Toshiba A60 Not Booting - No HDD Activity or Screen only fan

Hi Folks,

If this is the wrong forum for this problem would a moderator/admin kindly move it to the correct one - thanks!

I have an elderly Toshiba Satellite Pro A60 EN that worked the last time it was switched on.

Came to switch it on today and nothing except a whirring fan.

Blue power light illuminated, green power cable (?) and ON light, orange battery light, NO HDD or WiFi lights on front panel.

On pressing power button, CD drive clicks several times but screen is completely blank and no HDD activity (or lights), only the fan works.

Restarting machine and pressing F1 or F2 or F5 or F8 or F10 or F12 or 'Delele" doesn't take me into BIOS.

To all intents and purposes, laptop appears completely dead apart from fan activity and initial CD access.

Memory, power lead and battery have been removed and power button held down to eliminate static. Mains lead plugged in (no memory) and still nothing - not even any BIOS Beep Codes.

Any ideas or is this now heading to landfill/recycling

Zaph

 

http://support.toshiba.com/support/viewContentDetail?soid=627009

above is How to access bios on a toshiba either before or after xp, read through

http://forums.toshiba.com/tshb/atta...TOSHIBA Satellite A60 Series Users Manual.pdf

above is your user manual, section 3-12 is internal product recovery

section 6-1 is a table of meanings for various lights and their colors.

================

first, turn off and restart pc to see if it is cleared

second, attach another monitor to see if the monitor is bad

let me know the results of above two steps and we will see what can go from there.

 

Hi Elizabeth,

Many thanks. I connected the laptop to an external monitor.

Pressing ESC for 3 sec on power-up took me into BIOS Setup (enter date then time) and machine then booted into Windows after these had been set.

Cycling through FN / F5 got both LCD and external monitor on.

Powered down the PC. Removed video cable. Powered back on - PC now works with laptop's LCD screen.

Is this a failure of the on-board CMOS battery (and hence I'll need to replace it) or does this machine have a rechargeable CMOS battery?

I've left the laptop plugged in and 'ON' for the moment in case it has a rechargeable CMOS battery.

One VERY annoying thing is the fan is both on constantly and cycles every few seconds from low to higher speed (so you get a constant whirr - whirr - whirr - whirr - whirr sound). Any way to fix this?

Thanks for your help thus far.

Zaph

 

Elizabeth,

The link you provided to d/load the manual tells me that the RTC battery (it doesn't call it a CMOS battery) is a Lithium-Ion rechargeable and that the laptop's battery (or, I'm guessing the mains when plugged in) recharges this battery.

Now the laptop hasn't been used to my knowledge for several years, so I'm guessing that the Li-ion battery is now useless.

Would you happen to have a link to a tear-down so that I can have a go at replacing this battery - otherwise it is scrap the laptop as it won't be worthwhile paying a Toshiba Repair Center to replace it.

Cheers,

Zaph

 

To my knowledge a lithium battery should be good still as there is not a memory set on a lithium battery, so it just keeps going.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/53660-35-laptop-notebook-disassembly-hardware-repair-guide

http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/ToshibaA65/satA65_1.htm

above might help, but it should be in your manual also.

 

ALSO, since it is now booting run checkdisk from within windows:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265/en-us
How to perform checkdisk

if you do not have Recovery Console installed, then run from the start menu

go to start, run, type in cmd

in cmd type in chkdsk c: /r and press enter

type Y for yes and press enter

type exit and press enter

restart pc, allow checkdisk to finish and run again

this is a lengthy process depending on the size of your harddrive, the percentages will fluctuate, this is normal, you can view report in the event viewer.
go to start>run> and type in eventvwr.msc, click on the applications directory, and in the right hand panel choose winlogon.

 

Third reply,

the cmos battery should be replaced, they are only 3 bucks or so, and they are not rechargeable.

http://www.computer-hardware-explained.com/cmos-battery.html

read above about the cmos battery

 

Hi again!

You are slightly puzzling me with your last post .

Are you saying that there is a CMOS battery as well as the lithium battery for the RTC?

Reading the manual - I was under the impression that there was only one battery on the motherboard to maintain the RTC and BIOS settings - and Toshiba had fitted a rechargeable Lithium-ion (like SONY have in my VAIO laptop) instead of the conventional silver-oxide button battery (usually a CR2032). Page 6-4 only refers to two batteries - the 8 or 12 cell 'battery' and the Real Time Clock (RTC) battery, page 6-12 says that the RTC battery only works for a max of 60 days (the laptop has not been used for far longer than that) and page 6-9 says to recharge the RTC battery for 18hrs to recharge a fully-discharged battery.

I have now had the laptop 'ON' for the past 12 hours continuously (the Toshiba manual says to give 18 hrs to recharge the Lithium-ion RTC battery).

Rgds

Zaph

 

https://www.google.com/#q=is+there+a+cmos+battery+in+a+Toshiba+Satellite+Pro+A60+EN

above seems to say it needs a cmos battery, I am going to go reread the sections you quoted in your manual. Back in a sec.

 

above is from here

so it is a cmos just a different name

 

third reply, Sorry, should have got all my reply down at one time,

https://www.google.com/#q=how+to+recharge+an+RTC+battery

above is a search page on recharging the rtc battery, upon reading the battery section in your manual and reading a couple of threads on the above search page, it seems that you are correct the battery will recharge itself while the pc is on and charging.

you can tell if it is not holding a charge if the date/time keeps fluctuating after charging , this is generally an indicator that the cmos battery needs replacing.

hope this cleared the issue up a little,

 

Yep - got that (see my post, #4 this thread).

Having had the laptop "on charge" now for 20hrs turned it off and going to see if the RTC battery is holding a charge.

Thanks for your help sp far.

Zaph

BTW, how is the search going for an XP pro 32-bit .iso going? I may be able to help. Tried to PM you about it but I need something like 10 or 15 posts to PM someone else on the forum *shrugs*

 

I do not need an ISO, I have dell reinstall cds for all of my xp pcs, 2 laptops and 2 desktops.

check your pm's

 

Hi again,

Sorry - can't reply to your PM directly as only 5 posts (6 after this one) - so here is my reply in the open forum

Re-reading the posts in the relevant thread it was someone else asking after the XP .iso image, not yourself.

I had a 32-bit (possibly 64-bit) HP-branded version of XP Pro but we were in the middle of a house move (now aborted) and when I had a look for the above disc, couldn't locate it (must be safely packed away in a box somewhere) - anyway, the point is moot as it wasn't you who required the image.

Thanks for your help/advice with the A60 - now booting up fine into XP. Will see if I can now sell it on flea bay as I have no use for the machine and it is taking up room in my IT cupboard. If not sold as a whole machine, I could cannibalise it for parts (probably get more that way).

Take care,

ZaphodB

 

great news, have a good holiday week!