My Toshiba Satellite 1800 laptop fails to start normally
My Toshiba 1800 will only work if I center it on one knee and press down on the lower left and upper right corners of it at the same time. If I just place it on a flat surface and hit the power button the hard drive light comes on and stays on and I can hear a sound like the A drive for just a second, then nothing. And if I press on it, and get it started if I let go it just freezes right where it is.
You will not believe, but I have the same laptop laying under my bench and it has exactly the same problem. This laptop fails to start until I press firmly on the right side of the palmrest. After that the laptop boots normally but finally it fails again. I believe this problem occurs because of a faulty connection between the battery board and the system board. Your description proves my point. Buy pressing on the laptop sides, you flex the laptop case and make a better connection between the system board and the battery board. You can see the battery board pictured on my disassembly guide for Toshiba Satellite 1800 (step 23). You can try to reseat the battery board, it might help to get the laptop up and running for a while, but I think it will fail again. I’m not really sure witch part is failing and if I would get your laptop for repair, I would quote you both parts. If you really want try to repair the laptop, I would go with the battery board first because it is 6-7 times cheaper then the system board and would cost you about $60. Give me the model name and number for your laptop (for example Satellite 1800-S203, PS181U-00CFC2E) and I can look up a Toshiba part number for the battery board and the system board, so you can search online.
October 30th, 2006 at 8:45 am
Hi!
I have the same problem on Satellite 1800-614…
I have also replaced the battery board with a new one,
but nothing… the same problem…
The notebook often boot up without problems only if i press under the cover, just near the modem board on the back.
But after a while, or if i move it, it locks up.
I used Knoppix CD for various tests, but i can’t manage to solve the problem.
If it isn’t a main board problem, it seems to be like a short problem…
Any news on repair tips?
Thanx,
Ste.
October 31st, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Ste,
I really don’t know what’s wrong, probably a bad motherboard. I tried two different power boards in my Satellite 1800, reseated all connectors 3-4 times, minimized the system as much as I could, but the laptop still is not fixed.
Yeah, sure, replace the laptop.
It’ll fix the problem for a while.
November 16th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
hi have a Tosbiba M45-S331 laptop. The problem is when i restart my laptop it hangs up on the tosbiba logo and after that nothing happens. When i switch off my laptop by pressing the power button for few seconds and switch on my laptop after like 5 mins then it works properly. my serive center guy said my hard drive was spoilt and he replaced it with a new one. again im having the same problem somtimes it hangs on the toshiba logo and sometimes it works fine. and i am having a another problem. The Fn key you use it for setting the brightness of your laptop. in my laptop it works somtimes and sometimes it stops working. all my other keys are working properly but only this Fn key is not working.
do u guys know what the problem can be?
thanks a lot in advance
November 16th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
SD,
Remove the hard drive, the DVD drive, the wireless card and see if the laptop still fails to pass the Toshiba logo. If the problem gone then one of the removed modules is bad. If the problem still exists, continue with RAM. In case you have 2 memory sticks installed into the laptop, remove them one by one and test it after each removed module. If you have only one RAM module installed, move it into another slot and test again. Try to find any relationship between laptop boot failures and memory module/memory slot on the board. Sometimes, when you have a bad memory slot on the motherboard (let’s say slot A), laptop works fine with memory in the slot B, but fails with memory installed into the slot B.
If you still experience the same problem, download and run Memtest86+ utility to test RAM because it might be related to the memory failure.
If the memory passes the test then it’s possible that you have a bad motherboard.
It also could be an indication of a failing motherboard or a bad keyboard. The only way to find out is replace the keyboard and test again.
December 31st, 2006 at 10:38 pm
I have the wierdest problem .
This Gateway 450ROG will not boot , it will power but the screen won’t come on and no disk activity .
When it does it will boot normal but then after a short while you will see slight horizonal distortion on the screen or “double” image on the screen then it will freeze .
I replaced the power board with a used one from ebay , same problem .
any ideas ? grounding problem ?
Thanks in afvance .
January 2nd, 2007 at 7:15 am
(Bizar) Problem: My laptop works fine only when I continuously press and hold any key on the keyboard.
If I (re)boot the laptop it always freezes in the “xp startup screen”. When I press any key on the keyboard, hold it, the booting continues… When I lift my finger and release the key I was holding, the booting stops, press down any or same key on the keyboard again and the booting continues, when booting complete, the touchpad and keyboard will not work, when I again press and hold any key I can use the touchpad and type/use the keyboard… to be short my laptop works perfect if I press and hold (doesn’t have to be hard, even when pressed very GENTLY) any key on the keyboard… which makes this a VERY bizar problem.
The motherboard got renewed in warrantee time and ?fixed? the problem for about a month or so after that the same problem occured but outside warrantee time!
From visiting the Fujitsu-Siemens website/forum I know that there is at least one more user of the exact same laptop that has the same problem.
I’m very interested/curious on what you will have to say about this and by all means very much obliged for it.
This comment with a possible solution has been published here.
January 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Gil,
Boot the laptop with an external monitor attached and check if the same “slight horizontal distortion or double image” appears on the external monitor too. If it does, probably you have a bad video card.
January 20th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
I have a dell latitude laptop that was given to me. It has windows 95 on it so it must be pretty old. To be exact its a dell latitude cpi. I powered it on and it went to a different white screen then normal and it said that it was bootin memory (not exact on what it said). It then went to the main desktop so i thought everything was fine. After about 10 minutes of just being on the computer doing nothing different than what i normally do, The screen goes black and the caps lock, number lock, and the other lock lights are all on and wont turn off. The power light keeps flashing and the battery light and the other light are not on at all. i tried to hold in the power button to turn it off but that does nothing. It seems there is nothing to do. How can i fix the problem? i am thinkin of letting the battery run out and plug in the charger and trying to boot it back up??? THANKS
February 1st, 2007 at 8:23 pm
My girlfriend has a Toshiba Satellite laptop. It runs well except for when she has to move it. Everytime we pick it up the machine freezes. I have no idea why it’s doing it but I assume it’s a hardware issue, any thoughts?
February 3rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Ben,
What laptop model you have? Try reseating the memory module and hard drive, may be they got loose.
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Gil and Ben,
I have a gateway 450ROG and I am having the same problem. I have been trying to reseach this issue. I am going to describe my problem to see if any body else is having similar problems. My computer is having trouble booting up. It is not a memory problem or a software problem. I am pretty sure the problem is with the mother board. It has a power supply and when you try to turn it on the fan will start and the lights will light up but the screen remains black and nothing will happen. I can get my computer to boot up only after giving it a couple could whacks to the left of the mouse/finger pad or by turning it on and off several times usually about 1 out of 8 times it will start up. It will turn and boot normal and will remain on only if i do not put any pressure on the left side of the mouse/finger pad or move the computer in any way. As soon as I put pressure in that spot or move the computer the screen starts getting all shaky and freezes the computer immediatly. It is funny how three good whacks to the left side will get it turned on but then a little pressure to the left or movement and it will freeze right up. I took off the key board and front panel (not an easy thing to do) to see what was under the left side of the mouse pad and I can see that the CMOS battery, the Ram memory panels, and the expansion ports. I think the problem lies with a bad connection between the ram and the mother board but I am not to sure. It has to be some kind of bad connection on the motherboard though. I wonder if the graphic card is somewhere over there also and if that is why the computer screen gets all shaky and staticy. I have taken my computer in to a couple computer repair place and they have all agreed that it is more then likely a mother board problem and there solution is to purchase a new motherboard. I was hoping not to purchase a new motherboard and would like to come up with a way to fix it on my own. If anyone has any suggestions or tips please let me know.
Thank you
Ryan McDonald
February 7th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Gil and Ryan,
I have a Gateway 450ROG with the same display problem that you guys are describing. I also tried a replacement power board from eBay, which didn’t help. When I could get the machine to boot, I could reproduce the horizontal distortion, fuzzy or double image by gently flexing the lower left corner of the laptop.
I stripped the laptop down to its bare essentials. The only motherboard connectors in the proximity of where I am flexing are the RAM slots on the bottom of the motherboard, and the power board connectors on top. The video board is more toward the center of the laptop beneath the keyboard. It has an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 chip and two Samsung video memory modules. The video board is soldered directly to the motherboard, so you probably won’t be able to replace it without replacing the motherboard. If it comes down to replacing the motherboard, I’m just gonna get a different laptop all together.
Please post if you make any progress with this thing.
Thanks,
Tony Stephenson
February 8th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Tony,
Sounds like we have the same problem. I have given up and I am going to purchase a new computer. Its not worth the time to buy another mother board for $150 and spend a few hours putting it in. I would be real pissed if I did all that and the mother board isn’t even the problem. To many factors to mess with. I am scrapping it and starting new. Good luck though. I am going to keep this peice of crap in my closet so if you figure it out please post how to fix it.
Ryan McDonald
February 16th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I have the same problem with my Sat S1800-204 (my model number is PS181E-OE48-RU). Please tell me a compatible part number for a battery board.
February 28th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Gil, Ryan, and Tony,
I guess I found good company. My 450ROG does just as you have described. I would love to find out what is causing the problem.
I have found that flexing or touching the computer when it is on will cause my system to freeze or hang. I have also found that it tends to work better when it is standing on its side – not that you can actually use it while it is like that.
Once I took off the keybad and was able to push on the motherboard between the CPU and video chip and cause the problem on a regular basis. Since then I completely disassembled the thing and now all I have to do is slightly touch the bottom of the case, pick it up or move the lcd and I can cause the failure.
If you solve the problem I would very much like to hear your solution – buying a new laptop doesn’t count.
Thanks,
John
June 1st, 2007 at 7:39 am
I inherted a Toshiba Satellite 1800-S203. I installed WinXP pro and it’s working fine. I wonder if I can install the Wi-Fi card MPC13A-20/R from a defunct toshiba satellite laptop. Any tips or help would be appreciated.
Thank you.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:17 am
If the Satellite 1800 has wireless capabilities (there is a Wi-Fi slot on the motherboard and Wi-Fi antennas are installed) then you can try it. Install the wireless card from another Toshiba laptop and then download and install the device driver listed for the dysfunctional laptop.
July 29th, 2007 at 11:00 am
My toshiba satellite a105 stops at the window xp loading page. it does not go on to the start place. it is not frozen because the loading bar is still going back and forth. i kept it on for about an hour to see if it will eventually move on but it is the same. i try turning it off and on but its the same. can u guys please help me.
August 11th, 2007 at 11:41 am
My gateway 450ROG wont start up. i press the power button and an orange light appears above the power button. I can hear the fan but the screen remains black, what does that mean???
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:54 am
Same problem as Mia. Any suggestions? The users guide says the light is orange when the module is ready to be changed. Replaced floppy drive with cd drive and powered back on. Same thing, orange light, but it sounds like the computer is starting but you just get a black screen. F1! F1!
October 8th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
My m45-s331 does the same thing where it revs the hard drive then shuts right down every once and a while give a orange light on the power button. The service center said it was my power button board so they changed it when i got it back it worked for a week then did it ever day and when i tried to send it back in they voided my warranty because my power adapter feels loose. Now it’s back to doing it every time what can i do?
October 30th, 2007 at 11:56 am
My Compaq nx6110 is having the same problem. At first, it kept frozen if I don’t press on the palmrest on either side of the touchpad. Now after a few days, it works normally, until I put any pressure on the same spots. It is so weird. My USB ports stopped working suddenly as well. All these problems started after I replaced the hard drive of the laptop as it was failing. Is it my new hard drive that’s causing all the issues? Or is it as many ppl say here, it is due to some kind of a connection problem to the motherboard?
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
What is PCI on motherboard error ? Its Toshiba Tecra A-3 S611 win xp pro. I get this error with beep and system says press F-1 to resume or F-2 for setup. By pressing F-2 its takes me to BIOS, what to do next ?
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite A210 which I bought in January of 2008. The laptop will not restart properly as of this afternoon… it shows the page asking whether to start it normally or in safe mode, and then carries on with the loading bar, and shows the Windows Start Logo prior to what should be the login screen. Instead of the login screen, I receive the message Please Wait. This screen is flashed alternately with a black screen. I tried leaving the laptop like this for a period of nearly 45 minutes before I gave up and began searching for answers.
I do not know very much about computers at all, can you please help me??
March 4th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Mandi,
Do you have Last Known Good Configuration option in the same menu? Try this.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Hi,
Thank you for the reply!
I don’t see that option available in the same menu; what I do have available as options are the following: Start Windows in a) Safe Mode, b)Safe Mode with Networking, c) Safe Mode with Command Prompt, and d) Start Normally. Starting with options a, b, and d, have failed, and I have not tried option c because I do not know query language for the Command Prompt.
I do have access in the first screen to F2: System Utilities, and F12: Reboot.
Thanks again,
Mandi
June 4th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
im having the same problem as mandi… very fustrating endless loop unable to get past windows startup screen
August 10th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Same exact problem. I tried reinstalling windows on my buddy’s Toshiba Satellite. It worked, then we restarted and nothing but that screen. It showed the “start when windows worked properly” option thing, but that just goes through the loop of it trying to start and then it going back to this screen.
August 11th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I have a toshiba a85 and it freezes up, when you press on the right palm rest and hold pressure there it works fine until you let go of it, i have taken it apart thinking it was a bad solder joint, but i was unable to find any, i’m thinking the motherboard is bad but the cheapest i have found one is 199.00 and i only paid 299.00 for the laptop new. and it is now about four years old now. and not knowing for sure it is the motherboard is bad i do not want to invest that much in a four year old p/c . any ideas on any other things which could cause this? any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you for your time, tom
August 12th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Tom Brandon,
Try moving RAM module into the empty slot. Maybe one of the memory slots is bad.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:44 am
I have a toshiba satellite m40x-183. its 3 yrs old. the laptop seems to be working until recently my ethernet port went down. The green led does not flash.. i use a router to connect to the internet. so i connect it with usb port as the ether port was not working. Now the usb ports too seems to stop working. Unknown Device is still listed under the usb hub in the device manager even though i disconnect all my usb devices. and the computer freezes at random times. so i decided to format. the windows setup get stuck randomly, sometimes at format screen,copying files..
Few days these problems started our area was struck by lightning and all the phone lines went bad..
Pls help..
Thanks
November 7th, 2008 at 8:50 am
When it freezes all the led’s hd n dvd drive goes off and the fan stops to spin
November 7th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I have a Toshiba P105 laptop with a very annoying problem. Frequently when the computer boots up both the keyboard and the touchpad are completely disabled, including the power, media, and other hot buttons located above the keyboard. Once windows finishes booting I can navigate if I plug in my USB mouse but when I try to restart, shutdown, log off, hibernate or standby, the computer will go through the motions and finally hang on a blank black screen. The computer is still powered on and remains in this state indefinitely until I physically pull the battery. After this it boots normally as if nothing has happened. Any ideas?
November 21st, 2008 at 3:41 am
Hello,
First of all thank you very much for this wonderful website. I think millions of people would have been benefited from your website. I have Toshiba Satellite M45-S355 which is Intel/Windows XP based 3 years old laptop. Everything was working fine untill I allowed Service Pack 3 to get installed on my system in September08. I started facing so many problems so I decided to use recovery dvd as nothing else was working. After using recovery I am having laptop freezing issues. It works fine in SAFE Mode. But in normal mode after sign in it freezes after 15-30 seconds.
I run memtest86+ and it successfully completed 2 passes. I havent tried hitachi hard drive test that you mention here. Laptop is even freezing in clean boot up in Normal mode.. I am lost here.. Any help from you will be greatly appreciated..
Thanks
December 9th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I have the same problem! I have a gateway 450ROG and was going to turn into a DNS and web server, but after i tried to connect to the internet in PCLinuxOS, it would not and the screen got fuzzy and started blinking and then it seemed like it was going to give up! I know its not a software problem because the same problem appears with Ubuntu,Kubuntu and the Live CD”s even when the BIOS rarely appears it happens. I tried vacuuming it and cleaning out any dirt, and it helped for a while, then it just stopped. Fan on and lights but no screen.
December 9th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Hemant,
I would suggest diagnostic test on the hard drive. You can use some tools from the Ultimate Boot CD (Hitachi’s DFT test included in there).
December 9th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
usdadventist,
Did you test the laptop with an external monitor attached to the VGA port? Find out if the external video output has the same problem. If the same problem appears on both internal and external screens, there could be a problem with the video card.
February 17th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Hi Guys,
I think my query fits in this section. So here we go.
I have an IBM Thinkpad R50 and main problem is that it freezes whenever it wants :s. Recently, the hard drive in the laptop was replaced cuz of bad sectors. What happened was that the old hard disk had bad sectors and I kept using the laptop despite of them. Then one fine day the laptop’s screen flickered and was frozen. Mouse and keyboard were non responsive so I had to press and hold power button for a little while to turn it off and turn it back again. When it turned on it showed me a black screen with only battery light and a circular light on the left side of batt light. I took it to the “laptop repair guy” and he said HDD is crashed. so got that replaced and when I brought it back home it was the same old story. Then I took the battery out and tried to start it on bare AC supply nothing happened. Put the battery back again tried to start again without any luck. Then just when I was about to give up it started correctly.
After that I installed Ubuntu in it and everything went well. Then I installed windows in it and everything was fine. however, when I restarted the system it stuck at the start with a black screen and same two lights. Since then, sometimes it starts ok, but feezes as soon as I start to do anything. Sometimes, it freezes at the start or during the start up. and everytime I have to turn off the laptop and turn it back again using power button. I have tried to start it with and without battery sometime it starts ok with battery and other times it doesn’t. sometimes it starts ok without battery and other times it doesn’t. Sometimes, it feezes when I move the laptop or type anything or use trackpoint/touchpad other times it works fine despite these actions. Don’t know what to do?
I have tried to test the motherboard,RAM using lenovo’s system toolkit utility in windows and it didn’t show any problem. I was testing HDD using the same utility and it freezed up on me again. The problem persists in windows as well as linux. Will try the memtest now. Please suggest what can I do? and how can I proceed?
I am really sorry for the long post but couldn’t do without it.
Thanks for a wonderful site.
Syed