In this text I will explain a common fault of Toshiba m35x (also fault in some HP models)
motherboards which results in a totally dead laptop. On each attempt to power up, the laptop either does nothing, or the fan spins up, LEDs blink and then everything shuts down.
The problem appears elegantly after the warranty is expired, so there is no free service any more. Mine died after a two years of usage.
Official service centers will list buying a new motherboard as the only solution for this problem. However, a new motherboard is not the only solution. Fixing the old motherboard is a better, faster and incomparably cheaper option. The entire process of opening up, repairing and reassembly of the laptop will not take about an hour. With this repair, most probably you will save the laptop, or save at least 200USD, money that you'd pay to get a used motherboard from Ebay. For this fix, you will need one philips screwdriver, one flat screwdriver, pliers, a small sharp knife, a 25-30 watts soldering iron with a very very fine circular tip, no larger than 2mm foothold, some soldering paste and a digital camera.
Basically, you reflow the Maxim chip with a hot air gun or a fine tip soldering iron and that's it. All in all, this repair takes about 30 minutes.
If you do not want to waste time in figuring out where this chip is, and how to do the resolder, you can get the full illustrated tutorial. I put in a bit more work into it, so to get it you can do one of these two options: purchase it or to sign up at a site, and get the tutorial for free.
1. Purchase the tutorial for 7 Euros (approx. 10USD). With this option you get my support in answering your questions related to this fix.
For Paypal users, contact me for details.
To purchase this tutorial, please click on the Purchase button below. (In case if you don't have a Moneybookers account, you may follow this link and make one for free.)
2. To get the tutorial for free, sign up and activate your account at me2everyone social networking site by following this link and email me the Welcome email you get from m2e, and I will send you the tutorial. For free, of course. I will consider registrations in false names as a falsified check, and will not mail out the tutorial.
With this free option, I cannot offer email support.
Thank you.
58 comments:
Hey, I recently acquired one of these laptops and your solution of pressing the tip of the screwdriver against the maxim chip. Unfortunately I have no experience of soldering at all (I am 14), I am looking into buying one. How small would it have to be. I look around on Ebay and find things like 40 watt "pencil tip" soldering irons real cheap, is that small enough? I cant compare size via picture very well so I am left fairly clueless. I have quite a few spare mobos lying around to practice on so don't worry much about that.
Could you please send a few tips and what size I should get to halosavior(at)hotmail{DOT}com
You'll find laptop disassembly instructions at www.irisvista.com
I had the same issue and I used this repair guide and it worked!!! I didn't have to re-solder the chip I just put soldering paste on the joints and re-heated with my soldering iron and it worked perfectly..... Thanks again for the repair guide!!!!
Hey, Igor, thanx a lot man! That's such a great post. You know how hard it is to isolate a problem like this faulty "MAX power chip"!
Your solution worked great for me.
Great job finding the problem!
Thanx!
You are genius!!! My laptop is a live after being dead for two months. THANKS A LOT!!!
Same problem with my laptop, same solution with your guide.
Thank you so much
Great post. Thanks for sharing your experience. My M35X-S109 would stop running (power LED still on but every other indication was the system was dead) after anywhere from 3 seconds to a a couple minutes. I also noticed that the fan never turned on again after an initial couple seconds immediately after first powering it on. Following this procedure seems to have fixed the problem, even though I could see no cold solder joints under 10X magnification. Does that IC also run the fan? I can't find any data on it online.
What I'm really curious about is, how did you ever figure this out?
@Erickson
The Max 1987 is a power driver, a chip that regulates/provides current for all the components on the motherboard. When it malfunctions, you've got a dead laptop. I don't remember where I got the details for the chip but I do know reading about it somewhere online. I think it was while I was researching a fix on HP nx6110 laptop that had random freezups. Anyways, this fix of a Toshiba is genuinely mine, as I've searched for about a year and didn't find a fix for it. I did some testing in the power module, got to know that the motherboard receives power but not everywhere. The key with this was that my laptop died when I tried to open up a bit more the screen. Probably tue to tensions, the second I pushed the LCD, the laptop died. This opening and closing, as well as heating and cooling caused "chip creep" effect, which is a big issue with the led free soldering alloys, which are very "stiff" and many components "creep" due to expansion and contraction caused by heat, and eventually a pin somewhere loses contact. You cannot really see this fault no matter how big a zoom you use. On the surface everything may be OK, but you may still not have contact between the pin and motherboard. Read up some books or do a search for soldering techniques for the theory of soldering.
I'm glad this post is so popular. I hope when I get the time to write up the tutorial for the freezing HP nx 6110 as this is a far more widespread problem, and the fix is also a simple one.
Cheers folks
Igor Mateski.
Mother F**king Genius. Brilliant. Sincerely one of the best posts ever!
Igor, I knew my problem was a chip that had broken solder but I didn't know which one. That is until I read your (as stated before) Mother F**king Genius and Brilliant post. You're the man. Thank you for your research and time. Wish this world had more like you.
U DA F'in MAN
Its that chip ... now to find someone to solder it... I sux with small things.
Igor, thanks a million for this thread. My mother has a HP NC6000 laptop, and the same thing happened with it. When applying pressure on the motherboard it would start up, but when releasing the pressure it would die. The "experts" told me the motherboard had to be replaced as it is fried. The same Maxim chip was the cause of the problem, and it took some time to find the chip as it is quite small and is on the bottom of the motherboard. I soldered the 48 points, and it is alive again, and Mom is happy. Igor for president!
This is a great post. I plan on fixing my macine this weekend. However, I think someone is trying to rip you off. It appears that they are selling your idea on ebay for $7.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/Toshiba-Satellite-M35X-motherboard-repair-manual_W0QQitemZ270327481650QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Nonfiction_Book?hash=item270327481650&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A0%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50
This fix worked for me. Thanks Igor for sharing your experience and knowledge.
Hi Igor, Had the very same issue with the M35x Laptop and I just followed your steps and the Laptop now works fine. Thank you for finding the problem and putting it on the web thing for everyone to share. You have done a great job.Thanks again
Vasu
As of Jan 19, 2009, Igor's fix STILL WORKS!! THANKS!!!! Just reheated the pin with the soldering iron and it came back to life. THANKS!!!
Igor...You are GOD!!!
Thank you very much for this great post...i fixed my friend's lap top...
And we are thanking you for this! Great job!!!
I had reassemble my m35x-s329 and found that the power chip using Maxim-max1532a ETL instead of max1987. Can I just replace by max1987 which is easier to found this specific on the market..
ID motherboard K000019630.
about the Max1532a, please visit this post http://imateski.blogspot.com/2009/01/maxim1532a-maxim1987-issue-on-toshiba.html
cheers
The author
DO YOU THINK YOU COULD JUST USE THE TAPE THEY USE TO HOLD DOWN BORDS ON CHEAPER PRODUCTS CINCE IT DOESNT TAKE MUCH PRESSURE
SORRY ABOUT THE SPELLING ERRORS
Before I soldered down the chip, I used a metal spring attached to the cooler which applied quite a bit of pressure on the chip, and the laptop worked but unreliably. It would just shut down sporadically. The point with the pressure was to use that force to break through the oxidized/loose contacts between some of the pins and the PCB. As it turned out, improvisations don't work reliably, so don't waste your time with tapes, springs and other mechanic solutions. Use the tutorial and do a clean and tidy job so that you'd have a reliable laptop.
Regards
Igor.
Igor, Thanks for a great tutorial.
My m35x displays exactly the symptoms you described but pressing on the Maxim chip did nothing.
I have disassenbled it down to motherboard and will attempt to re-solder the chip.
Before I do, do yo know of anything else that would cause exact same symptoms?
I ghet same symptoms with HD, memory and other parts removed.
Thanks
If the symptoms are the same, its the same solution. Sometimes putting pressure may not cut it. Go for it, resolder the chip. But be careful. The bottom line is that the laptop doesn't work anyways, so you got nothing to lose. On a more fact-based conviction, Toshiba lost a ton of money over lawsuits about this defect. If the laptop is dead, with the listed symptom, this is the solution.
Feel free to share the results so that others may know what happened too.
Cheers
Igor.
I remember losing hope about a week ago until I found this Post. But hey I'm so new to fixing this myself. The question is I have M35X-S329, Can I do the same procedure?
Many Thanks in advance!
I'm practicing on a chip in a scrap drive. The chip is larger but spacing of connections is similar.
I'll post results later.
Jay, sorry for the long delay. YES, your Toshiba will also benefit from this fix, of course if you do a good job of resoldering.
Post your results.
Good Luck
Igor.
So, I checked my MAXIM as your guide described and still nothing has changed. I turned on my computer and the fan spun for 3 seconds then, stopped and the Power bottom-(blue LEDs) stayed on and on.. It just looks like a sleeping beauty princess that I can only see the blue LEDs and knowing that there is a way to wake it up!! Well, Igor, do you think that I still should resoldering that Maxim chip?
Hi Jay
Sorry it didnt work out, but I am confident that a quality resolder will fix this issue for you. I also had to resolder mine several times, until I learned the trick of working on such a small scale. Once you get it up and running, you can help out others with this exact problem just as I do.
Don't expose the chip on more than 10 seconds soldering, use soldering paste, and make sure you have a clean tip.
regards
Igor.
Just to clarify; what type/size of soldering iron did you use?
@Dustin
I use a 1 millimeter diameter soldering tip. Its almost as small as a normal ball pen tip. In general, look for the smallest tip available.
Thanks for the instructions! I was not hep to the task of resoldering each one of those minuscule leads, so I used the heatgun-reflow technique described here (the link describes fixing a different problem on a Mac, but the technique is the same): http://forums.macnn.com/69/mac-notebooks/210232/diy-ibook-dual-usb-logic-board/1/#post3819421
After removing the mobo and applying a two-layer aluminum foil mask, the reflow took maybe five minutes start to finish, plus ten minutes to cool down. Way easier than soldering with an iron!
Hi from Poland. Thanks, You help me too. Look on www.elektroda.pl Best regards... zdzich42
Hi Igor. I’m interested to know if you have any idea about Toshiba L20 and if they used the same disastrous Maxim chip on L20. A friend got a L20 and it has the same symptoms of M30X, M35X and M40X. Just as information: I checked two M40X notebooks (the ex-popular Toshiba notebook in Germany) and found they are equipped with a Maxim-max1532a ETL. Best wishes
Greetings to Germany. I am not familiar with the L20's power driver details. What I do know is that many laptop brands use the Maxim chip for power regulation, so if the symptoms are the same, chances are the L20 also has a Maxim power driver. The easiest way to find out is to actually open the laptop and check.
Hope that helps. By the way, if you do find out, would you please post a comment on your findings so that other owners of L20 can know?
Thanks
Regards
Igor
Hi Igor. I checked the L20 and found two Maxim chips instead of one (MAX 1917A ETL528 and Maxim 9755E). I believe the first one (1917A) is the power driver. In any case I re-soldered both but it didn’t work. Probably it got other problem rather than the Maxim chip. Hope the information will be useful for others. On the other hand I got a Satellite A40 with a blank white screen. It works just fine with an external monitor but I tried two LCD cables and two LCD monitors but the internal screen remains blank and just the backlight is working. If you have any knowledge about A40 I’ll be grateful if you share with me. All the best
Well, from 3 dead motherboards, I was successful on getting 2 to work. The trick is always use flux. Going to a 1mm tip to me doesn't allow enough heat to touch the leads. Make sure your tip is properly tinned and sharp enough to reach the pins. I used to solder this stuff all the time by hand. The foil technique to me is not a good solution because you are reheating old oxidized solder. Clean solder always gives better results. Use a magnifying lense when complete to make sure there are no bridges. If you have more than 1 bridge, let alone any bridges, you didnt use enough flux or used too much solder. if you have bridged contacts, clean the solder iron tip and allow the tip to "wick" the excess solder off the contacts.. again, flux is the rule.
Igor you rock !!! I thought I'm the only crazy guy enough to find the needles in haystacks :) In other words I truly understand how much time and patience you have invested in finding this fault.
CONGRATS man!
For the guy in Germany with a blank screen: a blank screen (white) with the backlight on is usually a fried SMD fuse on the screens board. It's the fuse that provides power to LCD controller board.Open carefully the lcd screen and replace the fuse.
I have a similar problem with an Acer Aspire 5315 (me and a few more hundreds of people I guess). They have the same symptoms described on M35x. Mine is dead completely. I'll check what MAX chips has on the mobo and hopefully I'll find the cure.
Great fix Igor! If you happen to be really lazy like me, I took the easy way out and it works perfectly. Remove the securing strip and the first 3 screws on the bottom directly under the Maxim chip. Flip the laptop and remove the 2 keyboard screws and flip the keyboard over. Remove the wifi cover and remove the wifi card. Then unplug the screen and remove the 4 screws to remove it from the base. Cut a piece of a very small dow stick just a bit higher then the space between the maxim chip and top piece. Now slide a guitar pick or similar object to separate the top & bottom where you removed the 3 bottom screws. Put a little super glue on the top of the dow stick and put the end without the glue on the Maxim chip. Reassemble the computer and it will boot forever. Total time 25 minutes using the lazy mans way!! LOL
DownRiver the lazy guy!!
DownRiver, thanks for sharing your experience. Before I gathered enough courage to put a soldering iron to the chip, I also used a pressure approach in the similar way you're describing. Unfortunately, due to the chip creep effect (discussed in more detail in another post on my blog), this solution lasted for only a few days, after which I had to increase pressure. Very soon it became too much of a frustration to lose work every time the laptop shut down that I decided to do the fix explained in the tutorial. The bottom line is that once you open the laptop, the repair lasts only a few minutes, and viola, a perfectly working motherboard. Let us know if your laptop stops working again.
Hi Igor,
first, thank you for mailing me the guide. But I failed at resoldering it...because I didn't use soldering paste. Just the soldering flux to reflow its own soldering "thing". But it didn't work. Same as before, monitor won't turn on, the fan spinned and the power buttom lights up blue and the one on the side is green.
What helped you to paste soldering paste and flux that precisely on the joints?
Hwang, I used solder paste, applied it at the same time on all pins, and used fine pin solderer (1mm diameter) and applied 60/40 solder tin on individual pins. The described process in the tutorial is for people with less experience in order to prevent unwanted short circuiting of pins, as this is more than likely to happen. As mentioned in the tutorial, if you've never ever worked on such a small scale SMDs, it would be best if you take the motherboard to a TV repair shop and just ask them to reflow the chip.
So, you mean I have to apply solder tin, too, even though I pasted solder paste on the contacts?
Thanks, Igor
You saved my laptop that I would have thrown away. Toshiba M35X-S329.
If any of you have the problem were the laptop turns on but the BIOS doesn't show and nothing happens, than this is probably the fix for you.
Hi Igor, I tried to reflow it with a heatgun. But i think i fried the chip. Do you have any idea how I can measure this on the chip. (is some pin voltage then typically saturated,... ). I can't seem to find any datasheet for it.
Thanks in advance,
Keeth
So I had the same problem with my HPNC6000 where the fan would spin, the amber light would go on, and then it would turn itself off. I found these instructions on the internet and fixed the MAX1987 chip. It then appeared to boot (hard drive turned on, green lights on, fan spinning normally) but my screen would turn on.
I assumed that the board had been damaged while taking it apart and got another board. Fixed the chip, but it still does the same thing, turns on but no screen no backlight. I've also tried hooking up my laptop to another screen and nothing happens.
Any advice would help, this is really frustrating.
Jeh246
The LCD not having any backlight COULD easily be the little switch for the lid being stuck that switches the backlight off when closing the lid. Check that out. For an external monitor connection ensure that you have the display set. Easy enough to check, press Fn+F4 or whatever F-key has the little monitor on it. I managed to get an HP NC6000 working again. It lasted about five months but mom says its buggered again. Will wait until I get to see her again. Good luck.
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Best regards
Thanks for the tip! My Toshiba M35X-S169 died as you describe. Resoldering the MAX1532 brought it to life again. Hooray!! But only temporarily - one of the pads on the chip had been pulled off by thermal cycling. Maxim is sending two more as engineering samples.
The datasheet isn't available as the chip is made only for Intel IMVP licensees. However, if you register as an engineer at Maxim's web site and request it, they may send it to you. 'Tis a "Dual-Phase, Quick-PWM Controller for IMVP CPU Core Power Supplies".
Meanwhile I hope this is what's wrong with two Dell D400 laptops I have as well. More news soon.
Many thanks again - and best to all!
I don’t know If I said it already, but this so good stuff keep up the good work. I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part Belajar seo blogspot just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks.
Best regards
Seo Motivation Oes tsetnoc
hi, I have acer aspire which green light on for few seconds and the fan also then everything stops does this solution work on my laptop?
To the owner of the Acer: Please specify the model (eg. Aspire 7720z or whatever is your model) and when you bought it. If the symptoms are the same this tutorial may also apply to your Acer as many brands used the Maxim chip as a power regulator.
Hi from Australia,
Would this solution work on Compaq EVO N620c. It appears to have a similar problem. Yesterday it took over and hour to 'not' boot up properly was able to restart but got as far as showing Windows XP loading then stopped. The screen is black/grey the light are on [but no one home] and the mouse cursor moves, but nothing. Would love to fix it as I am very attached to this Laptop
Regards
Janina
To the owner of the N620c: If you have seen the mouse cursor and nothing else shows on the screen, ie you only have a black screen with the responsive cursor, the problem is software related and is caused by a virus. I had the same problem on my Acer Aspire 7720 a few months ago, and after some troubleshooting I did get some progress but decided to format the hard drive and have a clean install. It's a hassle, but I think it needs to be done. So, the bad news is that this tutorial won't work for you. The good news is that you have a fully functional laptop that only needs a fresh reinstal. After that, I suggest Comodo Security, which comes with an antivirus and a firewall, or the less annoying Avast. Both solutions are free, as is this advice :) Cheers from Ohrid, Macedonia.
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