Removing internal parts from a Toshiba Satellite A135 laptop
This step-by-step disassembly guide explains how to remove and replace major parts from a Toshiba Satellite A135 laptop.
Very often I get the same question about connecting the wireless card antenna cables to the wireless card. Witch cable connects to witch connector on the card? There are two antenna cables connected to the card. The white cable goes the main connector and the black one to the auxiliary connector. But it should really matter because both antennas are identical.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:20 am
I am trying to figure out how to change the cmos battery?
Satalite 1135-S155
April 9th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Can I be directed to a guide on how to change the keyboard on this model?
April 9th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Actually I was able to use this guide:
It is almost the same:
Only two screws, in the center there is a metal lever, looks like a P which has been turned left and then rotated 45 degrees counter clockwise. Push this lever north and the center of the keyboard will pop up.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Please label the components in the photographs. I’m trying to replace a hard drive and I don’t know which component it is.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I just left the monitor attach to the top portion of the base on the laptop and took it off as one piece. I didn’t have too mess with the hinges.
Just be careful not to move the monitor up and down when you take it off, since the top plastic is not strong enought to do so once it is unscrewed from the base of the laptop.
The Dawg….
January 4th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Hi,
I followed all the steps but there’s something holding the center of the case to the bottom around the m k , keys but there’s no screws there and also something right at the middle of where the battery goes but theres nothing there. thanks
January 15th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Hi,
I have a problem bios password.How to recover that password…
January 17th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I am looking for instructions to replace the screen of a Toshiba Sattelite A-135.
January 25th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
i have a metal part out of my toshiba satellite a45-s150 that says north on it….and has a spot of thermal grease….not sure where to put it…..thanks
January 31st, 2009 at 8:18 am
After a spill necessitated replacing the keyboard on my Satellite A135, about 1/2 of the keys, mainly on the left side of the keyboard, don’t work. I can’t seem to press the plastic ribbon cable of the new one into the connector far enough for it to engage all the pins. I tried reattaching the old keyboard, but can’t press that cable in far enough either. There seems to be white mineralization on some pins in the connector. It’s a very thin space, and barely accessible. How can I safely clean it off so the cable fits properly and makes contact with all the pins?
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:33 am
forgot to mention i did try component cleaning spray, but it didn’t help
March 1st, 2009 at 7:38 pm
I tried to donate but all I got was directed to my paypal site with no link to you. I can’t even find your email address on any of your pages to send a little money. You might want to check that link out and make the donating process extremely easy or people just might not bother if is to hard to do. It should be a 1 or 2 step process. Thanks for the great job you have done with website, Steve
April 14th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Jim,
The screen replacement steps will be very similar to Satellite A105 laptop. Check out this guide.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:45 am
mila,
Some newer Satellite laptops are know for that problem. If the laptop is asking for the BIOS password you have never set, check out this post.
My Toshiba laptop displays Password= prompt on startup
It’s possible that Toshiba will clear the BIOS password at no charge even though the laptop is not under warranty anymore.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Gil,
Take a closer look on the motherboard. Do you see “white mineralization” on the motherboard? It’s possible you’ve damaged the motherboard.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Stephen Forbush,
I’m not sure why you are experiencing that problem. I checked the button and it works for me.
I agree. I don’t like how PayPal works for donations, but unfortunately that’s the only option I have.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
“”I followed all the steps but there’s something holding the center of the case to the bottom around the m k , keys but there’s no screws there and also something right at the middle of where the battery goes but theres nothing there. thanks”"
Im having the exact problem! Anyone help please?
April 17th, 2009 at 9:08 am
james M,
Did you read through the entire disassembly guide? There is more than one page.
Did you remove screws hidden under the keyboard?
May 8th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Hi. Please does anyone know the specifications of the CMOS battery ML1220 of this Toshiba Satellite A135? I know that is is 3V, but I have no idea about mAh, if 15 or 36 or what? Thanks.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Aza,
Check out ML1220 specifications.
May 31st, 2009 at 9:52 am
Hi Aza,
I have found battery information from Sanyo for the ML1220 battery. It is a 3V cell battery with 15mAhr. Attached is their pdf document with specs.
http://battery.sanyo.com/product/lithium/pdf/02/ML1220.pdf
–svinehunt
June 1st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I need to replace the dc power jack but can’t figure out where the disconnection point is on the jack. I know all you need to do is somehow unplug it but I’m not sure how to disconnect the wires from the jack. I’m pretty sure the wires stay connected to the motherboard as I will need those to connect the new jack. Any help would be nice.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
In other words how do you unplug the DC-IN jack.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I dropped a Toshiba A135 on a carpeted floor and getting a message “Media error” check cable. Computer comes on, sounds find, hear fan. I tried to use my software (to restore to factory) to bring the computer back up and running but getting message that there is no hard drive and no drivers. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!
June 14th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Nevermind, I see you must solder this model. Oh well…
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Is it possible to upgrade the video card on a Toshiba Satellite a135-s2276? I have a ATI Radeon XPress 200M and was hoping to get an ATI Radeon 9500 or something along those lines. i know i will have to solder it.
July 16th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I NEED TO KNOW WHERE I CAN GET RIBBON CABLES FOR THIS SAME COMPUTER?????
July 28th, 2009 at 8:20 am
For removing Fan and heat sink, whether we need to dis assembly all the parts on the laptop or we have directly open key board, dis assemble all the cables then remove fan and heat sink? suggest
July 30th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Hi
I am having problems with my Toshiba A135 S2276 laptop. The boot on password got enabled due to BIOS problem, and I had to drain the CMOS battery as described in one of the articles online by shorting a U shaped pit to the ground. After this, the laptop came up fine, and I tried to update the latest BIOS as suggested by Toshiba. The computer froze after the BIOS update and restart. Now, the computer does not even display anything whne powered on. I can hear the fan, some sound of HD, and I can open the DVD drive some times. No display and no BIOS screen.
Any idea on what could be wrong here, it looks like BIOS upgrade fried the computer.
Can I buy a generic BIOS chip for this laptop and replace it and will it work?
Has the graphics card gone bad?
What are the troubleshooting tips?
Thanks,
Sunny
July 30th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Sunny,
It sounds like the BIOS got corrupted.
Doubt it. I think it’s either to find a new motherboard and replace one with the fried BIOS.
By the way, try unplugging the AC adapter and removing the battery. Wait for a few minutes and plug it back in. Might help.
January 1st, 2010 at 6:03 pm
I have a Toshiba satellite A137-S2346 and I was told that the motherboard had burned out and now I have to buy one and every one that I have seen so far have been over 100 bucks and I feel that if im going to spend that much I should just add some more money to it and get a new laptop please tell me what I should do because I got the laptop from rent-a-center and now that I own it they want me to pay them a monthly fee to insure it and im not giving them anymore of my money times are to hard!
January 3rd, 2010 at 4:40 pm
CJ,
I have a Toshiba Satellite A135-S4447 and my situation is very much like the one described by Sunny in post #29.
In my case, I bought a Western Digital “MyPassport Essential” 500GB external hard drive with the intention of backing up my laptop before upgrading from Vista to Windows 7.
Upon connecting the USB-powered drive, it asked me to update to the latest verions of firmware and WD SmartWare software (1.1.1.6 to 1.2.0.7). Both patches were successfully applied and I was able to reboot and then use the WD SmartWare software to back up all docs for two separate profiles. At this point, I tried to unmount the external drive before disconnecting, but it refused 5-6 different times, saying some apps were still using the files on the drive.
I then used the Windows shut down command, and everything powered down normally. I disconnected the USB cable from the drive to the laptop and went about my business. A couple of hours later, I tried to start up the Toshiba laptop (without the WD drive connected), but it was dead.
The blue power button light comes on, as do the A/C, power and battery LEDs on the front of the laptop. The optical drive blinks and has power to eject and even spin up inserted discs. However, the laptop does not POST, and neither the fan nor hard drive spin up. No video displays on the screen.
I’ve tried removing the battery to start on A/C power only, and also disconnecting the A/C and trying to start on battery power only. I’ve tried inserting the Toshiba recovery CD and pressing “C” but of course, there’s no BIOS screen to wait for. Nothing works.
Is the motherboard toast? A Google search turns up replacement motherboards costing at least $150-200, if that’s what the problem is. Meanwhile, I was at Costco today and saw a Dell Inspiron for $399, including MS Office Student Edition!
Thanks in advance for your ideas or suggestions.
Regards,
Phil
January 9th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Just wanted to say thank you to the author(s) for putting this information together. I was able to fix my laptop by replacing the keyboard, DVD drive and upgrade the memory. I spent about 160.00 in parts and now have a laptop that will run for another 3 – 5 years.
Thanks again and I do appreciate the information.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Need to replace magnetic switch in Toshiba satellite A135-S4487 I think it is located in the hinges. How can I remove the hinges to get to the magnetic switch?.
January 21st, 2010 at 11:42 pm
My Toshiba satellite a135′s processor is not getting heated.Will any one help me.
Thanks in advance
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Buy a new one!
February 25th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Thanx so much for these guides!
But now I’m really confused! With these instructions in hand, I’m ready to replace my hard drive….shopping for one sux! Some places say the replacement drive is SATA, Toshiba says, PATA. When I look up PATA it’s IDE, WTF??? I don’t want to have to open this thing up to check the connector cause the drive is failing. Does anyone know for sure if this model is SATA? It’s a Satellite A135-S4527 pn PSAD0U-05400P
TIA
Dumb blonde here. lol
February 25th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Terri Young,
IDE and PATA is the same. SATA is different.
http://www.laptopparts101.com/hard-drive/
This laptop comes with a Serial-ATA (SATA) hard drive. The original size is 120GB, but you should be able to replace it with any larger SATA hard drive: 160GB, 250GB, 320GB.
Again, your laptop (PSAD0U-05400P) comes with a SATA not IDE (PATA) hard drive.
February 25th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
you’re a life-saver!! Thanx again!
Maybe you’ll know the answer to this too. I have a SATA/USB 1TB external HD. If I buy a SATA PC buscard, will my R/W be any faster than USB?
TIA
Duh Blonde
February 25th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Terri Young,
USB 2.0 data transfer rate is 480Mbps.
I believe that PCMCIA 32bit data transfer rate is about 133Mbps.
As you see the USB 2.0 is faster.
June 16th, 2010 at 12:00 am
could someone tell me the correct factory Toshiba part number for the palm rest/mousepad assembly that is correct for model A135-S2326 – also the part number for the fan assembly for this same model if you have that – thanks so much! – jen
June 20th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I have Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527, when press on the power button the LED light of HDD blink only once time and the fan still running but no but the video output on the LCD screen or external monitor, kindly please advise me what kind of problem in my laptop
thank-syams
June 21st, 2010 at 7:21 am
syams,
Most likely it’s either memory failure or bad motherboard. Try reconnecting both memory modules. Remove modules one by one and test them in both slots.
If the laptop still fails to boot with different memory modules, most likely this is motherboard failure.
June 21st, 2010 at 8:03 am
jennifer24,
Top cover assembly part number: K000044490
July 2nd, 2010 at 8:34 am
How do you replace keyboard on Toshiba laptop A135-S4527?
July 11th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
I am trying to figure out why my battery did not get charged and why the power cable needs to be in a certain posiiton to work. This is my work search laptop and I can not donate anything right now. Using your instructions I was able to open the laptop and will be looking for loose connections.
Wanted to take the time and tell you how much I appriciate your website and will donate as soon as I find a new job.
Best regards
Michael
July 12th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Ca can I use an electrical contact cleaner on the memory chips.
July 17th, 2010 at 9:23 am
max,
I think so.
July 17th, 2010 at 9:27 am
Michael,
If you have to adjust the power cable, most likely it’s either damaged power cable on the AC adapter OR bad/damaged DC jack inside the laptop.
1. Test your AC adapter with a voltmeter. While testing, try moving the cable. If power cuts off when you move the cable, most likely there is a damage inside the cable. Replace the adapter.
2. If the adapter is fine. Take a closer look at the DC jack. Try replacing the jack.
July 17th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Jim,
Simply follow steps 7-10 on this disassembly page: http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/toshiba-satellite-a135/remove-mainboard-2.htm
July 22nd, 2010 at 3:14 am
Is there know where to Download a driver for my motherboard?For free because my driver is lost i don’t know where is it,please help me..T_T!Ooops!my loptop is Satellite A135-S2386 of toshiba.
August 31st, 2010 at 5:19 am
Looking to replace the mouse button and wondering how hard it is to replace and what panels to remove for the Toshiba a-135
September 6th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
my toshiba satellite a135 screen comes on when poeer up thengoes black what is it
September 8th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I am trying to replace the media board. I have the new part and removed the old one, when I put in the new one, I cannot get power at all. I reversed the way that I took the old one out and it still won’t power up. Help:)) I have even tried putting the old one back in and it still won’t power up.
Please help. My presentation is on that computer and I cannot retrieve it.
Thanks.
September 11th, 2010 at 5:41 am
Hi there. The fan in my laptop doesn’t work. Do i have to disassemble the entire laptop like the site says? isn’t there any other easier way to replase it? or any test i can do to see why is not working? thanks a lot!
September 29th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
awesome tutorial, is just perfect. Nice Job
October 10th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Excellent…perfect tutorial…really appreciate you doing this…able to replace my cooling fan in about 1 hour.
November 20th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Perfect! I was able to remove the screen on my laptop and replace the inverter for $36.00 and 5 min of my time (after receiving part) rather than take it somewhere and pay hundreds.
and guess what? …It Works!!!
November 20th, 2010 at 11:48 am
This is for Rose (#53). I know it is a couple of months after you sent the message, but I had the same problem and got online and found out that it was the inverter in the screen that powered up the screens lcd’s. I looked up my part and serial number when I googled toshiba laptop inverter and was able to find but the part for $36 including shipping and I looked up how to change it out and did it very quickly.
If the screen never comes on, it might be the lcd, but if it comes on and quickly fades to black, it is probably the inverter.
February 11th, 2011 at 9:47 am
This is for Ericka (59)
My Kids toshiba a135-s4527 laptop is doing the same thing upon boot up. The display lights for 1-2 seconds then goes blank, with a bright light shined on the screen you can see the information is there. When the screen lights at powerup proves the lamps are good so it must be the inverter. Going to order one today. Thanks.
March 5th, 2011 at 1:28 am
have Toshiba Satellite A135-S2386, when press on the power button the LED light of HDD blink only once time and the fan still running but no but the video output on the LCD screen or external monitor
March 5th, 2011 at 1:31 am
can i get the Toshiba satellite a135-s2386 motherboard maintenance manual
September 12th, 2011 at 7:25 am
Wireless not working: My Wi-Fi stopped working on my A135-S4727. Great info here, but before I order parts and dive into fixing this, can anyone tell me if I need to change the wireless card AND/or modum underneath, or just the card? I re-installed the drivers from the backup disc, but it says the Atheros card is not present(must be dead). Under Device Mgr, Network, only the Ethernet hub and my now Wi-Fi USB are listed – no factory Atheros Wi-Fi. So, Wi-Fi card, Modem underneath, or both? Any help would be great, Thanks!!
September 13th, 2011 at 7:12 am
@ Tim,
Try reseating the wireless card first. Maybe the connection is bad. Remove the card, install it back into the laptop and test again.
If it doesn’t work and doesn’t appear in the device manager, try replacing the wireless card.
Alternatively, you can buy an external USB or PC slot wireless card.
October 16th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
i have a satellite a135 it ask for a password right after you power it on it has a black screen and in the center in blue it says enter password i know its a four number password i just cant remember what four numbers someone please help me out
January 25th, 2012 at 6:44 am
Where in the world is the CMAS Battery on the Toshiba Satellite A135-S2386??!!