My two year old Toshiba Portege M600 has stopped booting up (usually). Power light comes on, fan runs for a few seconds, nothing comes up on the screen. Once in a while it will boot, but the sound will not work. I took it to a shop in Panthip (CM) and they said it is the mainboard, and couldn't fix it. As is typical, it is one month out of warranty. I liked the machine a lot. Wonder if there is any point in pursuing a repair, or is a mainboard prohibitively expensive?

Motherboards are normally as much to buy as a new computer, and with a new computer it will be a lot more up todate than the one you have, in 2 years CPU's have moved on a lot.

The harddrive could be put into a 2.5 " external case and used as an external harddrive,via USB, and all the information you need off it, could be retrieved.

I have just bought a new samsung laptop with a 'i5' CPU for 20.000baht, lessor spec laptops can be bought for 15.000baht +.

You might want to make sure it not a memory module causing the problem. I have two Toshiba laptops and over the years when upgrading the RAM I got some strange problems when plugging in bad/incompatible memory modules--like the problem you just described.

Assuming you have two memory modules, trying removing one and rebooting. If no change, try booting with only the other memory module. You may get lucky and only have a bad memory module which would be cheap and quick to replace.

That was a good idea. Unfortunately, no go. It is a real shame, as the machine looks almost new. Oh well...

Sounds like motherboard.... had two replaced in my toshiba before I chucked it. Decided never to buy that brand again.

Usually when a motherboard goes bad you can't get it to boot at all or the computer will lock up on you. You could have a bad hard drive since you said the computer would boot sometimes. Have you tried booting from a DVD/CD recovery disc or bootable Windows install disc? If it boots from the DVD/CD reliability, it's time for a new hard drive. Good luck.

Sounds like motherboard.... had two replaced in my toshiba before I chucked it. Decided never to buy that brand again.

Interesting. About six months after buying this one, it let out a foul burning stink. Motherboard was replaced under warranty. Think I'll go back to Asus. My 5 year old Asus tank is still chugging along.

Usually when a motherboard goes bad you can't get it to boot at all or the computer will lock up on you. You could have a bad hard drive since you said the computer would boot sometimes. Have you tried booting from a DVD/CD recovery disc or bootable Windows install disc? If it boots from the DVD/CD reliability, it's time for a new hard drive. Good luck.

No, but I pulled the hard drive. With no drive, I should be able to get into the bios, but can't. Nothing comes up on the screen.

^indeed I went to Asus after Toshiba debacle and well haven't had one issue with my G1. Infact thinking of buying another ASUS....

http://www.excaliberpc.com/598105/asus-g73jh-b1-17.3-notebook.html#TabSpecification

I would take it to the Toshiba shop in Fortune town.

Usually when a motherboard goes bad you can't get it to boot at all or the computer will lock up on you. You could have a bad hard drive since you said the computer would boot sometimes. Have you tried booting from a DVD/CD recovery disc or bootable Windows install disc? If it boots from the DVD/CD reliability, it's time for a new hard drive. Good luck.

No, but I pulled the hard drive. With no drive, I should be able to get into the bios, but can't. Nothing comes up on the screen.

With the hard drive and memory modules probably eliminated as the problem, then yea, it's probably the motherboard.

These days - it's more money to fix smth than nearly buy smth new. Funny world isnt it?

"Power light comes on, fan runs for a few seconds, nothing comes up on the screen. Once in a while it will boot, but the sound will not work."

Just remembered I've had one more problem over the years with my Toshiba's that caused a similar problem to yours which is quoted above. The battery pack caused the problem. If I unplugged the battery pack from the laptop and ran off power adapter power the laptop would fireup/work fine. Plug the battery back in and I usually got the probem to return....sometimes the problem would disappear for a few days but then come back. Usually the battery pack was at least a year old...basically, the way the individual cells were failing within the battery pack was causing intermittent problems, up to completely stopping my laptop from booting up since the computer was sensing a problem with the battery pack/charging circuit (charging circuit within battery pack) and would protect itself by not starting up. New battery fixed the problem.

Sending along this info in the outside case you haven' tried operating the laptop without the battery pack installed.

"Power light comes on, fan runs for a few seconds, nothing comes up on the screen. Once in a while it will boot, but the sound will not work."

Just remembered I've had one more problem over the years with my Toshiba's that caused a similar problem to yours which is quoted above. The battery pack caused the problem. If I unplugged the battery pack from the laptop and ran off power adapter power the laptop would fireup/work fine. Plug the battery back in and I usually got the probem to return....sometimes the problem would disappear for a few days but then come back. Usually the battery pack was at least a year old...basically, the way the individual cells were failing within the battery pack was causing intermittent problems, up to completely stopping my laptop from booting up since the computer was sensing a problem with the battery pack/charging circuit (charging circuit within battery pack) and would protect itself by not starting up. New battery fixed the problem.

Sending along this info in the outside case you haven' tried operating the laptop without the battery pack installed.

Thanks for that. Sadly, no luck. Actually, I haven't been able to boot it at all for about the last 30 tries, Seems to be totally dead now.

I see Ebay has M600 motherboards for sale. Seems the price is around $200-225 plus another $20 or so in shipping.

That was a good idea. Unfortunately, no go. It is a real shame, as the machine looks almost new. Oh well...

take out the netpower

take out the batterie

pres the startbotum for 10 seconds

put back the batterie

start again

if not work

see repair man!!