On-off switch on my Toshiba Satellite M45 laptop not working properly
I have a Toshiba Satellite M45-S169 laptop less than 3 years old. My issue is the on-off switch in the upper left hand corner will not turn on without some effort to push the switch sideways, up or anything but the normal procedure to turn it on. Once on, the computer has no issues, so I feel the switch has issues. I have been told that maybe that switch is a unit with the 6 buttons below and is a plug-in. This is all located above the HeatPad. I don’t know how this unit is removed and if it is a plug-in or if the switch can be replaced independently? Maybe you could give me this information before I open the computer and any suggestions where to get the part the cheapest. Also what is that unit called?
The on-off switch (power button) is located on a 6-button switch board. If there is a problem with the on-off button, you’ll have to replace the whole switch board. Here’s the part number for the switch board: V000051150
The switch board could be found underneath the top cover assembly and it’s connected to the motherboard via a flat ribbon cable.
In order to access and replace the switch board, you’ll have to remove the top cover as it shown on the step 21 in this disassembly guide for Satellite M45 laptops.
Be careful. Taking apart laptops is not for beginners. Proceed on your own risk. 
October 28th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I don’t know how old this is but I just disassembled my sisters m45. It was a little tricky but not imposable. She had the same problem with her power switch. It turned out that the power switch is held in place by three tangs, all plastic welded to the cover plate. The top tang had come loose causing the button to not work properly. the actual electric switch is about 1/4 of an inch below the power button. I heated up a screwdriver blade and rewelded the tang and it worked fine. Good luck
Rick
December 18th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I need to replace the on-off switch which is activated by the cover. Gateway M622-UCX Serial 0035945469. Need help in obtaining replacement part and install instructions.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Hello, thanks for giving your time maintaining this clean and helpfull site. I could not find an article with a problem relative to mine, I think the title should be :
“laptop doesn’t work on battery after beeing in charge”
This is a 2002′ “Packard-Bell igo3453″, a “Nec Versa M300″ clone. I know it was dropped when it was about 1 year old, had consequently an overheating problem, and had been repaired by Packard-Bell. Since this time, it never worked anymore on battery (that’s what I have been told). It now run with Debian Linux, I recently disassembled it for resoldering the messy power jack, and received a new cheap battery from Hong-Kong. This battery charges normally, and can run the computer for about 4 hours with minimal activity, so I believe it’s fonctionnal, but…
Here are the weird things :
After receiving a charge (even for one second) the laptop would not boot on battery : it begins to boot normally, but a few seconds after power-up the power-LED shuts down, the laptop continues in the boot process for 3 to 5 seconds, and shuts down.
I found two ways running on battery :
- With a not fully charged battery, I keep it some minutes against my body to heat it at about 35°C, it then sometimes boot normally.
- I later found this reliable method :
1 – while laptop off and power jack not plugged, I remove the battery,
2 – I maintain power button pressed while inserting battery (the laptop then run in a strange state, it makes noise, heat, HDD spins, but LCD and LEDs are all off),
3 – I maintain power button pressed for 5 more seconds, or I remove the battery,
4 – I remove the battery (if not already done) and reinsert it (the laptop then powers up without pressing the button)
It then can run unplugged for few hours, it can be shutdown and restarted without problem, until I plug it back.
While running on battery, if I plug the power jack and instantly remove it, the computer continue to run normally. If I plug the power jack, wait that the charging LED gets on, and then unplug the jack, the power LED shuts down along with the charging LED, and 3 to 5 seconds later the computer shuts down violently. I then have to make the strange manipulation above to restart on battery.
There’s a last symptom that I think is relative to the same problem : when running on battery, if the fan gets on, the power LED immediatly shuts down, and 3 to 5 seconds later the laptop shuts down too. On AC-power there’s no fan nor heat problem, I made some huge calculations while monitoring CPU temp, the fan gets on at 60°C and the temperature stays around 65°C (it’s winter).
This last problem is not OS relative as it also happens in BIOS setup. I’m trying to find a way to run the fan manually, or change the trigger temperature, in order to figure out if the computer shuts down because the fan is running or for another reason ; but I need to struggle a bit more with acpid and other i2c modules for taking precedence over the embedded controller. This laptop contains an “ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]“.
Thanks for any little help ! I’m not afraid for dismantling it again for further testing. ( and I’m sorry for my perfectible english
Etienne
December 28th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Hello, I have additions and corrections to give about my last post.
I discovered this morning that it is sufficient, for starting on battery after a charge, to remove the battery and reinsert it while laptop off. I was really surprised, I thought I tried this before, maybe not ? or maybe things are changing ?
I tried back the old battery (shipped with the laptop-6 years old). One month ago, while waiting the new one from Hong-Kong, I was thinking it is completely dry and nonworking, due to the known symptoms. In fact it works pretty well ! And the symptoms are the same with this “Nec” branded battery …
… except for the fan trick :
With this old battery, there’s no problem while CPU is cold. When CPU temperature reach 55°C, the power LED shuts down, and 3 to 5 seconds later, all the computer shuts down. Exactly as with the new battery, but the fan is not involved here.
The old battery is 4000mAh, the new one is 4400mAh, this could be proportional with the shutdown temperature :
4400 / 4000 = 1.1
60 / 55 =~ 1.09
Thanks again for your attention !
January 13th, 2009 at 4:36 am
Hi,
My sister is moving to australia, and i wanted to get her a laptop for when she was out there as a going away present. Which laptop can i buy over here that will work over there?
Thank you
January 18th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I have an Acer Aspire 5735-4624. I have it plugged into the wall because I am using as my main computer right now. I had Vista on it, which was totally not compatible with anything that I needed it for, now I have XP on it. The problem is that when I turn the laptop off, it turns itself back on in a few minutes. I can’t keep it off. I’m worried that this is going to run the battery down because it is on 24/7. Did something get set wrong when XP was installed maybe?
Thanks!
February 5th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I just replaced the palm rest on my Dell Latitude and now when I go to certain websites, I get a security screen that says “there is no certificate for this website”. It allows me to add an exception and I can move forward. The Laptop works great other wise. Is someone tapping into my network, or do I have a virus. also, all my programs now show as “New Applications”. Is this something to worry about? Thank you.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Jay,
This is normal. Some websites require certificates and you can accept it only for one session or permanently. It’s normal.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:57 am
Hi, first I would like to say thank you for this incredible website. With your guidance I was able to finally get my satellite open and could then diagnose and decide on how I should proceed. Unfortunately, the diagnosis is to buy a new laptop rather than spend more money keeping the old one alive. Now I have a friend who owns a Dell Inspiron 6100 that runs well but is painfully slow. So I am wondering if I could use the RAM, processor and hard-drive from my Toshiba Satellite L25 L121 to upgrade my friend’s Inspiron 6100. Those parts were never part of the problem and should still be in good working condition. Thank you very much.
March 30th, 2009 at 5:51 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite A60 that was dropped some time ago causing damage to the power connector. At the same time it started failing to shut down correctly. When shutdown is selected it goes all the way to the “Windows is shutting down” screen and the hard drive spins down but the machine doesn’t power off until the power button is pushed. This also causes problems for hibernation and sleep modes as it never powers down but just sits there with the fans running. I had the motherboard replaced at a repair shop, which did not correct the problem, and reinstalled the OS from the system recovery DVD, which also did not help. I am reluctant to take it back to the repair shop and put more money into a 5 year old machine so am looking for something I could possibly correct on my own. Any information or ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:42 am
For the M45-S169 I’m refurbishing, all I had to do was stick a rolled up piece of tape between the power button and the power switch so the button would depress the switch easier. I made sure that the stick side of the tape didn’t touch the button. So far, so good. I do wish I’d figured out a little sooner that the latches on the ZIF sockets holding the little ribbon cables in place are to be lifted up rather than pulled out like the keyboard cable socket. Oops.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Hi, I have a Toshiba M115 laptop. I had gotten a memory stick stuck in my laptop. I was having trouble getting it out so I unscrewed the botton of the laptop. (I did unplug the ac and took out the battery first)When I seen that I still could not get to the place where the stick was stuck I screwed the bottom back on, put the battery back in and plugged the ac back in. But now i get a black screen. The ac light is on, the battery light is on, but when I push the button to turn on computer nothing happens. I tried uplugging ac, taken out battery and holding the button down for 40 sec, but it still will not turn on. Any ideas? Thank you
April 20th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
I have my Nec Versa laptop which works perfect when turned on. However when i switch on the power, the front blue power light turns on but without anything on the screen. I have to force the blue light off by pressing down the power switch. I try the turn on/off process for quite a while until the screen finally starts. This process irritates me because sometimes i have to make so many trials or even give up. Any ideas about the causes and solutions?
April 20th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
vincent,
Could be memory failure. Try reseating memory modules. Test the laptop with only one memory module installed.