Satellite M45 S351 Dying

First of all I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this question, but this is one of the only Toshiba-specific forums I could find.

Anyway, my father's 2 year old Toshiba M45 S351 recently bit the dust for some unknown reason--I'd like to try and fix it up but I can't pinpoint whats wrong.

Whenever I start up the computer, the Windows loading bars show for a few seconds, and then the computer promptly shuts off (no blue-screen, nothing). My dad gave it to radio shack to repair and they said it was a problem with the motherboard (he didn't get it fixed because the price of the repair was so high that he just went out and bought a new one). I'm not sure what exactly it is with the motherboard though. It can't be the board itself (I don't think) since I can get into the BIOS and the computer at least starts up for a little while before it shuts down. What could be causing this? I replaced the hard drive which didn't help at all.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

 

Issue Alerts


Always Clean Cooling Fans and Heat Sinks During Service


Document ID: 98082137

Posted Date: 11/17/06

Last Updated: 11/17/06

Category: ** Critical Notice **, IAC-Assembly Instruction, IAS-Spontanious Shutdown, IAS-System Lockups/Hangs, IAS-System Speed

Distribution: US ASP

Issue


A dirty cooling fan and heat sink can cause the computer to operate at temperatures exceeding it's design specifications. This can lead to unexpected behavior including: general instability, poor performance, unexpected shutdowns or reboots, and premature failure of expensive components.

Resolution


Always clean cooling fans and heatsinks during service, and advise the customer to bring in the computer for routine cleaning if they notice that their computer is running much hotter than when it was new.

 

No!Dont change anything in BIOS! Dont use any CD's [Norton Recovery] to get it started. Its nothing to do with any of that. Its the hard-drive.
Had the same problem, I messed it up even more. You need to take it in somewhere. - I tried recovering it [F10] and trying that. Messed it up even more, try what OverDrive said, and if that dont work. Dont change any settings to boot up. Just take it in somewhere, it will be alot cheaper if you dont tamper around with it!

Hope it helps

 

If its the hard-drive, then why does the problem persist, even after I replaced the hard drive? And I'm not taking it in anywhere, they wanted way too much money and I'd like to be able to fix the problem myself. I'm not worried about messing it up.

*Update* I took out the heatsink and it does not appear dirty or dusty at all, so I don't think thats the problem.

 

It does sound like a hardware error, but this kind of thing can be caused by motherboard, overheating, hard disk, ram...

You said it still does it in the bios? I presume then booting into hardware testing apps will also cause it to fail. I think it could be the motherboard. You could try to find anoither mobo say from ebay and fit it yourself. That's what I'd do. Dismantling guides for most machines can be found online.

 

Thanks, I've found a motherboard on eBay that the seller says should work with this machine. I also found a dismantling guide. Would this be difficult?

Also: What kind of hardware testing apps could I run just to make sure?

 

If you can download and burn the ultimate boot cd you can boot straight into it and located inside are things like memtest which tests your memory for errors, and variouys hard disk tests.

 

Okay thanks so much for the suggestions. I'll try running those and hopefully it'll give me a clue into whats going on. Which are the most important/useful?

*Update* In a vain attempt to install Ubuntu on the laptop (which doesn't work either) i only get the following message (then an immediate reboot):

[17179573.6280000] PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 0 of device 0000:05:06.0.

 

A great program to run that can pretty much pick up anything is a program called UltraX, This program runs retail $2000 new though, Im sure you may be able to find a copy on ebay for something way cheaper, heres the website for to check it out, Also a program called microscope is also a great diag program, Both these programs boot off a cd or a bootdisk, Ultra X has a stand alone card with a processor, ram , and a video card built in to further test hardware issue on the mainboard, (Hint why its more money)

UltraX



UltraX

 

Hmm.... Okay thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not looking to spend that much on a program just to find out whats wrong... I'll probably end up just trying to replace the motherboard.