Toshiba Satellite A200 Random Shutdown

[Will McDade]

I have had this problem with my Toshiba Satellite A200-244 that I bought off a friend. He had Ubuntu 11.10 on it and it had a lot of problems. After ~2 months of having it, I found out the hard drive had over 1,200 bad sectors on it. I tried to repair them but it kept cutting out. I replaced the HDD. After that, it would not boot. I found the solution of, take the ram stick out that is closest to the motherboard (slot 2). It worked for a while, I now have Windows 7 Ultimate x86 on it, but now it is having random BSODs starting. I really like this laptop but need to get it back running with 2GB ram with 2 slots and not 1GB ram 1 slot inside it, since RAM is the slowness problem. This laptop does run hot now and then.

EDIT: Forgot to say that I had to keep the machine stationary so I could use it.

 

[XCalebur]

Yes, its done! Solved!! Perfect!!!

I have soldered the new OE128 cap and my A200 is working perfectly again after nearly two years of gradual and painful death. I just added the solder on the new OE128 cap at eight locations corresponding to the tips of the four pads/terminals. Then after placing the cap on the pads I simply inserted the hot soldering iron tip to touch and melt off the solder already added there. Although I first added the solder onto the new cap the same results could be achieved by adding the solder onto the tips of the pads, placing the new cap over them and then melting off the added solder by touching with the tip of a hot soldering iron. The photos given in the following link might help those who want to try the same:

http/gs138.photobucket.com/groups/q251/S1BXDWUERU/

Of course, one could also do soldering in a more conventional fashion by feeding the solder wire onto the hot iron tip placed at appropriate locations.

Now do not have any more doubts. This is a 100% sure and perfect solution (until the cap dies again, of course) not only for A200 but many other models of Toshiba that use OE128 or OE907 cap and exhibit random restarts, freezing when AC is connected, etc, etc.

I just wanted to thank Notsosure for posting this solution. Your posts and the pictures you provided gave me the confidence to try your solution. I followed your directions and replaced my defective NEC Tokin capacitor with 4 330uf tantalum capacitors and my old A205 is functioning perfectly. THANK YOU!

 

[johnye_pt]

I was given a Toshiba Satellite A200 about a year ago, it randomly freezes at any given point: inside windows, during installation, even sometimes during BIOS boot or BIOS setup. I've tried replacing the memory and removing everything else like hdd, wireless, dvd, modem but the problem persisted.

I picked it up again last weekend and now the problem is worse: sometimes it powers up but doesn't do nothing (the blue "Satellite" retro-iluminated word on the front left side doesn't light up), other times it does boot (word lights up normally) but still freezes on the BIOS screen or a few moments later. From what I can remember, the motherboard has 2 HDD covers but only one has a sATA connector, and there's a space for a VGA card but also no connector, so it probably uses Intel GMA graphics.

Could this be related to the capacitor problem? I'll try to check for capacitors next weekend.

 

[surrge]

I was able to fix the random freeze problem on my friend's Satellite A200 by replacing the dead NEC/Tokin proadlizer with 4 caps 320uF each. I used 10V caps and they worked like a charm. You should only make sure that the voltage is not lower than 2.5V, higher voltage caps are totally acceptable.

The process took me about an hour and I guess anyone who's used to disassembling laptops and has basic soldering skills can do it. No heat guns or complex tools are required to do it - just cut off the dead proadlizer carefully with a blunt knife and solder on new caps observing the polarity. That easy, really.

 

[Prasenjit Das]

just try this trick if it works
just disable one core of the processor by going to the device manager
and u will see it will be working fine.i know this is not a permanent solution
but for the time being u will get rid of the problem

 

[surrge]

just disable one core of the processor

This is only a temporary solution. In my case it only worked for a few months and then I still had to resolder new caps instead of the crappy NEC/Tokin. Your best bet is replacing the caps, which can be done pretty easily if you have the skills. Even if you don't, just ask your buddy who does.

 

[johnye_pt]

That doesn't work for me. Unfortunately, my laptop doesn't have a NEC/Tokin cap, so I don't know how to solve the problem by myself. My laptop is a Satellite A200-1AO PSAE0E-02101UPT and the board is a ISKAE LA-3661P rev2.0. I don't have a hi-res camera, so here's a picture I found on Google, just ignore the red circle on it:

http/obrazki.elektroda.net/10_1258290077.jpg

 

[Hugo Brazao]

Two Words, Nec Tokin. Replace it and it will be as new. You have tutorials online How To. GL.

 

[tsh_70]

I have had the same problem (Toshiba Satellite L300), so following advices in this thread I have disabled one code of the processor and everything is fine! It works perfectly for two months already. Even the speed is not affected visually, everything looks as usual.

I will monitor it and if the problem appears again, I will write again.