Toshiba Laptop With Grinding Noise Repaired
A customer came to my workshop with his Toshiba Laptop with the complaint of grinding noise from inside the laptop.
While discussing with the customer about his laptop history he has told me about few months back he has given this laptop to someone for repair but he is not happy with the work. The reason for this is because the laptop gives intermittent problems such as very slow to operate, sometimes hanging problem or no display and etc.
After this discussion I told the customer that he has to pass the laptop to me for troubleshooting. That time it was already late and I had to start working on it the next day. Laptops opening are very tedious job because of too many different sizes of screw and you have to manage the location of screw. Usually I used one blank paper and by making mark on it so I can keep track where the screw belongs. I am not going in deep process of opening the laptop because it is a long process to disassemble the laptop. Please refer to this link for process.
http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/Toshiba-Satellite-A305/laptop-disassembly-process-1.htm
So after opening, this is what I found!
On visual inspection I found that someone has repaired the Tokin Capacitor area before.
As you see in the photo, the technician has not removed the paper tape, who has repaired this laptop before.
These are 330uf 2.5v SMD tantalum capacitors.
As I have tested these capacitors by analog meter but all of them seems to be good no leakage or shorting. Hence I have decided to do some more inspection so I have removed the motherboard from the laptop to see if I found some physical damage or burn mark but there was no damage found up till.
Next I removed the CPU FAN from the motherboard for testing. Now Here I found the culprit of this problem I found screw holding plastic part was broken.
So this is the culprit who makes grinding noise and making laptop operation misbehaving.
So I have replaced the FAN unit with new one and after reassembling the laptop I have kept the laptop under working observation for two days and it works fine.
This article was prepared for you by Yogesh Panchal who works as a Computer Hardware Engineer in Mumbai India.
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corriete
June 29, 2015 at 11:08 pm
yes this seems like an easy one but it was a problem worth fixing.
Yogesh Panchal
June 30, 2015 at 11:30 pm
Corriete, thanks for comment.
Merlin Marquardt
June 30, 2015 at 12:43 am
Good work. What was the source of the grinding noise?
Yogesh Panchal
June 30, 2015 at 11:35 pm
Dear Merlin,
Because FAN screw supports are broken and when it is not fit properly the FAN wings some time touches to underneath body and produce the noise.
Humberto
June 30, 2015 at 1:33 am
Hi Yogesh Panchal, good inspection you did to find the culprit. Congratulations and keep up.
Humberto
June 30, 2015 at 1:44 am
By the way Yogesh Panchal, could you provide some more technical laptops website (free) like the one you menctioned in your article?
Yogesh Panchal
June 30, 2015 at 11:36 pm
Humberto,
Please find some of sites here below in comments.
Robert Calk
June 30, 2015 at 3:38 am
Good job, Yogesh.
Yogesh Panchal
June 30, 2015 at 11:37 pm
Thank you Sir.
Mark
June 30, 2015 at 8:34 am
Hey Yogesh,
Thanks for your article. Sometimes it is the simple things that make the problems.
Thanks for the link - there is some excellent information on that site. Do you know of other sites that are useful?
Yogesh Panchal
June 30, 2015 at 11:38 pm
Mark thanks for comment and please find some referral sites below.
praveen
June 30, 2015 at 3:38 pm
thanks for the article
Yogesh Panchal
June 30, 2015 at 11:38 pm
Your welcome praveen.
aio de la cruz
July 2, 2015 at 7:23 am
Yes its true. I also repair a msi netbook and the problem is like that. The blade of the fan is wiggled and touching at the casing on it that makes a grinding noise. I replaced the blower from another msi netbook but not with same model. But the size and mounting of the blower is the same. And now its working quietly. I found also that if the fan not working properly, it makes the unit sloow because of overheating. The processor is too hot. Tnx so much.
Yogesh Panchal
June 30, 2015 at 11:29 pm
Friends here some sites for laptop and printer reference.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide
http://www.laptop-repair.info
http://www.insidemylaptop.com
http://www.irisvista.com
http://www.insidemylaptop.com
http://repair4laptop.org
http://www.laptopparts101.com
http://www.laptopkeyboard.com/index.php
http://www.lcdparts.net
http://www.depotintl.com
http://www.all-laser.com
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/
http://printertechs.com
http://www.partshere.com
http://www.printertechs.com
Ehsan Murad
July 1, 2015 at 11:28 am
Dear Yogesh,
Thanks for both article and references.
Chris
July 1, 2015 at 4:15 pm
Hi!
Nice work and the best side is you have saved another equipment from the junk.
Thanks for sharing and the link.
I have a question:
Why you not removed the paper tape?
I can remember a situation on a motherboard where a nice paper tape sticking on the RAM memory made a difficult problem. The PC crashed, rebooted etc. after I found the paper tape and removed it, cleaned from the glue the PC was as new.
I don't now why I removed that paper tape but I just removed it and the magic was broken. 🙂
Otherwise great article, nice photo and explanation.
My best regards.
Yogesh Panchal
July 2, 2015 at 4:19 pm
Chris ,
for paper tape I have doubt that the person who has repaired this laptop before may have damaged the PCB or traces and if i remove this may mash-up the job. thanks for your comment.
Edouard Saint-clair
July 3, 2015 at 8:11 pm
Hi Yogesh,
How are you? Thank you for this quick Tech tip. Also I am asking why you didn't go straight to the fan since it is the only moving part inside the laptop apart from the DVD player. The caps wouldn't make a grinding noise. They would probably make a hissing noise if they were frequency devices going bad (like a transformer). Matter of fact, capacitors are also frequency devices, but in a reverse way and they don't make noise or that type of noise. Despite that the paper under the Tantalum caps is obvious, I would go for the fan first. Regards.