Very strange hard drive failure symptoms

A few days ago I had to repair a notebook with symptoms that didn’t look like a hard drive failure at all. But the problem was fixed after I replace the hard drive.

It was Toshiba Satellite A70-S249 notebook with the following problem.
When I press on the power button, the laptop starts up as usual and a red Toshiba logo appears on the screen. After a moment the logo disappears and the screen turns black without any faint image and flashing cursor. The blue light around the power button stays on and fans continue to spin normal but nothing appears on the screen. I noticed that the hard drive LED blinks green on the startup and after that shows no activity at all. After a closer inspection I noticed that the screen is not completely black (like dead black), it didn’t have any image on it but it had a very faint backlight (I would say about 3-5% of normal brightness). I was able to see that there is some backlight after I pressed on the lid close switch and the screen turned to completely black.

Here are my troubleshooting steps that I went through to find the problem.
First of all, I replaced the memory module and didn’t get any changes. Removed the wireless card, still had the same problem.
After that I removed the hard drive and started the computer. This time I got something. The notebook successfully passed the Toshiba screen and started looking for a boot device. I got some activity on the screen. To make sure that the notebook itself works fine, I booted it from Knoppix (live Linux CD) and successfully loaded the Linux operating system to the desktop. So, that’s the hard drive problem!
I installed the hard drive back in the laptop and tried to boot it again. The same failure occurred again; I got a black screen with a very faint backlight and no hard drive activity at all. I tested the hard drive with Hitachi DFT test and failed an advanced test. The problem is detected!
Finally I installed a new hard drive, reimaged the drive with a recovery DVD and got the laptop back up and running.
By the way, even though the customer’s hard drive failed the DFT test, I still was able to access it from another computer. The customer had important personal files on the failed drive. I connected it to our recovery desktop computer using IDE adapter. The “failed” hard drive was detected without any problem and I was able to recover the data.

IBM ThinkPad maintenance manuals

HMM will provide you instructions for troubleshooting, diagnostics, removal and replacement laptop hardware. All IBM HMMs are publicly available. You can find HMM for your laptop on the IBM website or you can follow the link below. All HMMs are in pdf format, so you can download them and use at your convenience. For hardware replacement instructions find “Removing and replacing a FRU” chapter.




IBM ThinkPad Computer Hardware Maintenance Manuals Year 2001-2006


IBM ThinkPad A2*m, A2*p


IBM ThinkPad A2*e


IBM ThinkPad A21e


IBM ThinkPad A22* (Wireless models)


IBM ThinkPad A30, A30p, A31, A31p


IBM ThinkPad G40, G41


IBM ThinkPad R30, R31


IBM ThinkPad R32


IBM ThinkPad R40, R40e


IBM ThinkPad R50/p, R51


IBM ThinkPad R50e, R51e, R52


IBM ThinkPad R60, R60e


IBM ThinkPad T20, T21, T22, T23


IBM ThinkPad T30


IBM ThinkPad T40/p, T41/p, T42/p


IBM ThinkPad T43


IBM ThinkPad T43/p


IBM ThinkPad T60, T60p


IBM ThinkPad X20, X21, X22, X23, X24


IBM ThinkPad X30, X31, X32


IBM ThinkPad X40


IBM ThinkPad X41


IBM ThinkPad X41 Tablet


IBM ThinkPad X60/s


IBM ThinkPad Z60m


IBM ThinkPad Z60t


IBM ThinkPad Z61e, Z61m


IBM ThinkPad Z61t






IBM ThinkPad Computer Hardware Maintenance Manuals Year 1997-2001


TransNote


i Series 1200, 1300, ThinkPad 130


i Series 1400, 1500


i Series 1400, 1500


IBM ThinkPad 240


IBM ThinkPad 240X


IBM ThinkPad 380, 385, 560, 760, 765


IBM ThinkPad 380XD/385XD


IBM ThinkPad 380Z


IBM ThinkPad 390


IBM ThinkPad 390E


IBM ThinkPad 390X


IBM ThinkPad 560X


IBM ThinkPad 560Z


IBM ThinkPad 570/E


IBM ThinkPad 600


IBM ThinkPad 600X


IBM ThinkPad 770



 
Get IBM laptop manuals here: IBM ThinkPad notebooks hardware maintenance manuals.
1. Select product type.
2. Select series.
3. Select subseries/model.
4. Click on “Go” button.
5. Click on “Manuals” tab on the top of the page.
6. Click on “Hardware maintenance manuals” link on the left.
7. Download hardware maintenance manual.

Fixing bad video on LCD screen

Here I’m going to post some laptop screen photos showing bad video output. I’ll explain what was wrong with the screen and how I fixed it. I plan to ad more examples as soon as I get new pictures. If you have your own example (and know how to fix it) please let me know and I’ll post it too.
Example 1.
Here’s a picture of Satellite M55 LCD screen I made this morning. I got this video output as soon as I started the laptop. There were a lot of vertical lines, and they were changing color without any pattern. To me it looked like Northern Lights (never seen in real life) :). The external monitor worked fine.

As soon as I applied some tension to the screen it changed the pattern. Some horizontal lines appeared in the middle of the LCD.

Here’s the difference. When I torque the screen, the image appears but it’s distorted with some horizontal lines running across the screen.
Reseating the video cable didn’t make any change and the problem was fixed after I replaced the LCD screen.
Example 2.
I took this picture from Toshiba Satellite M65. I think that this example is very typical. One day you wake up, turn on the laptop and see one or a few hair-like vertical lines in different colors.

When you move the LCD screen some lines might disappear or more lines appear on the screen. A video output on an external screen would be perfect, without any lines. Unfortunately, these lines indicate a screen problem. I’ve never seen this kind of video output caused by a bad video cable or bad FL inverter board. My laptop was fixed after I replaced the LCD screen.
Example 3.
The photo below comes from Toshiba Satellite 5205. The laptop displays identical vertical lines all over the LCD screen as soon as I turn it on. Sometimes these lines are red, sometimes they are blue, sometimes they become wider and change color to white.

The same pattern appears on the external monitor. It displays same vertical lines. When the same video defect appears on both monitors – internal LCD screen and external screen, then most likely it happens because of a bad video card. On some laptops the video card is integrated into the system board, on other models it’s a separate module.

In this example, the vertical lines were caused by a failed video memory on the system board. I’ve tested the video memory with Microscope utility and it failed the test. In Toshiba Satellite 5205 the video memory is integrated into the system board. To fix the problem, I’ll have to replace the board. (We do not have equipment to replace the memory module itself).
Example 4.
Here’s another example of a bad LCD screen. My bad! It wasn’t the LCD screen problem.

As soon as I turned on the laptop, I was getting these reddish marks on the LCD screen but not on the external monitor. Reseating and replacing the video cable didn’t help. The problem disappeared when I installed my test LCD screen. Yes, for some reason I wasn’t able to reproduce the problem on my test LCD screen. But the reddish video appeared again as soon as I replaced the screen. I guess it happened because the system board had some kind of intermittent problem with onboard video or video connector. Long story short, I had to replace the system board and it fixed the problem. Yep, I misdiagnosed this laptop.
Example 5.
Here’s one more example of a faulty LCD screen. The left half of the screen works just fine but the right side is completely white.

Example 6.
Here’s another laptop with a bad LCD screen. This time it’s a tablet PC.

Example 7.
This screen looks like the screen on the example 1. I hooked up an external monitor and the external video works perfectly fine.

Here’s the difference. When I torque the screen, the image appears but it’s distorted with some horizontal lines running across the screen.

After a few seconds the image washes away.

I had to replace the LCD screen.
Example 8.
This laptop displays inverted colors right from the startup. As you see, the Toshiba logo is light green instead of red. The background is light gray instead of black. The Intel logo should be blue on a white background but it is red on a black background.

When your laptop displays inverted colors as on the picture above, this is an indication of a bad screen. You’ll have to replace the screen.
Example 9.
Here are two more screens. In both cases this problem is related to the LCD screen, witch means the screen has to be replaced.
On the image below you see a white band running from the top of the screen to the bottom. This band appears right from the laptop startup and runs through the logo too.

On the following image only the left side of the screen is working properly. This problem is caused by faulty LCD screen.

Other post related to troubleshooting laptop video problems:
How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems
Taking apart notebook LCD screen
Replacing LCD screen inverter
The newly installed screen is not working

Display assembly diagram

Here is a simple diagram that will help you to understand how a notebook display assembly works and how an image appears on the screen. I’m not an artist and I tried my best drawing this diagram, so if you cannot see a laptop in this picture, don’t be mad.

A generic display assembly includes a very few parts and knowing them will help you to understand witch part can cause a problem if you laptop video not working properly.
Video cable. A video signal from the motherboard goes to the LCD screen through the video cable. The video cable connects to the motherboard (or video card) through the connector 1. The video cable connects to the LCD screen through the connector 2. The video cable (in most cases) is also responsible for supplying a necessary voltage for the FL inverter board. The video cable connects to the FL inverter board at the point 3.
FL inverter board. This board is responsible for converting low voltage DC power (point 3) to high voltage AC (point 4), necessary to light up the backlight bulb. If the FL inverter board is bad, the LCD screen (backlight bulb) will not light up when you turn on the laptop, but you still should be able to see a very dim image on the screen.
CCFL (backlight bulb). When the backlight bulb lights up, you can see an images on the LCD screen. In most cases the backlight bulb is a part of the LCD screen and if it’s bad, the entire screen has to be replaced. By the way, some specialized repair shops can replace the backlight bulb itself.
Lid close switch. The lid close switch is a small button that locates close to the display hinges. On some newer models there is no button, because the switch is magnetic. You can set up your laptop to go to a hibernation mode or to a standby mode when the LCD is closed. It’s done through power management software. These modes are triggered when the display is closed and the lid close switch is pressed down. If the LCD screen on your laptop will not light up when you open the display assembly, check the lid close switch is stuck inside (it might happen because the switch is dirty).
Related articles:
Fixing notebook video problems.
Disassemble LCD screen with water damage.
Screen inverter replacement.
Laptop has bad video on the screen.

Laptop turns on for a moment and shuts down

Today I was able to fix a “dead” notebook simply by reseating connectors. The customer brought in Compaq nx5000 notebook with the following complaint:
“Laptop shuts down on power up. When the power button is pushed, the laptop flashes green lights for several seconds and then powers down. Unit will not stay on with battery or when plugged in”.
I plugged the AC adapter and tried to turn on the laptop. After I pushed on the power button, fans started spinning and were active for a few seconds and laptop just turned itself off. The video never came on. I tried to power it on for a few times with the same result.
Here is how I fixed it.
First of all I tried simple stuff: remove the battery and start the laptop with AC adapter plugged in, reseat and swap the memory module, remove the hard drive, the DVD drive, the wireless card. Nothing helped to start the laptop normally. After that I went a little bit further. I opened up the laptop case, removed the LCD screen assembly and reseated the video card and… Surprise, surprise, the laptop started fine with an external monitor attached. Just in case I restarted it 3-4 times and each time I got video on the screen. After I assembled everything back, one more surprise was waiting for me. The laptop failed to boot again with the same symptoms. So, the only part that I added before it failed was the LCD screen assembly. I unplugged the video cable from the system board and the laptop started fine again with the external monitor. Now I know that the problem is somewhere inside the display assembly (of course, if the video connector on the system board is fine). The next logical step would be opening up the LCD display assembly and check if all connectors are seated properly. Bingo!!! I wasn’t very surprised, but I was very happy. The video cable was half-way out from the connector on the back of the LCD screen. The laptop started perfectly fine as soon as I plugged the video cable back in place. Fixed!
That was my first experience when improperly plugged video cable prevented entire system from booting.
Read more:
How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems
Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?

Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround

Today I received an email from Tony Sakariya who was experiencing a problem with the power jack on his Toshiba Satellite A75 laptop. He’s been able to fix the problem by relocating the power jack outside the laptop case away from the system board.
 
I would like to share with others a tip for repairing their Toshiba A75 laptop for the DC Jack and battery charge problem.
I have a Toshiba A75-S209 for a year now. After the first 3 months it developed the exact same problem. Battery would not charge and I had to twist and turn the power jack to make the connection. Since it was in warranty, I returned it and they repaired and sent it back to me. The problem recurred again after about 4 months and I sent it again and they repaired it and worked fine for 5 more months and it failed. This is a design flaw with Toshiba. Now that I am out of warranty, I decided to repair it myself.
Now here is what I want to share with others. Resoldering the power jack with a new one does solve the problem for a while but it will reoccur. Hence I decided to bring out a wire with the Jack outside. Of course it looks dirty but it is a permanent solution. I am attaching the photo of the repair I did. I got the DC jack from ebay and insulated it with a electrical insulation tape. Now it is working fine, I do the connection and disconnection on the dangling power jack outside the laptop and hence no chance of breaking the soldering outside.


• Coil the pair of wire one round through the ventilation grill before taking it out as shown in the picture above. This is to prevent any external shock or force being directly transmitted to the soldering joints.
• Now we need to connect a new DC Jack to other end of the wire. I purchased the new DC jack from  eBay for $6. Shown in the picture above the white wire is the positive terminal (+) and hence must connect to the inner ring of the DC Jack. Similarly the blue wire being the negative terminal (-) should connect to the outer ring of the DC jack. Refer the picture below on how the wires are soldered to the DC Jack. Be careful not to short the leads as they are very close.

• Now neatly wind a round of insulation tape over the wire and especially on the exposed DC Jack exterior. This will prevent any short-circuit and also give a better appearance.

Valued Comments.
Submitted by Binney:
The workaround relocates the jack externally. When I did this, a short occurred between the metal casing on the top cover (the one removed with the guitar pick). This happens if the solder repair is too tall. I covered my repair with electrical insulation tape and that fixed the problem. It took me quite some time to figure out where the short was and would like to save others the headache.
 
Comments #282, 286 submitted by Jake and John:
Size N: DC Power Jack #274-1576 from Radioshack works perfect and looks great. Costs $2.99, easier to solder, snugger fit, 5.5mm O.D. x 2.5mm I.D.
Here are some pictures of the end result of the repair with
the Radio Shack type jack. I added one of those quick release
key holder that I had lying around as a retention holder.
Here is what it looks like unplugged: Power tip unplugged.
Here is what it looks like with the adapter plugged in and
the key holder reattached: Power tip plugged.

Toshiba Satellite A105 battery charging problem

Today I got Toshiba Satellite A105-S2712 for repair with the battery charging problem. It is a new model and we do not have a lot of experience with these laptops. The customer complained that the laptop will not charge the battery when it is plugged into the AC outlet.
The laptop failure symptoms:
The laptop will not turn on when I try to start it from the battery. When the laptop is turned off and plugged into the AC outlet the battery charge LED doesn’t light up. I know that the battery is not charged and the LED should light up when I plug the laptop into the AC outlet. The laptop starts fine when it is plugged. When I move the mouse over the Toshiba Power Icon in the lower right corner, the balloon will pop up and there is a line in there: Battery Remaining: N/A.
The problem repair procedure:
You can easily fix the problem just by updating the BIOS. Toshiba says that the BIOS version should be at least v1.30. So, go to Toshiba website and click on Downloads. Select your laptop model and find any downloads for the BIOS. In the BIOS change history you will see the description of changes.
After I updated the BIOS, the battery charging problem disappeared.

Toshiba Satellite M35X, A70 or A75 locks up

If you own a Toshiba Satellite M35X, A70 or A75 laptop then you can experience the following problem. You laptop might lock up, freeze up or even reboot by itself when you touch the palm rest around the speakers area. It happens because of a static electricity discharge when your touch the laptop speakers. In some cases you will not even fill that discharge. The problem occurs because of improperly grounded top cover assembly. To fix the problem, it is necessary to install a new modified top cover assembly. If you laptop was made before January 2005 then most likely you have unmodified top cover. For example, I made some pictures from a Toshiba Satellite A75 top cover assembly. The top cover for Toshiba Satellite M35X is almost identical.
On these pictures you see unmodified top cover assembly for Toshiba Satellite A75. The foil runs from the speaker and from the touchpad to the metal chassis.


On these pictures you see a modified top cover assembly. The foil runs from the speaker and the touchpad, touches the metal chassis and ends on a screw stud.

On this picture I remove the metal bracket, so you can see where the foil tape is connected.


I think it is possible to make this modification yourself. All you need is to find a foil and run it as it shown on the pictures. I have never done it myself, so not sure about the result.
Here are some other problems found in these models.
Power jack issues: Toshiba Satellite M35X and Satellite A75 power jack and battery charge problem
Overheating: Why my Toshiba laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without warning?

CD-ROM drive disappeared from My Computer

One day you turn on your computer and cannot see the CD-ROM or the DVD-ROM drive in the My Computer window anymore. This problem is very common for laptop and notebook computers and might be caused by a failed drive or by corrupted software. You can try the following repair steps before you decide that your drive is bad.

I found this solution on Microsoft website and it helped me many times to fix the problem with a missing DVD/CD-ROM drive. I always try removing the CD/DVD drive from the device manager first and if it doesn’t fix the problem I go with removing the registry entry. Method 1 worked very well for me.
If the above mentioned methods didn’t work for you, you can try to reseat the optical drive. Overtime the CD-ROM drive connector might get oxidized and a simple drive reseating can fix the problem. Try to remove the drive from the laptop and put it back. See if it will fix the problem.
You can also try to boot from any bootable CD to see if you laptop recognize the CD-ROM drive on BIOS level. Put any bootable CD (Live Linux CD, Windows XP CD, Windows 2000 CD, etc) into the CD-ROM drive and change the boot order to start from the CD-ROM drive. If you laptop starts to boot from the CD, then the drive is recognized in BIOS and most likely it operates properly. In this case look for a software problem. It might be necessary to reload the operating system to fix the software problem. If you cannot boot your laptop from a bootalbe CD, then the drive might be bad itself.

How to troubleshoot and fix video problems

Here are some tips and tricks for troubleshooting and fixing laptop video problems. Video issues are very common within portable computers and with the following tips you should be able to detect and eliminate basic laptop video problems.
Laptop LCD screen has a faint image.

Look at the LCD screen very closely and check if you can see a faint image on the screen. It’s possible that the LCD lid close switch stuck in the “closed” position and the backlight stays off even when you open the LCD screen or turn on the laptop. The switch turns off the backlight when you close the LCD display to save the laptop battery power. Check the LCD lid close switch. Usually it is a small plastic pin located close to the LCD hinges. Try to tap on the switch a few times to turn on the backlight. If after tapping on the LCD lid close switch the backlight stays on, you fixed the problem.
It is also possible that after tapping on the LCD lid close switch the backlight works fine, you see a normal video on the screen for some time and then the backlight turns itself off again. In this case I would blame the FL inverter board. Try to reseat cables on both end of the FL inverter to make a better contact between the cables and the FL inverter board. If it doesn’t help I would try to replace the FL inverter board.

Laptop LCD screen is solid white color.

Most likely it is just a bad connection between the LCD display and the system board. I would try reseating the video cable connector on the back of the LCD screen first and check if it fixes the problem. After that I would try reseating the video cable connector on the system board. I would also try reseating cables if there is no video on the LCD screen at all.
The video on the LCD screen is garbled.

Try to connect the LCD screen to an external monitor. If the external video is fine, you have a problem with the LCD screen or the LCD video cable. You can try to fix the problem by reseating the video cable on the back of the LCD and on the system board.
If you see the same garbled video output on the external monitor most likely it is not the LCD screen problem. In this case the system board (with onboard video) is bad or the video card is bad.
I understand that these tips will not cover all video problems with portable computers. If you have a different problem, you are welcome to leave a comment and I will try to help you if I can.
Here’s a notebook display assembly diagram.
Related articles:
Fixing notebook LCD screen with water damage.
Screen inverter replacement. Fixing laptop backlight problem
Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?
Laptop screen shows strange colors. What could be wrong?

How to connect 2.5 IDE hard drive to PC

To connect a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer you have to use a Laptop IDE Hard Drive Adapter. You can easily find this adapter on the Internet for $10-$15. This adapter is very handy if you want to scan a laptop hard drive for viruses and spyware using antivirus software installed on a desktop PC, transfer data from a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer or create a ghost image from one hard drive to another. I also use this adapter if a laptop hard drive has failed and I have to recover data from it.
When you connect a laptop IDE adapter, a desktop IDE cable and a laptop hard drive to each other, make sure to connect pin 1 on the hard drive, pin 1 on the desktop IDE cable to pin 1 on the adapter. On a desktop IDE cable the side painted in red goes to pin 1.

On a laptop hard drive there are 2 groups of pins. One group has 43 pins and the other has 4 pins. The pin 1 is located on the side closer to the group of 4 pins.

After you’ve assembled everything together, connect the IDE cable to a desktop PC. Connect it to a free IDE connector on the system board. When you start the computer, you should see the laptop drive in BIOS and in Windows. You can treat this drive as a regular hard drive.

 
In the next post I explain how to access data using an external USB enclosure.

How to remove BIOS password from Toshiba

You can use this plug to remove or clear the BIOS password from older Toshiba laptops. I tested the plug and it successfully cleared the BIOS password from Toshiba Satellite 1415, Satellite 1800 and Satellite Pro 6100. Using the plug you should be able to remove a BIOS password from most Pentium III Toshiba laptops and from some Pentium IV laptops. To make a password removal tool you need a DB25 plug from a parallel printer cable (cable with a plug that you can take apart), a solder gun and 30-40 minutes of your time.

Cut a DB25 connector off an old parallel printer cable and remove screws to disassemble the plug. The wires should be long enough to strip the ends and solder them.
 
All pins on the connector are marked from 1 to 25 and you should connect and solder together the wires from the following pins:



1+5+10
2+11
3+17
4+12
6+16
7+13
8+14
9+15



 
 
On some connectors pins 18 through 25 are already connected. If they are not connected, connect them. Do not connect a wire from pins 18-25 and a ground wire to anything, just insulate it with electrical tape and leave alone.

Carefully fold the wires, put wires inside the DB25 connector and assemble the connector.

 
How to use the Toshiba BIOS password removal tool: connect the plug to the parallel port on your Toshiba laptop and turn on the laptop. You should bypass the BIOS password and the laptop will boot directly to the operating system.
You can find and purchase the BIOS removal plug on eBay. Before you buy, make sure it works with your Toshiba laptop.
UPDATE for all Toshiba owners:
Some newer Toshiba laptops can start asking for the BIOS password even if the password has never been set. This affects the following models: Satellite A100, A105, A130, A135, A200, A205, L35, M200, M205, P100, P105, P200, P205 and probably some other models.
Before you can use the laptop, the BIOS password has to be cleared.

Toshiba Satellite M35X A75 power jack problem

A bad connection between DC-IN power jack on the system board and the system board is a very common problem with Toshiba Satellite M35X and Toshiba Satellite A70/A75 notebooks. If your laptop is out of warranty, then you can fix the problem by resoldering DC-IN jack on the system board. If it’s still under warranty, it would be fixed at no charge to you.
Problem symptoms:

Laptop randomly shuts down without any warning.
Power LED and battery charge LED start flickering when you wiggle the power cord or the AC adapter tip on the back or your laptop.
The battery will not get charged.
When you plug AC adapter, the laptop appears to be dead and there is no LED activity at all (DC-IN jack on the system board is broken).

To fix the problem, you have to take your laptop apart, remove the system board to resoleder or replace the DC-IN jack.
Take a closer look at the power jack on the system board with a magnifying glass. In most cases you get the power problem because of a bad connection between the DC jack and the system board, you’ll see a crack between the DC jack connector and the system board.
Here is an example of Toshiba Satellite M35X power jack. The crack occurs between the DC jack pin and the system board.


In some cases the connection is good, but the DC jack is bad itself. You can find a new DC jack for Toshiba Satellite M35X and Toshiba Satellite A70/A75 laptops on eBay. Search for DC jack M35X or DC jack A75.
How to resolder power jack yourself.
UPDATE:
Sometimes, after you replace the jack, you can see that the system board doesn’t get power at all. The battery will not charge and the power LED will not light when you plug in the AC adapter. So, here’s a possible explanation.
When a connection between the positive pin and the motherboard breaks (cracks), the power jack gets loose. You can feel it when you plug in the adapter plug. A loose power jack can damage the trace inside the hole in the system board. Take a look at the picture.

As you see, the positive pin goes through the hole in the system board and you solder it on the top side. Right? What if the trace between the top side and the bottom side is broken somewhere inside the hole? I’ve seen it before a few times. In this case everything looks nice and clean on the top side. When you plug in the AC adapter, you get normal voltage readings between “+” and “-“ pins on the top side, but the power DOESN’T go to the motherboard at all, because there is no connection between the top and bottom sides. Test with a multimeter if there is a connection between the top and the bottom.
If the trace inside the hole is broken you still can fix it. You can run a wire to connect the top and the bottom sides. Be careful not to short something on the board.
Update:
Here’s another solution to fix the power jack problem, it shows how to relocate the power jack outside the laptop base. Check it out here: Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround.
When you repair a loose power jack, it’s a good idea to check the jack on both sides of the motherboard. When you remove the top cover from a Toshiba Satellite A70/A75 laptop you can see only points where the jack is soldered to the motherboard as it shown on the second picture in this post, but you cannot see the jack itself as it shown on the first picture.
Removing the motherboard from Satellite A70/A75 laptop is a good idea because the jack itself might has a broken “+” pin, as it shown on the picture below. If the “+” broke off the base, you’ll have to replace the jack.

 
UPDATE:
Today I received another well written and well documented guide about fixing Toshiba Satellite M35X power connector issue. This guide was submitted by Stephen Macuch. Thank you Stephen for great pictures and detailed instructions.

Acer Service Manuals and Documentation

If you are looking for Acer laptop service manuals, here they are.
I found these manuals published on one of the Russian sites.
You’ll find service manuals and FRU documentation for the following laptops:
Acer Aspire 1610 Series [ 4.5 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 3680 / 5570 / 5580 [ 4.6 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 4930 / 4930G Series [ 4.8 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5050 / 3050 Series [ 11.7 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5110 / 5100 / 3100 [ 7.0 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5520 / 5220 Series [ 3.5 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5530 / 5530G Series [ 7.4 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5680 / 5630 / 3690 / Acer TravelMate 4280 / 4230 / 2490 [ 7.7 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5710 / 5710G / 5310 / 5310G [ 3.2 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5720 / 5720G [ 3.4 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5920G [ 4.0 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5930 / 5930Z / 5730Z Series [ 28.6 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 6920 [ 18.9 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 6930 / 6930G [ 8.8 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 6935 Series [ 23.2 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 7520 / 7220 Series [ 3.7 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 7720 / 7720G [ 3.4 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 7730 / 7730G [ 7.1 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 9420 / 9410 / 7110 / Acer TravelMate 5620 / 5610 / 5110 [ 9.1 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 9920 [ 6.6 Mb ]
Acer Ferrari 3000SG [ 3.4 Mb ]
Acer Ferrari 4000 [ 4.7 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 2410 [ 2.7 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 4070 / 4080 [ 3.9 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 4210 / 4270 / 4670 / Acer Aspire 5620 / 5670 [ 6.2 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 4220 / 2480 / Acer Aspire 5600 [ 20.7 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 540 Series [ 7.0 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 5720 / 5320 / Acer Extensa 5620 / 5220 [ 29.3 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 5730 / Acer Extensa 5630 Series [ 23.4 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 5710 / 5310 / Acer Extensa 5610 / 5210 [ 29.1 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 7720 / 7320 [ 37.7 Mb ]
Acer Travelmate 7730 / 7730g [ 8.3 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 8100 [ 4.5 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 240 / 250 [ 5.1 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 4720 / 4720G / 4720Z / 4320 [ 3.1 Mb ]
Схема на Acer Aspire 4720Z (Z01)-E3C [ 0.9 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 4745 [ 10.6 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 8935G [ 10.5 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5110 / 5100 / 3100 / TravelMate 5510 / 5210 / Extens 5410 / 5010 [ 14.0 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 9300 / 7000 / Acer TravelMate 7510 [ 9.7 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 6530 [ 3.8 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 4520 / 4220 / 4520G / 4220G [ 9.1 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5738G / 5738ZG / 5738Z / 5738 / 5338 / 5536 / 5536G / 5236 [ 19.4 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 2930 [ 10.4 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 420 [ 8.9 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 6492 [ 4.4 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 3000 [ 4.7 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 4920 / 4920G [ 4.8 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 4530 [ 6.8 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 4715z / 4315 [ 26 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 2480 / 3260 / 3270 [ 4.7 Mb ]
Acer TravelMate 4720 / 4320 [ 14.0 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5935 / 5935G [ 8.4 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 8930 [ 18.6 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 8920 [ 15.5 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 3810T / 3810TZ [ 13.5 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5810T / 5810TG / 5810TZ / 5410T [ 34.5 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 5737Z [ 7.2 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 1710 [ 4.6 Mb ]
Acer Aspire 2920 / 2920Z / 2420 [ 16.9 Mb ]
Acer Ferrari 5000 [ 17.5 Mb ]
Acer Aspire One [ 5.5 Mb ]
All above mentioned manuals are available here.

Toshiba suddenly shuts down by itself

“My Toshiba laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without any warning. Sometimes it works fine for hours, sometimes it shuts down in 10-15 minutes.” This complaint we hear from our customers over and over again. About 15-20% of all Toshiba laptops we get for repair, suffer from an overheating problem. Yep, OVERHEATING!
This is one of the most common problems with Toshiba laptops we deal with.
Indications of laptop overheating problem:

The keyboard and the bottom of your laptop are very hot when the laptop is working.
The CPU fans are working all the time at maximum rotation speed and operate much louder than before.
The laptop suddenly shuts down by itself without warning. When it just started, the laptop was shutting down after 1-2 hours and how it shuts down after 5-10 minutes of operation.
The laptop works fine when it runs idle, but shuts down as soon as you start using any memory demanding applications (DVD player, image editing software, video editing software, etc.).


Solution:
If the CPU heatsink is not clogged with dust and lint completely, you can use canned air and just blow it inside the laptop through the openings on the bottom and on the sides. It’s nice as a precaution measure, but it might not work if your laptop already has a problem and the heatsink is completely clogged.

Open the laptop case, so you can access the CPU fan and the heatsink. In some cases you can access the heatsink through the latch on the bottom of the laptop. Sometimes you have to open the laptop case all the way down.
Carefully disconnect the fan cables on the system board and remove the fan. If the fan makes unusual sound when it spins (grinding sound), I would recommend to replace the fan.
Clean the fan and the heatsink with compressed air.
I would also recommend removing old thermal grease from the CPU and applying new grease for better heat conductivity.

UPDATE: I just received a nice tip from MC N’Colorado. I think it could be useful for all of you with guys:
I decided to use a shop vac to suck the dust out and it worked. I tested it by letting the machine run all night and it worked. It’s been a couple of weeks now and I’m glad I did it. I was ready to take the machine apart, now I’m glad I didn’t. I’d suggest you use a heavy duty shop vac to clean out the fan and heat sinks first.
I agree. Try to fix the problem without taking the laptop apart first but I would recommend using a powerful air compressor instead of a vacuum cleaner.
If your laptop is still under warranty, you can take it to any Toshiba Authorize Service Provider and fix the problem at no charge to you.
Toshiba Satellite A15 Clogged Heatsink

 
Toshiba Satellite A35 Clogged Heatsink

 
Toshiba Satellite P15 Clogged Heatsink. Absolute champion!
 

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