HomeI have a Toshiba A105-s2716 satellite. At first the screen would start flashing. The screen went black and sometimes gray horizontal lines would appear. It would then turn black and go back to normal. After a week now, the screen will stay black after ten minutes of using my laptop. It works fine with a external monitor, many people tell me that its a hardware issue. My warranty expired so I’m trying to figure out the problem before I have it fixed. I need to fixed my laptop ASAP because i need for college.
I’ve seen this problem with Satellite A105 laptops before and I believe the culprit is the the motherboard. Even though the external video works fine, it’s still a problem with the motherboard. I think there could be something wrong with the video chip or with the video cable connector. Unfortunately both the video chip and the video cable connector are soldered on the motherboard. It means the whole motherboard must be replaced in order to fix the problem.
Update:
Please read comment 44 posted by Andy:
I tried to replace the whole LCD panel, but it didn’t help. I was going to buy a new laptop, so I just wanted to mess around with the old one. First thing I did – I upgraded BIOS to most current version. I did it just to see how BIOS upgrade works, and it fixed the problem!
It’s possible that Toshiba fixed this problem with the latest BIOS release. I tried updating the BIOS before but it didn’t help, apparently the BIOS version with the fix wasn’t available back then.
I will try it as soon as I have to repair Satellite A105 with a problem like that.
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September 22nd, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I cant even find the bios update to install it…link anyone please?
September 14th, 2008 at 11:31 am
OK thanks for the reply
I guess ill just chuck it away then
September 11th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Boppy,
If the image comes back to normal when you torque the screen, it’s likely you have a problem with the screen. I wouldn’t think it’s related to the connection issue between the video cable and motherboard.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Hi I’m having similar problems to most of these posts. I’m getting a grey screen with lines on it but if I torque the screen the picture comes up fine. I have checked the cable at the back of the screen and that’s in OK and I have also hooked it up to a Monitor and that also works OK. The only thing I haven’t tried is the connection on the mobo because I cant get to it. Am i right in thinking its the LCD that’s broke anyway seeing as works when I torque the screen?
Thanks
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I own a satellite a105-s4134. I few month ago I started noticing the the gray fuzzy lines. They would disappear if i tilted the screen. I did this for a while but would come back a few days later, then a hours, then eventually I would not be able to see anything on screen unless I tilting the screen. Eventually the screen just turned a dark gray and i could do anything no matter how I tilted. I took it a computer guy and he said its probably just the inverter board. My inverter board came in today and of course no luck. I opened up my machine and tried missing with the video cable on both ends. It did something because now my screen when i turn it on is a bright white screen. I messed with contrast that wasn’t it. I plugged it into an external monitor and everything works fine. I updated with the latest bios while i was there and still nothing. Is there anything else you guys can recommend. I’m a poor college student and can’t afford a new laptop or expensive repairs. Thanks for all the help before hand.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite A105 S2717 and the screen is black. There is no faint image just the light giving the appearance of a dark-grey screen as you get closer to the screen. My external monitor works.
I purchases a new screen to see if that was the problem, and the screen was a sea-green-blue color with horizontal lines and there was a cloudy haze from the top right corner to just about the bottom left corner.
I then connected a working screen from my M115 model toshiba and there was the original black-greyish screen again.
I checked the video cable (wiggled them a bit) and inverter connections to no avail.
Any help will be greatly appreciated
July 25th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Laura,
I would try updating the BIOS first. You can download the latest version from the Toshiba website. Make sure to read instructions before you run the BIOS update utility.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:33 am
I have a Satellit A105 2716. I was listenting to music outside in the shade on a very hot day and the computer shut off. Now the screen flickers, sometimes gray horizontal lines appear, and often it goes to black (it usually comes back after I hit he enter
key.) The hotter the computer is, the more the flickering increases. Last night I tried to watch a DVD, but after about 15 mins, had to shut the machine off. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
July 14th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Please email answer to mademoisellebelle33@hotmail.com. I have had a toshiba satellite since Feb 08. Bought brand new and has a protection plan from best buy, who is working on it now. I am just a worrier and am afraid they are gonna not be able to fix it or something. Just trying to see if anyone has had this problem or knows what it is. I went to turn it on and the toshiba screen came on, then the screen that opens windows, but it just stayed on that screen forever. then it went to a screen that said windows failed to launch either due to an external storage device failure, dvd/cd rom drive failure,or hard drive failure. I tried the recovery disc, followed all instructions on case. It seemed to be working at first because a “loading files” screen came on, the bar filled then it changed to a black screen with a white mouse. It stayed frozen like that for hours. I did not know what to do, so I tried the second disk and it did not do anything(stayed on black screen w/ mouse). I then turned it into best buy. they said they usually take ten days to return, but did not tell me what was wrong or if it was fixable. I don’t know if they will have to give me a new one if they can’t fix it, just trying to figure out what happened! (I do not have an external storage device) also, never had problem like this….
May 24th, 2008 at 12:16 am
For the past 2 weeks have had what I call the “Toshiba Grey Screen Syndrome” on my Satellite A105-S361 notebook, tried everything and Toshiba only offered me 3 options, pay $35.00 for phone tech support which ‘might’ fix the problem, return the notebook to Toshiba with $400.00 and they would fix it, or take it to an affiliated Toshiba repair facility for “mucho dinero”! None of the options were viable for a $200.00 notebook. I read on this thread about others who tried a bios update and downloaded V2.00 from Toshiba and installed it straight from Windows after hooking up an auxiliary monitor so I could see what to instal. VIOLA!!! It now works better than the day it came out of the factory box, with a far brighter screen and no more flickers. Toshiba must be taking lessons from Microsoft in selling a faulted product and then wanting you to pay more to make it run like it should.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I’ve got 2 toshiba a105’s and one of them did the same thing, after formatting the hard drive and reinstall the base install it has never done it since.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Simma,
From this description it’s hard to tell what is wrong. First of all, test memory and hard drive. You can use Memtest86+ utility for testing memory and Hitachi’s drive fitness test for testing the hard drive. I linked to both utilities in Useful Links.
If both parts pass test without any errors, your problem can be software related. Try reinstalling the operating system.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Hi my laptop is showing a blue screen with saying
Stop: c0000221 {Bad Image Checksum}
The image gdi32.dll is possibly corrupt. The header checksum does not match the computed checksum. Please help.
Thank you
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:53 am
I had the same issue: screen flickering then failing with grey horizontal lines on a black backlit screen. Eliminating AC power input resulted in a rainbow effect on screen. The issues started when I had some electrical issues in my house that rendered the laptop, A/C, and dishwasher unusable.
The utility company’s repairman wanted to re-format my harddrive (huh?). I decided to flash the BIOS myself as recommended above before agreeing to this unnecessary re-format. (Fortunately, I refused to let the repairman take my HDD.)
Flashing the BIOS was new to me, but was fairly straightforward. I downloaded the update from Toshiba and followed the included instructions to burn a bootable CD on another laptop. The only surprise was that the BIOS update started immediately after booting from the CD and kept re-booting without any opportunity to exit the process. I had to decide when to shut off power between flashing and rebooting. I shut it off when the screen said it was booting from the CD.
I did the BIOS install yesterday and everything is working fine. Thanks so much for the info. And I hope the details above are useful to anyone attempting a DIY repair.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Andy,
Thank you for your comment.
I’m pretty sure I tried upgrading the BIOS before and it didn’t help. It’s possible that Toshiba released another BIOS version witch fixes this problem. Apparently this version wasn’t available at the time I was fixing my laptops.
If I see the same problem again I’ll try updating the BIOS first.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Sorry, forgot to mention, I have Toshiba Satellite A105-S2712.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:31 am
I had the same problem as the author of the question – horizontal lines, screen turning black and working external monitor. All that happened after the laptop was on for 10-15 minutes. When I turned it off and after awhile on again, it would work fine for 15 minutes and then the issue would start to happen again.
I tried to replace the whole LCD panel, but it didn’t help. I was going to buy a new laptop, so I just wanted to mess around with the old one. First thing I did – I upgraded BIOS to most current version. I did it just to see how BIOS upgrade works, and it fixed the problem!
I don’t know what was wrong, maybe some voltage settings for video chipset. I have been using my laptop for 7 months since then, and the problem never happened again. I’m still using it.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Help! my toshiba satellite a105-s4114 recently started freezing up and I would have to hold the power key down to shut it off. the problem then got worse and when I turned it on it gave me an error message.. hardware malfunction, memory parity error, the system has halted. the computer then would not even start windows. So on the recommendation of a toshiba representative, over the phone I was told to do a system restore. My laptop will turn on now, but it will freeze up still, but not as often. Also, the windows clock is not keeping up the time.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:59 am
At first the screen of my Toshiba (Satellite A105 S361) was black with gray horizontal lines. Then became no longer work. I read on a site that could be a BIOS’s problem. I updated it with a new version from Toshiba’s site. My notebook is running perfectly now.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Me again.
I’d still like to know how to fix my screen problem properly but here’s a work around and it’s as cheap as cheap can be but very very effective…….
I’ve used a miniture bulldog-clip (you know – the larger than a paper-clip but still a paper-clip thingy).
Anyway I’ve simply clipped one onto the top part of the screen where the problem lies and hey-presto my screen problem has gone away. The screen faca even fits neatly over it. Now that’s saved a stack of cash and cost me a few pennies.
Anyway if there’s a real solution out there then please do let me know – thanks in advance.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I have a problem with my Toshiba Satellite screen. It has an intermitant fault which gives it a grey mesh like appearance and the image is frozen.
I’ve jiggled and wiggled it, nudged it and teased it, around and around. The result is I know where my problem lies but I do not know if there are any good remebies. It’s not : the motherboard, video cable or video / lcd connector.
It appear to be where the lcd’s circuit board connects into the lcd itself. If I gently touch (press or pull) the metal strip at the very top of the lcd the problem goes away for a while (seconds or minutes). It seems like the lcd itself is not ’seated’ properly at this point and the connections are made or broken accordingly.
Does anyone know how to re-seat the lcd onto the lcd’s circuit board connections ?
thanks
February 4th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
iman,
Do not try fixing it yourself. The laptop is still under warranty. Take it to the authorized repair center or send directly to Toshiba.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite A215 – S7416 and i am expirencing some problems. My notebook will boot up fine and work properly, but every once in a while the screen will go black and become unresponsive. All music stops, but the computer seems to still be running. The blacklight is still on i believe, but the screen just turns black. If i manually reboot it, it will work fine… that is, until it turns black again a few hours later. My notebook is less than two months old! Any clue what is going on? Help would be appreciated. Thank you.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Regarding the loose connection into the LCD on the back of the LCD, that is definitely my problem (same symptoms as above for an A105), but apparently it isn’t simply a loose connection, because i can plug it in and just the slightest jiggle in the connection makes it go out again…then a further jiggle makes it come back on. Is that a bad LCD, bad cable, or something else?
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I have a toshiba a105-s361 and I have the same problem with the grey screen with horizontal lines running through it. It happens after it starts to boot and as it is going into the log-on to (profile) screen it goes grey with the lines. I can sometimes get it the lines to go away by hitting the function key + F1 cycling through the external monitor setups it will sometime work. Also if I boot into a knoppix liveCD it does the same thing but as soon as I hit the function + F5 macro it works perfectly the grey goes away and stay away until I shut linux down and then it goes black.. very strange.. Any ideas?
January 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
hello i have an issue my sitter dropped her earing in the cd drive as it was closing she somewhat opened the bottom to retrieve it, which she did, i ask her was it worth more than my laptop all she could say is its worth 1,000. words now my screen has no pic. i need to know where the 2 strips connect to both ends. i have a toshiba satellite a105 s2101.
thank you
January 14th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Jim,
Unfortunately this is not inverter problem. If you still can see image on the screen and the screen is bright, it’s not the inverter.
What kind of lines you are talking about? Are they about 1-3 pixel wide? If yes, this is the LCD screen problem.
Take a look at the example 2 in this article:
Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong?
Does it look like your screen?
January 12th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I have a problem, but my lines run vertically, with one bright green one on the left hand side. Backlight appears to be working. Tried to reseat the cable and that does nothing. Could it be the inverter (pls say yes) or is it more likely the video chip (pls say no). External monitor works fine.
December 29th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
My problems are similar to the original question. I have a Satellite A105 and after about 20 minutes of use the screen flashes. It can go on for about 2 hours with intermittent flashing but no apparent pattern. At some stage the screen will black out with only a few horizontal grey lines at about a third way down the screen. If the computer is running on battery power than the screen goes white and flashes with the horizontal lines barely visible. It does not happen on an external screen. Otherwise the computer continues to function and can be switched off by pressing the on/off button.
I have opened the computer and cleaned the heat sink and reapplied grease to the processor but it makes no difference. The computer is almost 2 years old and was getting very hot for some time with no adverse effects. Although it doesn’t get as hot now it’s been cleaned I wonder if the overheating in the past has caused irrepareable damage.
Any help would be appreciated.
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Paul,
Yes, it’s possible that the video cable is not making a good contact with the LCD screen and reconnecting the cable will help to fix this problem. If not, apparently you have a problem with the LCD screen itself.