When I turn on my laptop it starts booting and then the screen goes blank
Hi, I seem to be having a strange problem with my Toshiba M35-S456 (Special Edition) laptop. I have had it for a little over a year with no problems at all. Yesterday I was using the laptop as usual and left it for about 15 minutes powered on. When I came back the screen was blank. There was no response from the mouse or keyboard so I tried rebooting by pressing down the power button. After rebooting I saw the “In touch with Toshiba” screen as usual and then the screen went blank again! This keeps repeating on rebooting and I cannot go any further. All my LEDs work fine, I can hear the fan running fine, the CD drive makes the usual sounds but the laptop does not go any further after the Toshiba screen. I have been using laptops and desktops for a few years now and never seen such a problem. Kindly advise on what the problem could be and if there is a solution. Thanks.
First of all, connect an external monitor to the VGA port on the laptop and restart the laptop. Check if you can get any video output on the external monitor. Try to use a combination of keys that allows switching between the internal and external video output. For most Toshiba laptops it would be Fn+F5. Press the keys a few times and see if you can switch the video output back to the internal screen.
It is possible that a failed hard drive prevents the laptop from booting normally. You can try to remove the hard drive and start the laptop. Check if you can pass “In touch with Toshiba” screen. If you can access the wireless card, I would try to remove it too. I’ve seen before that a failed wireless card causing a similar problem.
After you removed the hard drive, try to boot the laptop from any bootable CD (Windows 2000, Windows XP, Live Linux CD, etc.) to check if you can get the laptop to display any video.
If the laptop boots with video when the hard drive is removed, then most likely it is your problem. You can download Hitachi drive fitness test and test the drive.
Buy the way, can you boot into the Safe Mode at all? Try it by pressing F8 on start up and selecting the safe mode option.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Rudy,
Did you ever find out how to remedy your problem? I have a similar situation with my Toshiba Satellite. I’ve tried booting in Safe Mode with the same problem – it brings up the Toshiba screen then the Windows XP screen (while it’s loading it) and then nothing. I also tried the Enable VGA mode option in that same “Windows Advanced Options Menu” screen (by pressing F8 before XP loads). I also tried the using the “Last known Good Configuation” option and same result (also same thing occurred after hooking to another monitor).
I can tell the screen is still on but it’s like it has no Video device and doesn’t know how to get it installed without help. I’ve tried using my Toshiba restoration discs – unfortunately since the computer came with an older win OS – it’s not really much help. I would love to simply try booting from my XP disc but my friend just snapped it half yesterday by accident (don’t ask). Needless to say I find myself in quite the pickle. Do you or anyone else have a suggestion for me here that won’t cost me an arm and a leg to purchase another Retail WinXP Disc?
May 16th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
I have a Toshiba satellite A55 that boots up but the screen freezes during the boot up. I know that it completes the boot process because the windows sound plays and the network card lights up. I have tried useing another monitor and it also freezes so it can’t be the screen.
March 6th, 2007 at 8:11 am
laptopfreak,
Thanks for the reply (and the website!). I have already vacuumed out the area around the heat sink and its fan. Also, Dell’s hardware-check program shows all hardware is working properly, including the fan speed control, the processor temperature gauge, and everything associated with the display.
Regarding the screen dimming: if the inverter is to blame, then why does the screen look fine until it reaches a certain point in the boot sequence? I think the big clue here is that message about “Entering Manufacturer Mode”, because right after I see that, then the screen immediately goes dim and the fan starts whizzing away. It’s like the laptop can’t remember what type of computer it is, so instead it uses some totally unsuitable default parameters.
My suspicion is this has something to do with static electricity. Why else would the problem self-heal, just by letting the laptop sit for a day or so?
March 5th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Steve,
This part sounds like you might have a faulty screen inverter.
But I’m not sure about “Also the cooling fan keeps whirring away like mad”. Overheating? Maybe the heat sink is clogged with dust?
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Hi,
I have a intermittent problem with a Dell Latitude CPxH that seems to show some combination of the symptoms in this thread. Much of the time it boots just fine. But at random intervals, it does not boot normally: after a pause of 30 seconds or so, the cooling fan kicks into high speed, then the LCD screen reports something about “Entering Manufacturer Mode”, then it shows Windows XP initializing… at normal brightness for just a split second, then the screen becomes very, very dim as the boot completes. I can log in and operate Windows normally, but the display remains ultra-dim and practically imperceptible. Also the cooling fan keeps whirring away like mad. Sometimes if I just let the laptop sit for a day it starts working properly again. I’ve also “fixed” it by reseating the hard drive–but that may just be coincidence. What’s going on here?
I should add that today (for the first time) the Latitude suddenly dimmed out while it was being used. I shut it down (by squinting hard at the screen under a bright light to perceive the right buttons to click), and upon trying to reboot, I got the bad sequence above.
February 28th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Pete,
Check if the hard drive appears in the BIOS. If not, reseat the hard drive and test the laptop again. If still nothing, most likely you have a failed hard drive.
You can run Hitachi’s drive fitness utility (link in the “useful links” on the right) to test the hard drive.
February 27th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Hello,
I have a question about a Dell inspiron 1100 notebook. The other day I went to use it after it had been on for about two days and i flipped open the screen only to see it blank. I pressed some keys and moved the mouse but still nothing occurred. When i rebooted it a message came up saying the hard drive disk can not be found. The boot sequence is in proper order, and i cant seem to find what is wrong with the device. Any ideas?
February 19th, 2007 at 6:22 am
This problem is common on this particular model of laptop (look up m35x settlement or m35x lawsuit in google). It’s something to do with some kind of static electricity discharge which kills the machine.
Toshiba have only recently admitted that they sold thousands of these faulty laptops in 2004-2005 in the US and have taken responsibility for it by giving a warranty extention that runs from Nov 2006 to Nov 2007. I’m not sure if UK-bought systems are covered (mine was purchased in the USA)
I sent mine in last year when it broke (2 weeks out of warranty!), but they wanted nearly £400 for a repair after diagnosing that the motherboard needed replacing. I said forget it, grudgingly paid the £35 diagnostic fee, and bought a Dell XPS. I kept the Toshiba notebook in a drawer as I had a feeling there might be a favourable (but lengthy) settlement, and sent it in again last week as part of the extended settlement warranty. They replaced the keyboard, upper case, main pcb, and hard drive connector. I used it for one day, and all of a sudden the screen went blank again, and same problem. I’m now on the phone as I write this, being passed around from department to department while they figure out if I’m entitled to another repair.
Toshiba’s UK customer service division knows about the lawsuit, but I’m not entirely sure if they cover laptops purchased in the UK. Worth giving them a call anyway. Try the 0870 tech support number a few times, and try 01932825095, as their tech support line seems to be a bit random as to who actually knows about the settlement warranty (hence my current passing around)
I’ve boycotted all Toshiba products after this ordeal. I’m sure they won’t miss me, and I sure as hell won’t miss them! Their after-sales marketing team should use this as a great case study in how NOT to treat customers. When you have a large number of laptops from a particular range failing with the same problem just out of warranty, you should do a recall + replace, not force users to take you to court to get a result 12-18 months down the line. Feel free to pass this info on wherever you read of peoples’ woes with these Toshiba Satellite Notebooks.
January 25th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Ninja Pirate,
then it must be a bad motherboard. Nothing else left.
January 24th, 2007 at 4:59 am
Hi Laptop Freak,
I have tried a brand new stick of RAM however the freeze is still there. I tested it with no additional hardware connected, just the screen and battery.
January 16th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Ninja Pirate,
The same error code like for Satellite M35X. This error means that the laptop cannot detect any memory, but as soon as you install it, the laptop freezes. I think you might have a bad memory stick. Can you find a test RAM to see if it fixes the problem?
January 16th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Hi Laptop Freak,
Yes it does beep when i remove the RAM from the laptop.
1-3-3-1 beeps if that helps.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Ninja Pirate,
Will you get a beep error if you start the laptop without RAM? I believe Satellite M35X will beep without RAM, what about your laptop?
January 14th, 2007 at 6:37 am
I’ve got a Toshiba Equium M49X-149 (its seems to be very similar to the Satellite M35X) and was burning a CD in Windows when the system rebooted. Now when i switch it on i get the Toshiba boot screen but it freezes there, sometimes i can hit escape and it displays hardware info, with the last line being ‘Mouse Initialised’. Hitting F2 or F12 does nothing and the only way to turn the system off is by holding the power button for 5 seconds.
I have removed the HDD, DVD drive, wireless card and RAM. I have also stripped the system down and re-seated all connections without any success. All lights come on, the battery seems to be charging still and i have removed (and re-installed) the internal battery in a hope clearing the CMOS might have helped, but nope.
Any ideas? do i have a fancy paperweight now
??
December 10th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
I was going to reboot my Laptop Toshiba M35-S456 from the recovery CD witch came with this machine and the system is telling me “WRONG MACHINE”. Do you have any advice for it? Thank you. Also, I tied to run the CD and the eror is this: “This Recovery and Applications CD is not configured to work with this machine (Portable PC) This CD is not for Satelite M35…” What is going on, you think? Please advice.
December 10th, 2006 at 11:19 am
I am trying to hook up an external monitor on my Compaq Presario 2105 laptop and it isn’t working for some reason. The Radeon IGP 320m clearly supports it as its also showing two monitors in display settings. I’ve tried a couple different things and it isn’t working.
I have plugged the monitor into the port and it seems to be recognized, however choose Apply and it doesn’t work.
Sometimes as well when I have tried to put the plug into the VGA port it actually turns off the current display even though Display Settings shows only one active monitor. I’ve also tried rebooting with the monitor plugged in and can’t see anything on either monitor.
Could it be a problem where they have to have the same resolution? Or is my VGA port not working correctly for some reason? I know the driver is up to date.
Is there perhaps a BIOS setting? I haven’t looked yet but don’t see why that should impact things since Windows shows dual monitor support.
December 4th, 2006 at 1:11 am
Dani,
I think you might have a bigger problem then just a failed fan. I’m not sure about Fujitsu notebooks, but I’m pretty sure that on most laptops you still can get video on the screen even with a failed fan. The laptop might shut down after a while because of overheating, but you still should see the display. I cannot say what is wrong with your computer basing on the failure description you provided in the comment.
December 3rd, 2006 at 4:07 pm
I have a problem with my laptop. I own a Fujitsu notebook. When i press the power button, I hear a sound but nothing comes on the screen, its just black. I think its the fan inside that i am hearing. It does this for a while until i turn it off. Please advise me on what I should do. Thank you
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:25 pm
So yeah, I had the same problem. It happened once before then all the sudden it turned on just fine. Then today it happened again, so I took out the hard drive, reseated the RAM and that seemed to fix it. I think that was just coincidence though.
October 17th, 2006 at 4:16 am
Thanks for your very dedicated explanation of the video card issue (I understood it all). I still haven’t connected the laptop to the external monitor but, i’m going to, and I’ll tell you the results ASAP.
Thanks again
I’ll keep in touch
October 16th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Leroy,
Even though it’s a NVIDIA geforce video card and it’s has a dedicated memory, it’s still a part of the motherboard. It’s permanently soldered to the motherboard. That’s what I mean by saying the video card is integrated into the system board.
If the video card is bad, you’ll have to replace the entire board, unless you can find a super-duper technician who can replace the card (or the video memory).
October 16th, 2006 at 4:28 am
Hi, being the video card a nvidia geforce, it stills completly integrated into the Sys Board?.
I tried to connect the monitor once before but nothing happened i’m going to try again, must probably is not software issue it has all the look of a hardware issue.
Thanks for the help, I’ll connect the monitor and I’ll Tell you the results
October 15th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
Leroy,
If the laptop displays green vertical lines even during the boot process (before the OS is loaded), then it’s not a software issue. Connect an external monitor and start the laptop again. Can you see the same green lines on the external screen? If yes, then I would say it’s the video card related issue. Unfortunately, Toshiba Satellite M35 has a video card integrated into the system board. So if the video card is bad you’ll have to replace the entire system board.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:22 am
Hi Again guys
ok specifically the laptop is having green vertical lines all over the booting process, some times the machine starts windows but besides the green lines the resolution and quality of the image is the lowest of the lowest I have ever seen. When I go to device manager the video card icon has the exclamation ” ! ” symbol on it. It could be a damage video card, if so is it integrated to the motherb.? if so Do I need to change the whole MB?.
Thanks for the assistance and sorry for the english
Leroy
October 11th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Franco,
I afraid that’s could be a bad motherboard or a bad video memory. Sorry, cannot give you a better solution. It’s impossible to troubleshoot this kind of problems over the Internet.
October 11th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Yes, is the boot screen, when I press power on button, comes first bios screen, asking for login/ássword, on this screen , even before clicking to log and go on booting, the logo of intel/centrino comes a little dirty, anything I put on login screen freezes the notebook, took everything apart, tryed without cd, without hd, etc… nothing worked out yet… thsnks for the assistance.
October 11th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Franco, Leroy,
Guys, can you give a better description of the problem that you experience?
Franco, what boot login screen you cannot bypass? Is it BIOS password screen?
Leroy, what is “the same problem”?
October 10th, 2006 at 8:17 am
OK I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM WITH MY TOSHIBA M35 S456, I COULD LOG INTO WINDOWS A FEW TIMES BUT STILL THE SAME PROBLEM THAT YOU GUYS HAVE
October 9th, 2006 at 2:23 am
Mine occurs the same thing, no answers yet. Mine comes a boot login screen, anything I put on login freezes it, I took out the harddisk, the cd rom, memory, wifi, nothing goes up… even changing the memory, please someone HELP, it seems to be a corrupted bios or something like. thanks.
June 14th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Thanks for the earlier reply. I tried hooking up to an external monitor…dont see anything on it, not even the in touch with toshiba screen. i tried putting my ram in another slot but that didnt help. now after booting i get the toshiba screen and then blue vertical lines across the laptop lcd. i’m beginning to suspect that it is a video card problem. also, i’m able to access boot menu by pressing F12, though nothing happens no matter what option I choose. Also F8 does nothing. any further advice would be greatly appreciated.