I have a Toshiba Satellite A60 laptop and the fan is pretty much dead
I have a Toshiba Satellite A60 laptop and the fan is pretty much dead. The computer shuts off after 15 minutes of use. Can you tell me the model number for this fan and is there a guide to replacing it?
First of all, make sure that the laptop shuts down because of a dead fan and it’s necessary to replace it. When you turn on the laptop, does the fan start spinning? Can you here it at all? It’s very likely that the laptop shuts down because the cooling module is clogged and it needs just a good cleaning. Laptop overheating is a very common issue. I just replace a motherboard on Toshiba Satellite A65 and believe me, the heat sink was 100% clogged with lint and dust. So, I would check the heat sink and the fan first. Here’s a disassembly guide I made for Toshiba Satellite A65 laptop, it would be the same for Satellite A60. If you want to find a heat sink cooling fan for this model, look up on the Internet by the part number: V000042110.
If you want to clean up the fan and the heat sink, it would be enough to remove just the keyboard. You’ll get a good access to the cooling module so you can clean it up with compressed air. To replace the fan, you’ll have to remove to top cover and fortunately, you don’t have to remove the system board.
UPDATE: Here’s another thread dedicated to Toshiba Satellite A60 and A65 problems.
Do you need spare parts for your laptop? Search here by the laptop model and part description.
October 31st, 2006 at 4:04 pm
hi,
laptop freak
what is the
BIOS Key Installation Method?
can yoplease tell me the steps
thanks in advance
October 31st, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Bob,
Connect an external monitor and test the laptop with the son’s hard drive again. Do you get the same vertical line on the external monitor? Is it kinda like example 3 in this post? If yes, you might have a problem with the laptop RAM. If you have any extra memory stick installed, remove it and test the laptop again. Download and run Memtest 86+ utility, it’s free and pretty accurate memory test utility.
Unfortunately, Toshiba Satellite A65 has onboard RAM (memory permanently soldered on the motherboard) and if it fails, you’ll have to replace the entire board. I’ve seen Satellite A65s with faulty RAM before, and not just once.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:39 am
Hey,
Thanks for your reply. You may be on to something with the theremal grease. The compressed “air” I used, although made for computers, appeared to freeze for a few seconds as it hit the heatsink. Maybe that dried it out.
As for the recovery disk, I load it, start it, get the momentary Toshiba logo fow a few seconds and then the screen goes black and displays that “NTLDR is Missing” message. I can’t seem to get it past that point.
Playing around with it, I did stick another good hard drive in it from my son’s other laptop. It started, got to windows, (although with vertical lines running through the screen) and was asking to register it. (Which it couldn’t…as it was from a Symantec that my son had upgraded)
The recovery disk was in and I thought it would overwrite the above hard drive. But no go. So I reinstalled the Toshiba HD. Back to the “NTLDR”. It’s as if it won’t recognize the recovery disk in the drive.
I echo the comments above from others…you have a great site and appreciate your advice.
October 30th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Bob,
It’s possible that old thermal grease (cooling compound between the CPU and the heatsink) dried out and cannot conduct heat from the CPU to the heatsink. In this case replacing thermal compound might help.
Did you finish reloading factory software? After you started the laptop from the recovery DVD, did you wait until ghosting is done and the laptop asks you to remove the disk and reboot?
October 28th, 2006 at 10:38 am
Hi,
I had an overheat issue with my Toshiba A65.(Shutdown/bluescreen after 5 minutes) I removed and cleaned the fan (only has one) and cleaned the CPU fins with compressed air (They were caked with lint). Fired it up, fan runs and all, but it still was overheating and shutting down. However, it ran well sitting on a cooling tray…but no sound. I corrected that with a driver download. Then, no keyboard recognition. (keyboard connection is fine at mother board).
I decided to reload factory disk to out of box state. However when I start it up it won’t recognize the disk. I get a message “NTLDR is missing” Press Control, Alt, Del to restart”. I do that and it restarts yet repeats this message. Any idea what could be wrong?
October 26th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Thanks for the really quick reply.
This is one website that has made it into my favorites list
Sean
October 26th, 2006 at 9:56 am
Sean,
The internal (onboard) RAM is not removable or upgradeable because it’s permanently soldered on the system board. There is only one memory slot available for an upgrade, that’s the slot that you can access from the bottom of the notebook.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Hi there. Great little guide for ripping apart an A60
Just a quickie….. Can the internal ram be upgraded? I was thinking of 2×512 as I have a couple on my desk.
Is the internal RAM removable? Looks like it’s under the gold / copper sheet just by the memory expansion slot.
Many thanks
Sean
October 26th, 2006 at 8:17 am
Viry,
Here’s a quote from the help file that you can find when you run the BIOS update:
If your laptop will not turn at all and it appears to be “dead”, it’s possible that the BIOS was damaged.
October 25th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Hi,
I have a similar problem with my TOSHIBA SATELLITE A65 S1762 , it just wont turn on, not even if a plug the ac adapter to it. all i did is wen i was updating the bios in an emergency i turn it off, i need help on fixing it, can someone help me?, i will apreciate it a lot.
thanks in advance.
October 20th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
George,
Here’s a link to HP Compaq nx9010 maintenance manual, you’ll find it in the service and maintenance information table (not general reference). Open the manual and go to the removal and replacement chapter. This manual should help to take the laptop apart.
October 20th, 2006 at 6:50 am
Hi
I have a very noisy hp compaq nx9010 and need to clean/replace the noisy fan. Unfortunatly i cant manage to dismantle the laptop. There must be some screws that i cant see perhaps?
Please help!!
Thanks
Georgie x
October 16th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
Alan,
On some laptops it’s really hard to remove the keyboard strip because the latches are very tight but there are no screws that keep it in place, just the latches. I usually use an awl but you can use a small flathead screwdriver. Just keep trying.
October 16th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
Hi,
I’m planning on cleaning my Toshiba A60’s fan and heatsink, and I’m trying to remove the securing strip as you advise, but it seems very difficult to remove. Do you have any tips? What did you use to remove yours in the guide?
September 24th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I had already used your very usable take-apart instructions to disassemble the machine and clean it out. It wasn’t clogged up at all and I could see both fans working. Surprisingly, it wasn’t running hot – though before I took it apart it could get very hot. Perhaps the heat sink fan was stuck.
Anyway, it continued dying, and I turned my attention to the reported ati2dvag problem. Before you replied, I had begun an incremental removal of ATI software, beginning with the ATI Control Panel.
And that seems to have resolved the issue. It has been running for a few days now, no problemo.
Thanks so much for your helpful site which was exactly what I needed to start working through this project.
September 21st, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Arthur,
Here are instructions that I’ve created for taking apart Toshiba Satellite A60 laptop (www.irisvista.com). You can remove the keyboard and get a clear view on the CPU fan and clean up it with compressed air if needed. I think, according to the name, ati2dvag error is related to the video module (integrated into the systemboard). This laptop also has integrated into the system board memory chip, I would run Memtest 86+ to test it first. If onboard memory fails, you’ll have to replace the motherboard.
I would also reimage the drive back to factory defaults. You can do that with a recovery DVD you got from Toshiba. Do not forget to backup your data before you run the restore. Re-imaging the drive will eliminate any software related problems. If after that you still encounter the same error, that’s a hardware problem. Most likely a bad motherboard.
September 20th, 2006 at 11:37 pm
Sorry, I seem to be monopolizing this thing right now. Discovered that the Toshiba A40 runs no problem in VGA mode. Start it up at 1024×768 and bang, it’s dead with the ati2dvag gambit. I’ve tried copying ati2dvag from an identical A40. No change.
So what’s next? Remove all ATI stuff. Install a new driver? Someone suggested Catalyst 5.12. Someone else said they had to remove Catalyst. Oh, what do do? Guidance please.
September 20th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Uh, oh. I just sent you the preceding question, but started up the computer anyway. I wanted to run it a bit, see if it heated up, so thought I’d start a defrag to keep the hard drive busy and machine working a bit. While I was doing that, the small fan started whirling. So it seems okay. But the heat sink was hardly warm.
And then the computer shut down, blue screen, white text, “A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down … problem seems to be caused by ati2dvag …”
There is no apparent overheating right now, yet it’s shutting down.
Once the fans stopped, the fins got warm. But not so’s you could burn your fingers. Or cook your eggs.
I don’t know what to. It has definitely been very hot when it’s shut down before, but this is the first time I’ve seen it shut down when I can say for sure that it is not hot.
Thanks.
September 20th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
My wife’s A60 shuts down exactly as described here, and there’s no question you could cook eggs on parts of it. I have disassembled it following the wonderful instructions and photographs. I see there are two fans: a larger fan on the right, and a slightly smaller fan which is more or less dead centre (Canadian) in the unit. This smaller fan appears designed to blow air over the cooling fins of the heat sink.
Next I put the battery back in, attached AC, and turned it on. The larger fan came on immediately. The smaller fan DID NOT COME ON.
Does this mean the smaller fan needs to be replaced? Or does the computer need to heat up for it to come on? With all these screws out, covers off, CD drive removed – is there a risk to the computer to leaving it on?
Is replacing a fan a difficult job? Is there a place you recommend for parts?
Thanks so much for your generous help.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Here’s a note from their website:
I guess you can just wait and see if it goes normal.
I think with A70 you can set the fan speed to slow, medium or high performance through the Toshiba power management software.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:16 am
I just cleaned the entire heatsink (Toshiba A 70) and used thermal compound from OCZ technology on the CPU. The fan seems to be working even more then before. Is this normal, i.e. will it take some time for the compound to be effective? Can someone guide. Thanks
September 4th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Really thank you. I have succeeded now. I had forgotten to remove this screw.
Thank you for all (especially your dissassemble guides).
September 4th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Remove B2 screw on the left side from the memory bay, open the DVD drive with a paper clip. open the drive and carefully pull from the laptop.
September 4th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Hi, I have a Toshiba A60 with the overheating problem. I used the dissambly guide for this laptop. But I can’t remove the DVD Drive. I don’t know how to do it. Please help me.
July 12th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Hey Crazy Clown,
I’ve never worked on Toshiba Equium A60 but I think that the disassembly guide would be very similar. I fond some images on Google and this model looks like a Toshiba Satellite A60 laptop. I think Equium A60 is just a different name for Satellite A60.
July 12th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Will the guide be the same for the toshiba equium A60-692? whenever i try to find anything about it noone appears to know anything about it
July 11th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
I think you are talking about the wireless card antenna cables. One wire is black and one is white and they coming from the LCD assembly? If yes, then that’s antennas. These wires go through the hole in the system board to the opposite side and then connect to the wireless card, if you have any installed. The hole on the motherboard is close to the parallel port. The white cable is the main connector and the black one the auxiliary connector.
July 11th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
The instructions involving the slider were P-E-R-F-E-C-T. Thank you very much.
I have another question. I am ready to place the cover assembly back into place onto the base. I have two cables with ends that resemble battery cable ends. If I did not know better I would say one is positive and one is negative. I am unsure where to connect these.
Any advice? It is greatly approciated.
July 11th, 2006 at 11:04 am
This connector has 2 parts. One part is placed on the system board. After you install the system board inside the case, you stick the second part (I’ll call it a slider) from the outside the box. The slider – that’s a part that you see from the outside, when the laptop is assembled and you move it to turn on the wireless. So, when you disassemble the laptop, you have to remove the slider first. The slider has 2 legs with hooks. I usually use 2 small flat screwdrivers and press on the hooks, so I can remove the slider from the case. I hope you understand what I’m talking about. Be careful; put a tape over the slider when you press on the hooks to release it, because it might jump any direction.
July 11th, 2006 at 11:01 am
I am re-installing the motherboard into a Toshiba A65-s1065 laptop. I did use the diagrammed procedures (www.irisvista.com) to take the laptop apart.
I am having a difficult time slipping the wireless on/off switch cover (connected to the laptop enclosure) over the switch on the mother board.
Any suggestions?
Thank you.