laptoprepair 2008

Guys, don’t undertake laptop computer repair without reading this first. I’ll guide you away from making costly mistakes that could render your laptop computer useless. First of all have a good understanding of what it is you need to do and what you might need in the way of tools. A big mistake people make is to sit down with a part and their laptop and use whatever they have around to open up the laptop and replace the part. What you should try and have before you start..

• 1 x Philips Head Screwdriver type 0 • 1 x Philips Head Screwdriver type 1 • Tweezers ( long nose ) • ESD mat or grounded ESD wrist strap (ElectroStatic

Discharge) • Needle nose pliers • A Teflon wedge or splade

Also take a look at the environment you are going to do your laptop computer repair in, static electricity can ruin your day and you won’t even know it.. Back up your laptop's hard drive just in case you do something you shouldn’t have. Avoid doing your laptop computer repair in a carpeted room, use the kitchen or garage. Keep in mind that if you are playing with the LCD the backlight inverter can give you a nasty shock if the unit is powered, switch the laptop off and unplug it, you should also remove the laptop's battery and hard drive. I understand that most people won’t have any anti-static gear like wrist straps and so on but if you are going to be doing some laptop computer repair on a regular basis, it may be worth while getting some, although the laptop you have may be a cheap one there is no point killing it off and dumping it in the trash.

Some points to remember when undertaking laptop computer repairs..

• Don’t disassemble a machine if it doesn’t need it. • Use the right tools. • Try to do it in a clean environment. • Test the machine properly beforehand • Keep any parts you remove in a safe place. • Keep the screws with the parts they have been taken from. • Put the right size screws back into parts when it's time to

reassemble it. • Observe how connectors work before disconnecting them. • Make notes for yourself if you need to as you pull apart the

machine. • Check all cables and connectors are fastened as you go

along. • Try not to use screwdrivers to lever or remove plastic parts. • If a part won't budge look for hidden screws or a screw you

may have missed. • TAKE YOUR TIME.

Note: Some laptops have the screw holes marked with screw types and sizes. Some use symbols to indicate screw types. Take notice of what screws come out of where.

The laptop computer repair tips page is subject to many variations for different laptops and it is hard to be very specific. We have put this page together taking best and most common

practices in mind.

KEYBOARD

A couple of laptop keyboard repair do’s and don’ts in the event of a spill..

DON’T panic. Panic makes us do stupid things, think before you react. DON’T use a hairdryer to dry out a spill...melted keys are hard to type with. DON’T tilt the machine upside down or on its side (if you do feel the need it's better to tilt it to the side that houses the CDROM as the CDROM area inside the machine has less components on it than the mainboard). DO switch the machine off immediately and resist switching it back on until you're certain the spill has dried. Survey the damage after you've dried it out. At this point you could remove the keyboard and try the machine using an external keyboard to see if anything else has been affected. This diagram shows what a basic keyboard looks like, the ribbon cable which connects the keyboard to the motherboard is indicated by the red arrow.

The ribbon cable can also be located on the front edge of the keyboard depending on the age and model of the laptop you have. Note the keyboard holder (thin strip of plastic) that sits on the top edge of the laptop keyboard needs to be removed to get access to the screws holding the keyboard down. Most of the current laptop keyboards are like the diagram below.

Traditionally a spill will kill a keyboard or at best at least some function will be lost. I have only ever been successful with a laptop keyboard repair that involved a water spill, anything else normally results in a tragic loss and putting your old faithful keyboard to rest.. RIP.

How to replace a laptop keyboard Keyboard removal is relatively simple, most keyboards are held in place with a couple of screws, and in some models, also a couple of screws that may need to be removed from the base of the unit. A quick call to your local authorized laptop computer repairer should help to determine what screws need to be removed (if they know their stuff). The keyboard connector is something that needs a little care when unplugging, if you are too heavy handed and damage the connector in any way you may even damage the mainboard also which can cause a world of pain.. be careful. See below for the most commonly used connector.

In order to release the keyboard ribbon cable ease the connector edge upwards only about 2 or 3 millimetres, the ribbon should now slip out with ease. The refitting of the keyboard once cleaned or replaced is just done in reverse.

Broken off some keys?? Whoops, these are a difficult one to fix and once again often end in having to replace the keyboard entirely. Some very small plastic mounting arms hold the keys in place and are often broken, either that or the little clips that the mounting arms click into break. It's handy to have or get a hold of an old keyboard of the same type in order to poach the parts you need. You may need some tweezers and a steady hand to fix these. The best thing I can suggest is to gently remove one of the other keys to see exactly how the mounting arms sit, once you have an idea of how it should look grab those tweezers and be patient, it

may take some time. We will soon have some detailed photos showing how these are assembled, until then remember to be patient and gentle. If you seek professional advice regarding your laptop keyboard repair, the repairer will probably try to sell you a new keyboard complete with hefty labour charge to fix this for you. With the tips we have given you here, you can do your own laptop keyboard repair, fit it yourself and pocket the savings. SCREEN

Backlight and Inverter problems: Well people, laptop screen repair will be something you will no doubt need info on at some point in your laptop's life... The symptoms are that the laptop display panel will flicker and then appear to switch off, but if you look closely you can still see a very faint image on the panel, almost like peering through the dark, this is because the backlight isn't lit. Inverter boards have been an issue in a lot of makes and models of laptops – this is a very common fault. The inverter board loses proper connection causing the backlight to flicker or just simply fails altogether. A little info in what we mean when we say 'Back Light'. Your screen has a fluorescent tube inside it which is just like your normal household tube except for its size, it's about 1/10 of the size. The tube is attached to a small circuit board via a cable, the circuit board acts like the starter in your household variety. This circuit board is called an 'Inverter or FL Inverter', the inverter provides regulated power to the fluorescent tube which lights up the screen. If the Inverter fails then you appear to have no display, yes and no, the screen is still displaying the image but without light from the tube it only appears ever so faintly.

A lot of

repairers will assumption that he LCD has failed and ell you about the enormous cost involved in a laptop screen repair to

resurrect your beloved laptop, if you're unlucky this may be the case. Some repairers may even tell you it’s the main board because the video card has failed, they'll tell you that your laptop screen repair will involve replacing expensive circuit cards.. rubbish. One way of verifying this for yourself is to connect an external monitor to your laptop's VGA port and flipping to dual display or external only display, if you get an image then you have narrowed it down to the inverter or the LCD panel. The Inverter is a small PCB that is generally located in the LCD cover assembly close by the LCD itself. In most cases it can be found either screwed to the case underneath or along side the LCD panel. Please see diagram below.

make the tt

You will need to remove the mask assembly which is the plastic outer border around the screen. If you are the type to be a little heavy handed and impatient, then this is not the task for you. Working around an expensive LCD panel is only for people who have the utmost confidence in what they're doing, the average LCD panel makes up 50% of the overall cost of a laptop and in some cases replacement costs are huge. (Be patient and use minimal force) Be sure to remove all the screws holding the mask in place, normally expect to see approximately 4-6 screws. In some machines there will be only 2, the mask is also fixed in by

snapping type clips that make it fit to the rear cover assembly. Once you’ve taken that off, you'll have exposed the LCD and inverter which will both be connected to the LCD harness or wire loom that connects them both to the main board. 1. Connects to the rear of the LCD panel. 2. Connects to the Inverter board or FL inverter. 3. Connects to the main board. Disconnect the inverter from the harness and from the LCD (the inverter will have a cable plugged into both ends of it) now.. here’s the thing. In a lot of cases your laptop screen repair is just a case of cleaning the inverter pins with some contact cleaner and this will fix the issue for a good while. The reason is that the pins develop a film on them and lose good connection with the plug that is plugged into them, it’s a good idea to clean the harness plug as well. If you want to achieve a more permanent fix you will need to apply some Glue (Threebond 1530B) to the end that the harness plugs into (plug number 2, see left image), this will prevent the dirt film forming again on the pins over time. Once this is done the unit can be reassembled and it should be OK. If you have a faulty inverter that needs replacing the cost will vary from place to place, but study our laptop screen repair guide and use the info to save yourself some money. OVERHEATING Laptop Overheating Issues: Does your laptop shutdown at random? Does it slow down during heavy operations? Do you need to wait 10 min. before you can start it up again? These are all the symptoms of a laptop overheating problem in or around the cooling system. What needs to be remembered is that a lot of the current laptops on the market today are running specifications that traditionally

were reserved for desktops. Some even contain desktop CPU’s and a kick ass cooling system to match. Take a look at the cooling modules in some of the current Toshiba notebooks. Anyhow, in order for these CPU’s to perform they have to be kept as cool as possible so manufacturers like Toshiba, Compaq/HP and the like struggle with the limited space and power to do this, hence they have had some laptop overheating issues. If your laptop does show some of the symptoms mentioned before here’s what you can do.. On the under side of a lot of the machines you can gain access to the CPU/cooling module compartment, be warned – when tinkering around near the CPU, electro static discharge may be your worst nightmare - be careful to control ESD. Once you have located where the fan is you will be able to see quite clearly if this is your issue.. take a look below.

1: Heat sink 2: Fan The heat sink runs off to the right of this picture and sits on the CPU, you can see the copper pipe running to the CPU here (1). The fan and the heat sink

between them, this is where dust will be sucked into and will accumulate.

have a small gap in

Dust build up inside a Toshiba Satellite A10 You can use a soft paint brush safely enough here to loosen all the dust and then use a vacuum with a brush attachment to remove it. If you're game you can take the fan out (2 screws to remove) and give it a good clean out. This isn’t always so easy, on other models of notebooks the fan or fans are only accessible by removing the main board, not a job for a novice.

Dust build up inside a Toshiba Satellite A10 with the fan removed.

Arrows mark what should be cleaned out before re-assembly. Once all the dust and lint is removed, re-assemble your machine. This procedure is something that should be done periodically to ensure that your laptop overheating issues will be a thing of the past. HARD DISK

Hard drive replacement for your laptop

A hard drive replacement for your laptop will be a common

issue that will continue to plague the laptop owners and operators of the world until the laptop hard drive technology moves to solid state drives, as long as there are moving parts inside that harddisk we will have to put up with head crashes and bad sectors. That’s not to say that any new technology won't have a whole new array of unseen or even unheard of errors and problems.. not giving you a lot of confidence in your data storage am I. I have one word of advice.. BACKUPS. OK, back to the info… A hard drive replacement for your laptop is generally one of the easier jobs to do yourself unless you have one of the makes and models of laptop that doesn’t provide easy access to the harddisk, hiding it away under the palm rest or worse still mounting it to the main board. Luckily there are not a lot of these and most of the laptop makers now

recognise the need to have access to the drive for various reasons. Replacing a drive is simple.. generally you can remove 1 screw from the HDD cavity or enclosure and the drive can be removed by sliding it out. See images below.

HDD enclosure on a Toshiba Satellite 6100.

Once the harddisk is removed it will have some sort of aluminium case or frame that it screws into which will need to be removed and fitted to the new drive. This step is essential to your laptop hard drive repair or the drive won't slide back in properly and possibly bend the pins if you try and insert it.. this is bad.

HDD with bracket removed on a Toshiba Satellite 6100.

HDD with aluminium bracket on a Toshiba Tecra 9000. Some drives have a HDD connector cover on the pins which also needs to be removed and put on the new drive. See below.

HDD with connector on a Toshiba Tecra 9000.

Be gentle when re-inserting the new drive, damage to the pins can be a painful affair. If you insert the drive and the laptop doesn’t boot try removing it and re-inserting as the pins may be misaligned. Keep in mind too that new laptop hard drives are shipped un-partitioned and not formatted just the same as normal IDE drives, hopefully you still have your recovery CD’s that came with your laptop, if not don’t worry you can use a Windows CD to rebuild your laptop from scratch and then access the internet at some stage to download drivers specific to your laptop (generally available from the laptop manufacturer's website). If you consider yourself a novice when it comes to installing operating systems then my advice is to have somebody who knows how do it for you, this will save you a lot of time and frustration. Here are some Compaq images I found also, there’s not a lot of difference between makes so the basic concept is the same. HDD removal on a Compaq EVO.

HDD casing on a Compaq EVO. As we said earlier, a hard drive replacement for your laptop isn't particularly hard to do, it's more about whether you can save any data on your hard drive if it fails completely.

BATTERIES

Need To Repair Your Laptop Battery?

OK, bad news first. There isn't much you can do to repair your laptop battery. There are companies that claim they can do what they call repacking or reconditioning but what you will find is the end result may not be worth the money spent on this service, not to mention that laptop manufacturers don’t recommend the practice. In fact the manufacturers may void your laptop warranty (if it still has any) if you use a repacked or reconditioned battery.

Replacing your battery with a new one is generally the best plan if you want to avoid any issues and extra expenses. Laptop batteries are often not interchangeable with others due to things like power output and physical dimensions, most of the laptop batteries these days are moulded and are a custom fit to a specific model of machine. Take a look at the images below to see what I mean.

Laptop battery for a Toshiba 7020CT

Laptop battery for a Toshiba Tecra 9100

To sum it all up, best practice here if you need to repair your laptop battery because it's not charging is just to replace it with a brand new one and avoid any warranty or safety issues.

Laptop Headphone Jack Repair

Laptop headphone jack repair is a common repair job and can be the

result of general wear and tear or a mishap with the jack, what happens a lot is that the headphones are inserted and the plug gets removed roughly or pulled to one side, accidently dislodging or damaging the headphone jack solder points. This will result in the loss of sound through the laptops internal speakers or through the headphone jack itself. Depending on how bad the damage is it may be able to be repaired. A technician that is handy with a soldering iron can often resolder the jack in order to repair functionality without too much trouble. Once again if the jack housing or surrounding components have been damaged too much the repair even for the best technician will be fruitless and would result in the board (PCB) that the headphone jack is connected to being replaced. Here’s where you need to pray that the laptop you have has the headphone jack mounted on a separate daughter or minor board (PCB). Unfortunately if the headphone jack is mounted on the main board you could be looking at big $$ (main boards here in Australia can cost anything from $400.00 - $2500.00). Please see diagrams below.

Laptop main board with headphone jack.

Laptop minor (daughter) board with headphone jack. Warranty on this sort of thing is a bit of a grey area and is taken on a case by case basis by most manufacturers and will depend on the repairer’s findings when they inspect the machine. Some advice is that if you can find somebody who does component level repairs on audio visual or similar equipment with PCB’s of the same detail, they may be able to repair it for you as well (and at a cheaper price, we all know how laptop technicians can charge!), it's probably a good idea to consult a technician who works a lot on your make of laptop first to get an idea of the problem. Research exactly what's involved with your particular laptop headphone jack repair first in order to save yourself some time and money.

How To Repair Your Laptop Power Plug / Jack

It's almost inevitable that you'll need to repair your laptop power plug if

you own a Toshiba Satellite A70 unless you've already had the main board replaced in which Toshiba have applied a well overdue modification similar to what you’ll see here. The DC jacks on these units are weakened over time with general use and become unstable and loose, in some cases detaching themselves from the main board altogether. In the one we have pictured the plug detached from the board completely and had to be resoldered and modified due to the rear pin connection breaking away from the plug. You can see the red wire which had to be added to replace the broken pin, this won't always have to be done. Once the plug has had all of its board mounted points resoldered it is advisable to add an epoxy resin around the outer edge of the plug to fix it to the main board, this will minimise movement when the adapter is plugged into it. I generally use Araldite.

Toshiba Satellite A70 with damaged AC plug. PCB view from the top after modification. The above photo shows the points that need to be resoldered, the 3 points in a row above the red wire (which is our mod) and normally where the red wire is as well.

The red arrows in the above pictures indicate where resin has been added all around the base of the AC plug. If you need to repair your laptop power plug, this fix will work well in just about any make of machine.

Laptop MotherBoard Repair And Diagnosis

All we can say about laptop motherboard repair is that unless

you have some of the latest diagnostic equipment, a test jig, ESD setup workshop, an array of tools, digital multi meters and an oscilloscope then don’t think you can narrow down your fault diagnosis to the exact component that is causing your laptop to misbehave... nobody has that much time. What I can also say is that even your local authorised repair centre for all the brand name laptops don’t go to this much trouble either. I have personally been present for a number of different manufacturers service calls and witnessed how they operate. For example - If you log a call for your Acer laptop which is in warranty, the technician will turn up (for onsite warranty ) with a fist full of spare parts. He will take a quick look at the machine, keeping in mind they already have a fault description and have narrowed it down prior to turning up. After looking at the machine and verifying it has a fault they will basically gut the machine and rebuild it with new internal parts. I have seen this same technique carried out by IBM, HP/Compaq, Acer and I assume most others would do the same. This excludes Toshiba who have a different system. Here are some things you can do to isolate what sort of problem you have, you may think you'll have to undertake some sort of laptop motherboard repair but quite often the motherboard gets blamed for a fault that may be somewhere else in your machine. Look closely at the symptoms, determine when the fault occurs (unless it’s constant) and try and pinpoint the function that is failing. Here is a good example. Your screen goes dim and appears to switch off whilst in use.

- Try the machine using an external screen. You can already get some idea here of what may be the problem, if the external screen is working it may be the LCD or the inverter board. If the external video doesn’t work either then you mustn’t assume the LCD is faulty as you would have external display if it was just the LCD panel. You could now suspect the video card or chipset, in which case you would need to find out whether the video chipset is part of the motherboard or on a separate PCB. This is where your authorised repair centre will come in handy, give them your machine type and they should be able to tell you, if they can't burn their number and never call them again, they're a waste of time, find another repair centre. I wouldn’t expect that most people would be game enough to pull their own laptop apart just to stare blankly at the exposed motherboard looking for the faulty component or track to jump out at them, it's not going to glow red or have smoke coming out of it so the whole venture would be fruitless. Another example. External port faults are common, like USB ports and headphone jacks. An easy way of determining these sorts of faults is to plug in as many different devices that suit to see if it is indeed the port or the device which is faulty. Also try uninstalling then reinstalling the USB device. If the function doesn’t return after this sort of work then you can go one step further and reinstall Windows (or Linux) using your recovery cd’s or your own created SOE , remember to BACKUP your data first. If the fault is still present after this then you can assume that your hardware is to blame for the issues. Finding out what part the actual hardware (USB ports) are located on should be your next step. These sort of ports are not always located on the main board and will often be found on a smaller less expensive board.

Do your testing using normal basic methods to determine as closely as you can what part may be causing your problem then seek some advice from a professional to see if their opinion is the same. Sometimes it may be a case of having to replace components and use a process of elimination to find what's at fault, obviously if your optical drive seems to be playing up and you're able to plug in another one that you know is good and the problem remains your next step is to look at some sort of laptop motherboard repair, unless you're a whiz bang electronics tech this will probably mean just replacing the board.

What Is The Difference Between Laptop And Notebook?

'What's the difference between a laptop and a notebook?' is a question that's been posed by many and as far as we can see it has never been properly answered so once you’ve read this short article you may be still be confused but hopefully with a little better understanding why. Well, it's our opinion that the difference between the two varies according to the region or country you're in, nothing much else. For example, a jumper here in Australia is a sweater in the US, a jumper in the US is somebody who takes their own life by jumping off something... A thong in the US is a great piece of underwear, in Australia it’s a piece of casual footwear also known as a flip flop in New Zealand. In Australia the container we put our beer and ice in is known as an esky, in New Zealand it's a chilly bin, in the US it's called a cooler. Anyway the list goes on...

Here are some examples,

Laptop/Notebook Laptop/Notebook

Need To Hook Your Cellphone To Your Laptop?

Different people may need to hook their cellphone to their laptop for a

variety of reasons, this includes email synchronising, calendar and appointment keeping, web browsing, downloading photos or uploading ringtones etc. We receive various enquiries from our visitors asking what is the best way for them to be able to hook their cellphone to their laptop, this will depend largely on what type of communication options you have on both your cellphone and your laptop. The most common methods of cellphone to laptop communications are Bluetooth (BT), Infrared, and USB to Data cable (physical connection). Bluetooth

Bluetooth function is largely generic in its methods of connecting, basically you need to activate BT function on the phone and the laptop and have them discover each other to form a connection. This is a simplified explanation but it's not difficult to do, remember if you do have problems to refer back to the user manual for the phone or get on the net to troubleshoot, this applies to all the connection methods we refer to. The phone manufacturer software suite would also be involved here for proper communication, though be warned that not all cellphone manufacturers software suites work as well as they should, this is particularly true for Nokia's software. There are other software packages from aftermarket companies available online that work for particular phones and some of these are free.

Infrared Infrared is a line of sight connection, much like the technology in our TV remote controls. Once again Infra needs to be enabled on both devices and they MUST have a clear line of site from one device to the other. Data transfer with Infra is normally controlled from the laptops native software, so no special software is normally required.

Physical Connection The third option to hook your cellphone to your laptop would involve a direct link via a physical cable from one device to the other. The cable will normally have a USB connector on one end and a proprietary connection for your cellphone at the other. The phone manufacturer's software suite would also be involved here for proper communication.

Some cellphone manufacturers will supply the software and cabling required with the phone itself. If they don't then the software can usually be downloaded from their website. I recently bought a Nokia 6101 which came with neither the cabling or software so I've had to buy an aftermarket cable to hook my cellphone to my laptop.

Laptop Recovery

Laptop recovery is slightly different than say a rebuild of a desktop PC. The software on your laptop is the same basic software you get with a new desktop computer but there are a few differences which separate it from the average PC. With every laptop you buy you will receive in some form a recovery image which is basically the manufacturers pre-installed, pre-tested and pre-proven software load that works specifically for the model machine you have. Don’t be fooled into thinking that if your Dell Latitude starts to blue screen that you can load your friends laptop recovery CD from his Toshiba M3 and all will be sweet.. that’s not how it works. For a number of reasons manufacturers create a preloaded software package which will generally include the following: Operating System, these days normally Windows XP something. Drivers to suit your laptops hardware ie; video, audio, network/modem and any other hardware that's specific to your laptop is generally supplied with the laptop as part of the vendors preload. Some hardware is generic and runs fine with native drivers found within Windows already. Devices like hard drives, floppy drives, CD and DVD ROM drives are generally detected and functional without loading any specific drivers. If you do a generic Windows install (clean Windows install) as part of your laptop recovery, although most devices will work you may find that they don't have full functionality.

For example battery life may be limited without the manufacturer supplied power management utility. Most vendors have custom utilities which utilise the hardware supplied with the laptop, these should always be loaded as a rule. In fact if you have a problem with your laptop and you call the vendors support line they will more often than not ask you to run the product recovery software (either from the supplied laptop recovery CD’s or from a hidden partition on the hard disk) to rule out your problem being a software issue, which isn’t generally covered under the manufacturers warranty. If you call for support and you don’t have the vendors software loaded (if you have wiped the machine and just reinstalled Windows) you may not get assistance until you reload the vendors software. If you find yourself in this situation refer to the manufacturers website, normally they will have a support or download page which will contain all the drivers and utilities you will need. Using your laptop recovery CD in the event of a system crash can make the rebuilding of your machine a whole lot less painful.

How To Clear Your Toshiba Bios Password

This Toshiba bios password removal process is meant for use on Toshiba

laptops that you own or have had permission from the rightful owner to remove the password. If any of these processes are done incorrectly it may result in complete system failure or permanent system damage (you've been warned!). Some Toshiba bios passwords can be reset using the Key Disk.exe utility, to do this you need a 1.44Mb floppy disk. Format the disk using Windows and then with a hex editor, change the

first five bytes of the second sector to 4B 45 59 00 00. Then put the floppy into your machine and boot it up, you'll be asked for a password, just press Enter. Then when you're asked to set the password, type Y then Enter, this will get you into the bios configuration where you can then type in a new password. Aside from the KeyDisk, you can build a parallel Loopback plug, this is a simple device that plugs into the parallel port of the machine and removes the password when you boot it up. To make it you will need a 25 pin DB25 plug, take the plug apart and join these pins using some old cable; Pins: 1-5-10, 2-11, 3-17, 4-12, 6-16, 7-13, 8-14, 9-15, and 18-25

Plug it into your parallel port and boot up your machine, the password should be removed as soon as it boots. Note: This will work on majority of older Toshiba's (1995 – 2002) and obviously only ones that have a parallel port.

CG Security CG Security have a utility available that claims to work for a range of Toshiba bios passwords as well as the following machines;

• ACER/IBM BIOS • AMI BIOS • AMI WinBIOS 2.5 • Award 4.5x/4.6x/6.0 • Compaq (1992) • Compaq (New version) • IBM (PS/2, Activa, Thinkpad) • Packard Bell

• Phoenix 1.00.09.AC0 (1994), a486 1.03, 1.04, 1.10 A03, 4.05 rev 1.02.943, 4.06 rev 1.13.1107

• Phoenix 4 release 6 (User) • Gateway Solo - Phoenix 4.0 release 6 • Toshiba • Zenith AMI

The utility also has the ability to restore, backup and erase/kill cmos. There is also some info about generic passwords for Award motherboards. Check it out at CGI Security

Toshiba Bios Password Deletion Satellite P100 & Satellite Pro P100 With notebook turned off;

• Open Wi-Fi Cover • Remove Mini Card Wi-Fi card • Locate & Short Out JP8 for 5 Seconds • Remove short and turn on • NO BOOT • Press & Hold Power button to turn off • Turn on again & password is cleared

Satellite L10, L20, L30 & Satellite Pro L20 With notebook turned off;

• Open Wi-Fi Cover • Locate & Short Out JP1 for 15 Seconds(Satellite L10) • Satellite L20/Pro L20 short out G1

Satellite M100 & Tecra A6 With notebook turned off;

• Open Memory Cover

• Remove Memory • Remove Black plastic insulation • Locate & Short CMOS CLR1 for 15 Seconds

NOTE: All the following models use the same password removal process. Satellite: 17xx Series, 1000, 1110,1130, 1200, 1900, 2430, 3000 P20,P30, P33, A30, A70, A80, M40X, M50,M60, M70, M100 Tecra A3/S2, A5, A6

• The jumper is always located under or near the memory modules

• Depending on the model the jumper could be labelled J1, J2, J5, J7, J9 or CMOS CLR1 (M100 & A6)

Satellite A100 & Tecra A7

1. Remove Strip cover 2. Remove 2 x K/B screws 3. Move K/B Unit up but don’t disconnect 4. Release & Remove Mini Card Wi-Fi Card 5. Locate & short C88 Pin 1 & 2 together 6. Power on Machine while still shorting Pin 1 & 2 7. As soon as the TOSHIBA logo appears, remove short 8. If machine boots, Password has been removed

Satellite A100 (PSAA2A-02C01N)

1. Remove Memory Cover from base of machine 2. Release & remove right side Memory Module 3. Lift black plastic insulation 4. Locate & short PAD500 Pin 1 & 2 together 5. Power on machine while still shorting Pin 1 & 2 6. As soon as the TOSHIBA logo appears, remove short 7. If machine boots, password has been removed

TECRA A4 & Satellite M40

8. Open modem & Wi-Fi card cover

9. Remove mini PCI Wi-Fi card 10. Lift up black plastic 11. Locate & short C738 Pin 1 & 2 together 12. Power on machine while still shorting Pin 1 & 2 13. As soon as the TOSHIBA logo appears, remove

short 14. If machine boots, password has been removed

TECRA S1

15. Open palm rest cover 16. Remove mini PCI Wi-Fi card 17. Lift up black plastic 18. Locate & short C5071 Pin 1 & 2 together 19. Power on machine while still shorting Pin 1 & 2 20. As soon as the TOSHIBA logo appears, remove

short 21. If machine boots, password has been removed

TE 2300

22. Remove 2 x B12 screws from bottom of system 23. Remove strip cover 24. Remove keyboard screws 1 x B2.5 & 1 x SF4 25. Remove 1 x 4mm screw & Wi-Fi cover 26. Remove mini PCI Wi-Fi card if fitted 27. Locate & short points as shown in picture below 28. Power on machine while still shorting points 29. Short for 5 seconds 30. Nothing will appear on the screen 31. Turn system off holding down power button 32. Password is now removed

Satellite A60

33. Open Wi-Fi slot cover 34. Lift up black plastic 35. Locate & short C561 Pin 1 & 2 together 36. Power on machine while still shorting Pin 1 & 2 37. As soon as the TOSHIBA logo appears, remove

short 38. 39. If machine boots, password has been removed

If you need your Toshiba bios password removed and your model is not listed above then chances are it's a procedure that can only be done at an authorised repair centre.

How To Backup Laptop Data And Create An SOE

Before we go into the easiest way to backup your laptop data, I'll first cover what is an SOE. In the corporate world IT or IS departments create what they refer to as a Standard Operating

Environment (SOE) which enables them to service and support an environment which doesn’t differ too much from user to user. This can save a huge amount of time and money in support when they can solve a lot of issues users are having without going to great lengths to diagnose them. To put things in perspective, lets say a company has 300 users all with computers on their desk. The company will generally try and fit everybody with the same machine whether it be a desktop or laptop, all running the same applications, network settings etc. This enables the IS or IT dept to create an SOE which is good for their entire fleet. It would be tested in their own environment and customised to perform all the functions required for day to day business, of course there will be some variations to suit users individual needs. If at any time a users computer fails or has a problem, a replacement computer can be given to the user with limited interruption to their work while in the meantime the issues with the machine can be resolved. This also enables the IT or IS dept to be familiar with one standard environment and not 300 different systems all with different hardware and software. How can this work for you at home?? When you get a new computer or you wipe your old one and rebuild it you can first backup your laptop data and then create a basic SOE which you can save in the event of a problem which can be reloaded to get you back up and running in a third of the time it would take you to rebuild it from scratch. Here’s an example of a basic SOE: -Windows or Linux operating system. -Drivers for all your hardware. -Office applications. -Third party applications you use, ie Ad Aware, DAP, Adobe apps, Nero etc. -You would also set up your internet connection and email

settings. You would get the machine to a point where it is functional for day to day use. Try to refrain from loading anything unnecessary like games until you have created the basic SOE. A good base for such an SOE is to create your own on top of what has already been supplied by the manufacturer of the machine. A lot of the work will have already been done by the vendor. For example, the machine comes already setup with the operating system and machine specific drivers and utilities. Once you have the machine running the way you like it, you need to create an image file. This is done by using software like Ghost (by Symantec), Drive image, True Image, Acronis True Image or the like. These software packages are made to be quite simple. The image can be stored on DVD (recommended) or on a backup partition on the hard drive, this is only possible if your drive has already been partitioned in this way. If not then another software package like “Partition Magic” may be required. I suggest for example if you have a 20GB drive then you can split the drive into two 10GB halves, installing all your software on the C:/ partition and using the D:/ to backup your laptop data. This is to safeguard your image if the Operating System becomes corrupt. Keep the second partition for saving your backup laptop data files and your SOE image. In all cases I recommend you keep copies of the image on DVD as well as on your hard drive, but that’s just me.. Job done, now in the event of you getting a nasty virus or your hard disk crashing, you have complete snapshot image of your system which includes all your backup laptop data files as well. Depending on what laptop backup software you used to create the actual image file will affect how it is reloaded back onto your system. For example, if you have used Ghost you can use a Ghost boot disc (floppy) to boot your machine giving you access to the DVDROM or you may be able to create a bootable CD. Important Note: You need to create a boot floppy or CD using the application you have chosen to create the image with, it's

best to do this when you create the SOE image. The application you have chosen will have this function built in. Your image can then be reloaded back onto your hard drive using the boot floppy or CD, whichever you've created. Note: You cannot load an image on the same drive it's stored on. So if you have your SOE image stored on your C: and you try and restore it back onto your C: it will fail, this is the importance of having the image file (SOE) on another partition or DVD disc as Ghost and other apps. enable you to image Partition to Partition and DVD to Partition. Your backup laptop data files should also be stored on this partition. For more info on image backup and restore procedures you should refer to the backup software manufacturer's website. By having a laptop backup procedure, creating an SOE and making sure you regularly backup your laptop data, restoring your machine after a hard drive crash or virus infection can be done with a minimum of fuss and machine downtime.

How To Backup Your Laptop

Learning to backup your laptop to protect your data is something that all laptop users should become familiar with doing. The options available to you are many and varied so we'll run through a few of these, keeping it simple. Which option you choose is dependent on how much data you have to backup on a regular basis. For example it’s not practical to backup large amounts of data like 5GB+ to DVDR or USB memory. I've setup up a simple practical guide as to what options are available to you.

Keep in mind that if you're not fussed about wasting space more of these options become available to you.

Some things to consider are that some of these solutions are less reliable than others. None of these options are exempt from issues arising from accidental damage, loss or incorrect use in which case data can and will be lost. All of these methods to backup your laptop require you to have some sort of system that you are comfortable with. One method you can use which doesn’t require any special software or a great deal of thought is to copy or save all data you class as critical to a backup folder created on your laptop and periodically backup that folder entirely to your backup device, this will be subject what amount of data you have to secure. Others may opt to use a specific backup solution software or laptop backup software that is native to your operating system. Of course these options so far are all favourable as mobile

options, they can also be used as office solutions but most office environments will have a more regimented and monitored backup solution to backup their laptops. Professional solutions are often based around a more complex process system like DAT, DLT and LTO tape backup systems.

Laptop Repair Manuals

Having a laptop repair manual specific to your machine is invaluable when you're performing maintenance or repairs. Maintenance and service guides provide a range of information including -

• Models numbers for your machine specific to the country you're in (essential to know when ordering spare parts).

• Troubleshooting guides. • Component lists and layouts. • Machine specific disassembly and service guides. • Cable and connector wiring configurations and assignments.

The documents are mainly in PDF format with the odd one or two in .zip or .rar compressed packages. Please select the appropriate manual for your machine from the list of manufacturers below.

HP/Compaq HP Compaq

Note: There is quite a bit of interchangeability between Compaq and HP machines so if you can't find the service manual for your machine in the Compaq section please check the HP section.

Acer FRC Tech apologises for any inconvenience but due to a request from Acer we have removed the Acer service and repair manuals from our site. We've been advised not to make these manuals available in any way so please don't contact us asking for a particular manual to be emailed to you etc