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.
Friday, March 24, 2006
CD-ROM drive disappeared from My Computer
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
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?
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
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.
Friday, February 10, 2006
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.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
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.
Friday, January 27, 2006
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.
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Toshiba suddenly shuts down by itself
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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