Why Toshiba Tecra TE2100 laptop locks up or will not boot at all?

Why Toshiba Tecra TE2100 laptop locks up or will not boot at all?

One of our biggest customers use a lot of different Toshiba laptops and one of the models is Toshiba Tecra TE2100. We repaired many of these units and we noticed that some of them had very similar problems:

1. Laptop locks up when you move it or sometimes freezes by itself. The video is still on, but the acupoint (keyboard mouse) and the keyboard itself do not work anymore.
2. You can start the laptop, but you see CMOS (RTC) battery error on start up. After you clear the error, the laptop boots fine. After you reboot the laptop, you get the same error.
3. Laptop will not boot at all. There is no power or power LED blinking. There is no hard drive activity. There is no external or internal video.
4. When you press power button, laptop shows some activity, but there is no video on LCD screen.

At the beginning, when we just started working on this model, we tried to fix CMOS (RTC) battery error by replacing the RTC battery. Unfortunately, it didn’t help to fix the problem at all. We found that the main culprit of the problem is a poor connection between the system board and the power board (CMOS battery is connected to the power board). In some cases you can fix the problem by reseating the power board. Carefully disconnect if from the system board and connect it back. Turn on the laptop and see if it fixed your problem. If it didn’t help, most likely you have to replace the system board and the power board. Unfortunately, I cannot say exactly which one is causing the problem, the system board or the power board. The same story with laptop lock ups, try to reseat the power board.

You can fix a video problem by reseating the video card. We noticed, that over time the video board pops up from its connector on the system board and you can get video if you push it back in place.

Conclusion: before you start replacing parts, disassemble the laptop and try to fix the problem by reseating the power board and the VGA board. My disassembly guide for Toshiba Tecra TE2100 can help you to take apart the laptop.