anyone have a toshiba 5105 'spare' geforce4 440 video card? - Page 14

I don't see why Lugo couldn't help you out. That's some pretty messed up stuff. Sorry man, I hope you fare better with HP.

Hi guys, seems like I am joining your list. I own a 5105-S607 which I loved. 1 year ago it started showing the same issues you have described on this threads.

I bought it on the US but I live in Costa Rica. After fighting for almost 6 months with the Toshiba representatives I managed to have them install a new motherboard and a new graphics card. I received my "fixed" computer yesterday.

Unfortunatly, I saw this posts today.... and I did not know there were so many of us having the same issues...

We should compile a list of all the people having this same issues and send it to Toshiba.

Similar problems with Satellite-M30 - nViDIA GeForce Fx Go5200

Hi everyone !

I was a happy owner of a Satellite-M30 that worked fine until last year. I started to have display problems (black screen and then computer crashed). According to Toshiba, the problem came from the motherboard and they replaced it. About 1 year later, new display problems: nice vertical bleu lines on the screen then black display and computer crashes . On reboot, the lines appears already during XP loading and then nothing: black screen, XP does not strat and computer either stop or reboot automatically . If I start in safe or VGA mode, everything is fine except the vertical lines during XP loading I've also tried several things including upgrading BIOS, display driver... but did not fix the problem
The only thing that SEEMS to work is to disable the nvidia video card (GeForce Fx Go 5200). I checked the resolution and obviously it's working with the highest resolution (1024x768 - 32 bits) Surprisingly, if I change those settings (decrease the resolution), computer freeze !???
Obviously I have to repeat the same procedure (disable the nvidia video card) every time that I turn on my computer .

Any comment on that ?

Reassembling, what is this wire?

I just got around to disassembling my Sat 5105 and pulling the video card and "treating" the VRAM solder joints with a heat gun. Everything has been pretty straightforward but I have found a brown wire with a small round terminal adrift under the LCD/top cover assembly that I don't recall disconnecting. Can anyone tell me where this goes? See picture at link below.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rayber...e2.jpg&.src=ph

I really don't remember that wire. Where is it connected? Do you have wireless installed?

No, no wireless installed. The brown wire enters a piece of shrink tube it shares with black and white wires having the same little round terminals. I don't know where they conect, either. These 3 wires go into the shrink tube and enter the base of the display at center of the hinge. Here is a link to a photo. I'm not sure the ends with the round terminals were connected to anything. At least I don't recall disconnecting them. But I'd like to make sure before I put the thing all back together.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rayber...e2.jpg&.src=ph


You can also see these wires in photos 12 ans 13 here.

http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptop...a_remove_2.htm

Here's what I think: The black and white wites are the wireless antenna wires. They wrap around the LCD. They run to be in where there is an "L" shaped cover on the bottom, in case you install a wireless card. The brown wire is probably a bluetooth antenna. The 5105 I took apart had neither.

Thanks, Rich. That makes sense. The black and white wires indeed seemed to be routed to the bottom where a wireless card could have been mounted. The brown seems to just terminate under the top cover unit. I suppose the BT could have been located there on models so equipped. Since I have neither it makes sense that they were not connected to anything. I'll resume reassembly soon.

It works!

I got my 5105-S501 reassembled to test the "cooked" video card. It works!

Prior to this I had shifted to safe mode about 3 months ago and the display worked that way until last week when even that started artifacting and crapping out. So I pulled the card and gave the solder joint area for each of the 4 VRAM chips 3 minutes under the heat gun.

The only real difficulty was that there is a small unused plastic connector adjacent to one of the areas that needed treating. It started to melt so I held a flat blade screwdriver against it as a heat shield. But when the solder flowed the connector moved a bit. I nudged it back in place. No adverse effects noted.

Upon restart I re-enabled the video card and the display has been stable in several of the higher resolution modes I have tried.

Not sure if this will be a permanent solution but so far so good and it delays the need to buy a new notebook for awhile. :-) I'll try to send an update in a month or so if it contiues to operate successfully or sooner if/when the repair fails.

Good luck to others trying this.

Video fixed but need a bit more help

Rich,

You seem to know you way around the innards of these 5105s so maybe you can advise on this. When I was putting the machine back together after the video card RAMbake the thin ribbon cable came detached at the front panel area. I plugged in back into the only socket I saw in that vicinity but when I booted up none of the indicator lights (charging, battery, hard disk activity, etc) worked, nor do the touchpad buttons. The touchpad itself works fine but not the left and right click buttons.

Here is a link to where I plugged the ribbon cable in. Is this the correct place? I disassembled the machine and reseated the cable again to no avail. Any ideas?

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rayber...e2.jpg&.src=ph

But at least after 2 days the video is still rock solid. :-)

I think there is one cable for the touchpad and another one for the indicator lights and the little LCD.

The cables are all plugged, I'm just not sure if the ribbon cable for the front panel lights and touchpad buttons is plugged into the correct socket on the front panel end of the LCD/top cover assembly. I think it is but I didn't see it before it came loose. The cable/socket in question is the one on the top left in the picture. I don't see anyplace else to plug it in. The other end of the ribbon cable plugs into the mainboard and must be unplugged prior to removing the LCD/top cover assembly. I am sure that is plugged into the correct socket.

I am going to have to try to power the thing up whilst it is disassembled to try to reseat both ends of the cable w/o having to reassemble the whole thing to test it every time.

Works: - touchpad (scroll, tap, double tap, etc.)
- little LCD

Doesn't work: - touchpad left/right click buttons
- front panel media player buttons
- indicator lights (plug, on/off, batt, HD, cd/dvd disc)

Al fixed

I just popped off the keyboard and removed the little metal cover over the opening through the top cover to the mainboard to inspect where the ribbon cables plug into the mainboard... and one of them was indeed adrift. Not sure how it came out both times I reassembled the computer. In any case it was a snap to plug it in and all is working now.

After this experience I can recommend that anyone who has some basic skills can do this repair. I was a little leery blasting the video card with a heat gun but it seems to have done the trick. This is my first experience with disassembling a modern laptop and I am impressed with the way it is put together. There was a lot of thought put into accessibility and equipment arrangement. But It would have been a puzzle to take apart without the step-by-step instructions I found on the web. And I used a technique I learned from working on my Chevys believe or or not. When removing all the scresw on the bottom (several different sizes and threads) I took a printed picture, taped it to a box, and poked a hole in each screw location. Then I stuck each removed screw and stuck it into its place on the picture. No lost or missing screws. :-)

Good luck to all of you with the defective video cards. It's a PITA Toshiba left us hanging like this but it looks like we have a reasonably successful DIY solution.

Sigh... another one bites the dust...

I'm in the SAME boat as everyone. I recently have been reading this thread and have tried the reheating of the ram chips and now my computer wont even turn on . When i plug my computer in the yellow power cord light flashes and i cant power up. I'm not sure if it is the video card that is doing this as even with the card fully disconnected i get the yellow light. DOes anyone have any clues could possibly be preventing my computer from powering up? DId i kill my motherboard or something? THanks in advance

Try this

Unplug the power cord and remove the battery for a couple of miniutes. Then reinstall the battery and try again. I had this issue on my second entry into the machine when I left th ebattery in and disassembled the keyboard to check and reconnect one of the ribbon cables. When I tried to power up that time had the flashing plug indicator light and no action. After pulling the power plug and battery and then reinstalling the battery and reconnecting the power plug everythign was good again.

Hey raylo,

thanks for the response. i tried what you said and the green light comes on for a few seconds until i push the power button, then again nothing happens. Should i try keeping everything unplugged for a few hours? also on the mouse ribbon connector the blue strip with it fell off so it wnt plug into the motherboard corectly, could this be part of the problem? thanks.

You said flashing indicator. Is there a pattern? (normally, a group of longs and shorts in groups of 8)

This is beyond my level of knowledge so all I can do is speculate. I was thinking after my experience my computer entered some sort of power protection mode after it perhaps sensed I had grounded soemthing out while the battery was installed. And then when I reset it by removing the battery, and then buttoned the machine up with no grounds present, it went back to normal. If this is the case your issue might indeed have something to do with the irregularly instaled ribbon cable. But RichK and others might be able to able to give you a more definitive answer. Good luck.

There dos seem to be some sort of pattern.. it goes one really long one then like 7 short-medium ones. does that tell you anything?

One of the power leads is bad. When you heated the video ram, was the video card out of the machine? (I am assuming you heated the memory on the video card, not the main memory). Is it possible the power board isn't seated well?