, the only reason I figurerd it out was becaused I worked as a tech for Dell and they have the same problem.
June 7th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Following the instructions of
Jerry Hirsch (response 78, dated March 19th, 2007) I managed to fix the M35X DC jack problem.
Thanks, Jerry!
June 6th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Just had someone give me an M35X-S111 recently. Had it a month and the HD crashed. Also have an A65-S126 that though 2.8ghz is slower than the 1.5ghz M35X.
I ordered a new HD for the M35X, but once it gets here I’m tempted to just clean them up and sell them both.
Question – Can you add internal wireless to the M35X-S111? I looked at your excellent instructions, popped the kyb out, but under the wifi cover, I find nothing to attach the card into. Is that just for later models of the M35X?
Thanks so much for your great site.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Thank you cj2600.
I think, I have spent enough time trying all of the different things posted here, but now is time to use the warranty. It could be the fix to all my problems.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Norberto,
First of all try this.
May 30th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
My Toshiba M35X-S114 did all of the above.
It turned the blue light ‘ON’. All three LEDs turned on. The 3 to 5 seconds CPU fan ON and then nothing…
The difference NOW is that if I let it sit like that for probably about 10 minutes (I have not time it, yet) and then WALLA!!!! It boots up out of the blue.
Just like in the ’70s, turn the computer on, go to prepare your coffee, drink it while watching TV, and when you remember about you computer, it will be there…
ON!! And ready to be used.
So, for now that is my problem, I did the soldering trick and the ‘not booting’ problem got fixed. I soldered all 4 points right next to the jack. I put my 25 Watt soldering iron for a good 5 seconds to allow the solder to liquefy very good before removing the soldering iron tip from the board.
And my question is: Am I in the right track, do I need to open it again and re-solder it again.
Thanks for any help provided.
May 26th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Hello
I have an M30X and had the DCjack come away from the board completely. This didn’t surprise me, however, as I had been experiencing problems with charging up the battery (having to wedge the power plug to get the lights on etc…) I took the laptop apart following your excellent instructions. A friend soldered it back with ‘heavy duty soldering’. We also put some rapid epoxy resin between the jack and the board on the edge and layed the soldering iron on the jack, This warms up the epoxy and allows it to flow down between the board and jack. I’ve also put a rubber grommit or washer round the plug wide enough to hit the outside case and stop the plug from being pushed into the jack too hard, therefor taking the strain off the jack. There had been some carbon signs of shorting out very close to the DC jack, but it was washed off with alcohol. To my amazement the computer fired up and has been working fine ever since!
Many thanks for your great website.
Rodger
May 25th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Hello I know this isnt the right place to be asking about my toshiba Satellite 1200 but this area seems to be active recently where as that one doesnt..
Do I have to take apart my whole laptop just to get to the dc power jack bit? Im not sure if thats the correct term.. I mena the bit where you plug the end of the power cable into your laptop. Thanks for any help.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Hi guys ,
sorry for my bad english (I’am German). I have a M30X-148 and have the problem too that the CPU Fan run for 5 sec. the blue light round the startbutton runnig too. The battery will charge and Battery indicators show full power.
But the differents between all the problems of you and me is, that I can open my CDROM and the screen looks like a “Whitescreen” (I think the backlight is running only)after starting the Toshiba.
I have solder the DC powerJack too, but the Notebook don’t boot. I don’t know what can I do, to repair my Toshiba .
Hope you understand my very bad english and you can help me to get the toshiba running fine again.
Greets from Germany
Michael
April 30th, 2007 at 7:33 am
There appears to have been a class action suit filed in California against Toshiba that has resulted in them extending the warranty on the M35X machines through November, 2007:
http://www.a70m30xsettlement.com
April 29th, 2007 at 5:26 am
AA, Hi to All,
Well my Laptop has come back to its previous state of the same old same old of 5sec Fan running Power button blue Led on and all LEDs Working and i noticed another thing that the Video Chip Heatsink Warms up so i think the Power is being distributed to the ICS when in this state. ANYBODY WHO KNOWS A SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM… ALOT OF PRAYERS WILL BE COMING YOUR WAY IF YOU CAN HELP US…MAYBE SOME TOSHIBA TECHIE OR REPAIR GUY…THANKS IN ADVANCE. AH
April 25th, 2007 at 12:33 am
HI
THANKS FOR THIS SITE AS I MANAGE TO REPAIR THE DC JACK FOR OUR TOSHIBA LAPTOP.I AM GETTING THE SIMILAR PROBLEM OF NO SCREEN DISPLAY WITH FAN SOUND FOR 5 SEC AND BLUE POWER BUTTON ON. PLEASE ANY ONE ASSIST.