Toshiba Satellite M30

[fabio]

When pressing the power button, the following happens 60% of time:

1. Fans will go on

2. Toshiba POST message appears and loads very shortly (under a second)

3. Blinking white cursor appears on the top left screen

4. All lights are off except the following blue power button, the AC adaptor indicator, the on light, the battery light and one of the media lights.

5. The fans get louder after a while (indicating CPU stress).

30% of the time the following happens:

1. Fans will go on

2. Toshiba POST message appears and loads very shortly (under a second)

3. Nothing will be shown on the display at all

4. All lights are the same as above

5. The fans get louder after a while (indicating CPU stress).

9% of the time:

1. Fans will go on

2. Nothing will be shown on the display at all for the whole time

3. All lights are the same as above

4. The fans get louder after a while (indicating CPU stress).

1% of the time:

1. Windows XP loads properly

I haven't actually seen Windows load, in all the times that I've tried. The owner declares that it loaded up once before.

I've done some research and found that one guy solved this problem by pressing hard on the front left side of the laptop. This never worked for me.

There are no beeps during the start-up process.

I have tried the following:

1. Pressed hard on different parts of the laptop hoping it was just a loose connection with the motherboard

2. Held F2 on boot to go into the BIOS Setup, the Toshiba POST screen just hanged until I unpressed the key and proceeded with the effects above

3. Held F12 on boot to get the boot options. The menu appeared I tried HD, the POST message hanged.

4. Burned a copy of Knoppix Live CD on a DVD and tried to boot to it, the CD drive spins and goes to high speed, and then the drive dies down and a good old black screen or cursor comes up.

5. Held F12 on boot to boot to Windows XP install CD, CD drive sped up, read CD then the laptop restarted.

This is a $3000 laptop bought in 2002. The Hard drive already had to be replaced in 2004 (made very loud sounds and would not boot).

It's a Toshiba Satellite M30 PSM33C-00100E.

My guess is that it's another Hard drive issue or mother board issue (since I can't get into the BIOS Setup).

Thanks for reading this over detailed explanation.

Edit: Tried Windows install CD

Edited April 20, 2009 by fabio

[mewi]

You said you bought it in 2002? When was the last time it was internally cleaned from dust, sometimes all kinds of dust/things can get into your system and cause havok on your electronics.

When I say internally cleaned, I mean completely taken apart, all fans wiped clean from dust, all circuit boards cleaned from dust as well.

Edit: On a side note, my fathers Toshiba satellite notebook had over heating issues due to dust build up, cleaned the notebook completely ( after spending an hour+ taking it apart )... no problems afterwords.

It wasn't the same model as yours, but from what I read... it would seem satellite notebooks have dust issues.

Edited April 20, 2009 by mewi

[fabio]

No dust, I'm going to try and replace the CMOS battery.

For those of you still interested, I also asked this question on this forum.

Feel free to comment here if you notice something on that forum.

http://forums.g4tv.com/showthread.php?t=121332&page=1