My laptop won’t boot after I cleaned it by taking the heat sink out and vacuuming it
Toshiba A45-s120 just blinks amber…
My laptop won’t boot after I cleaned it by taking the heat sink out and vacuuming it. I replaced it, put back the battery, plugged in the AC and all it did was blink the amber light on the far left. Took battery out, unplugged AC and re-plugged. Light is now green. Put in battery and other amber charging light goes on. But when I try to turn on the computer, the charge light goes out and the far left amber light starts blinking.
Any thoughts?
That is odd that cleaning the heat sink caused the laptop failure. At least, you shouldn’t have any problem with this model. Removing the heat sink on Toshiba A45 laptop is a straight forward process, you don’t even have to remove the CPU.
Usually when the power LED blinking amber light, there is a problem with the power somewhere on the system board. Try to remove the battery and start the laptop straight from the AC adapter, without the battery installed.
Here’s another guess. I think it’s possible that you pulled the CPU from the socket on the motherboard while removing the heat sink. If the CPU not seated properly, the laptop will not start. But I’m not really sure if the power LED would blink amber light in this case. I would try to remove the heat sink again and make sure that CPU is seated correctly. Open the CPU socket, push on the CPU just a little bit and lock the socket again. That’s all I can think of.
July 22nd, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Vacumming with a real powered vacuum creates static electricity. Kills computers dead. If the vacuum spun any cooling fans while they were still plugged in to the motherboard, electrical havoc was wreaked. Also kills computers dead. How do I know ? Killed several computers that way myself many times. I learned it the hard way.
February 12th, 2007 at 4:42 am
I had the same problem when I cleaned out my girlfriends Acer Travelmate. I removed the heatsink and cleaned it out with a vaccum. When I put the computer back together it wouldn’t boot at all, no fans, lights or anything. I was able to get the computer to boot again when I removed the heatsink. I fixed the problem by replacing the heatsink and screwing it back on but not completely tightened (the heatsink screws have springs on them). I hope this helps
February 24th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I have a Dell Inspiron 4000, and I was trying to upgrade the CPU, but I bought a wrong one. Mine should be BGA2, but I bought the Micro-PGA2.
After I installed the new CPU, it says the motherboard doesn’t support this CPU, and I went to search on the web about the new CPU, and after few minutes, the computer shuts down automatically. Then I changed back to my old CPU, but the laptop is not booting up anymore. I see it powered on a few seconds, and then turns off.
Does install a wrong CPU damage the motherboard?
Please Help me!
Thank you,
June
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
Hello,
I haven’t done the cleaning part, but I have a question, how do you know exactly when the CD ROM is not working, do I have to check the connector that goes into the MB I have changed it twice(normal CD burner plus a DVD burner) and still won’t boot, I need to format the laptop because a virus struck it, can anyone of you guys know how to boot this laptop (A45-S250), or is there another way to boot this laptop.
Necro.
December 11th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I have spmewhat of similar problem that I can’t figure out. I have a Toshiba Satellite 5101 laptop and it will not turn on. Originally, my video card was not working properly; my screen had a bunch of weird lines accross it. I then opened the laptop to see if the video card had come loose. After I put it back together, it did not turn on. When I plug the power cable, both the battery indicator and the power cable indicators light up. Then when I try to turn it on, the power cable indicator starts to flash (orange). Does anyone know what is going on?
March 24th, 2008 at 6:22 am
my Toshiba A45-s121 laptop did not boot after i shutdown it. When i turned it on, the 4 LEDs are just steady and nothing happens. I didn’t drop the laptop. It just failed suddenly
June 7th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
During a recent storm, my Toshiba 1405-S171 was in direct contact with an open window and received a little bit of water.
I initially thought it was no biggy as there wasn’t much water on it so I removed the power from it and let it dry for a couple of days.
After trying it this morning all I get when I plug power and/or battery in is a series of flashing from the power LED. It flashes in series of 3-2-3. Nothing happens if I hit the power button. Just the flashing light.
Any suggestions on what is going on here?
Thanks in advance,
Keith
June 8th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
unTECHy,
Apparently water went down to the motherboard and damaged it. The only way to find out what is going on is disassemble the laptop and take a closer look at each part inside.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I completely disassembled unit looking for any type of water damage or any other form of physical damage. Everything looks fine. I even looked at each chip as usually water damage causes chips to short circuit and can usually be seen.
I just figured that the flashing yellow lights at the power led indicated a specific problem. Usually the led is green and steady so flashing yellow should be a warning indication. I just don’t know what it is indicating.
Any more help would be appreciated.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
* I even removed the cmos battery for about an hour to see if it would ‘reset’ the dang thing. Nope.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
unTECHy,
If the laptop is still disassembled you can try this. Connect only three main parts: motherboard, processor and memory, nothing else. Plug in the AC adapter and turn on the laptop. If the power LED still flashes, apparently the motherboard had been damaged, you just cannot see the damage.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:19 am
After cleaning the fan assembly and duct work, using the manual for disassembly and reassembly laptop I get a resume failure notice, press any key to continue. Sometimes it dies right then, no power,all indicator lights for power and charge stay on. Sometimes it goes all the way into windows, then dies, same as above. This is the first problem I’ve had with this unit.
I’ve gone into the bios when possible and reset to factory defaults. Still no success. I am going to try the remove bios battery trick, to clear any errors if they exist. I hope for other options as well. I will pass on the results. Thanks.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:14 am
I believe I may have turned my graphics card off on my laptop,so when I try to start it nothing comes up on the screen but you can hear windows load in the background. Is there anyway to fix this? Please help.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I replaced my motherboard on a gateway solo 1450. Now when I boot I get power light but no bios read, no lcd display, and cooling fan doesn’t run now. What do I do from here to get back up and operating?
August 25th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I let my brother use my Dell Inspiron and he handed it back to me and let go when I didn’t completely have it in my hands, and it fell. But only the side of it and it fell on a carpet. What was on it froze so I turned it off and turned it back on. The Dell sign appeared, and loaded, and then what pops up is Error, Press F1 to Boot, and F2 to go to Setup. I tried to boot it and it says the same thing. But something else happened because I forgot to tell my brother to turn off my laptop if it gets to hot and he used it for a few hours after I used it for around two hours. Is there anything that could be wrong with it besides the heat sink, because I know that could be causing part of the problem. And my laptop was perfectly fine, nothing wrong with the screen, it turns on and off quickly, and the dvd part come out and in fine. And nothing seems damaged, any help???