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Satellite r945-p440 - Hard crash coming out of sleep

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    Satellite r945-p440 - Hard crash coming out of sleep

    Toshiba Satellite r945-p440
    Motherboard: FAM2SY2 A3256A
    I do not have a schematic or board file

    I usually let it go to sleep every time I use it because it is nearly always plugged in, with occasional shutdowns to reset things. Then it started to hard crash every time it tried to come out of sleep. The lights would come on for half a second but before anything shows on the screen they would all shut off and it would boot up as if I had shut it down completely (except that windows knows it didn't), and when it comes back on the fan ramps up to full and stays there perpetually until it successfully starts/restarts/comes out of sleep normally. The error logs don't give any indication that anything went wrong except the kernel power failure indicating that it was shut off unexpectedly.

    This started happening intermittently. A couple times over a couple months, then most times over a couple days, then nearly every time, and now it power cycles over and over again, trying to come to life and failing until I pull the battery, though it will occasionally come out of that after only 3 or 4 cycles and actually start up. But the fan always runs full-blast until it gets a clean start. Once running it runs completely normally until put into any low powered state, including full shutdown. The trouble is getting it there.

    My very limited experience and intuition says that it is probably a weakening/dirty power rail that can't handle the load at startup, and that since the symptoms are not consistent it is unlikely to be a problem in the BIOS/EC. However, it runs just fine and can even handle heavy loads such as videos, games, USB devices, and other things that may strain the power rails, so I'm not sure.

    This is the only computer I use and the same one I am sending this message on. I am looking into getting a new computer but can't afford to yet. I turned off sleep and don't shut it down anymore, and it has been running for over a month solid. This is not sustainable, but I am concerned that once I shut it down to diagnose any thing more I might not get it started again, so I would like some input before I attempt it.

    Thanks!

    #2
    Thoughts? Hardware or firmware?

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      #3
      Please?

      Comment


        #4
        Update: After running for 3 months straight it accidentally got unplugged long enough that the battery died. I've got it apart now, but I have no documents for it. Probing the voltages at the inductors yields the following voltages:

        .915
        .915
        .912
        .900
        1.072
        1.798
        1.053
        5.07
        3.36

        The first couple drop from 1.1v very shortly after going active, which I believe is expected. I have a cheap scope. What kind of ripple thresholds should I look for, if that is a likely concern?

        Comment


          #5
          The first couple you are observing to fluctuate could be the CPU Vcore rail(s). The giveaway will be that the CPU rails are often multiple inductors to drive the same common junction to prevent one rail from being overworked to support the CPU which is a current sucking pig (not to be confused with the salt eating pig creature Nancy from Star Trek).

          Generally speaking, the other voltages look ok but do not have a comparison nor schematic for a review.

          What is the history of this box? Just started to act up recently? If the battery is not charging, consider to test with a known good battery. Source one from a vendor that will accept the product back if it is not required such as Amazon. At the very least, you can test if the battery you currently have is just too old now for use.

          Is the power adapter the original and suitable to power this unit? Do you have any additional loads on the unit? Does the unit boot to the bios if the hard drive / SSD is removed? If the boot to the bios is stable, then the bootable media - ssd / hard drive is a suspect.

          Comment


            #6
            Which ram it uses-DDR3/4? is the ram onboard or its in slot?

            I dont see ram voltage in your list.

            If its DDR3-should be 1.5V.Similarly for DDR3-L-should be 1.35V and for DDR4 should be 1.2V.

            Confirm its present there or not.

            Once checked, proceed to check DDR_RAMRST# is present or not.

            Comment


              #7
              Thank you for the responses! But I think you missed some details from the first post...

              I know that neither the battery nor the charger are the problem. The problem happens whether either one is plugged in or not. The only difference I have noticed is that sometimes when I pull the battery out and it tries (and still fails) to come on, it comes on for a fraction of a second longer before shutting off (so maybe like 1 second instead of 1/2 second). It still power cycles though until I remove both charger and battery (power button does nothing to stop the cycling) to completely reset it, then when I turn it on again it will power cycle once and start, but the fan ramps up to full speed just after post and never shuts off.

              I thought that since it stayed on for a little longer with the battery out that maybe the extra drain from charging was stressing a weak rail, so I also removed HDD and optical drive. No change.

              I also reset the bios to default settings. No change.

              As for RAM, I thought I measured a 1.5v rail somewhere, not sure why it didn't make the list. I will try to find it when I take it apart again. The RAM itself is modular DDR3 (the board doesn't take DDR3-L). When the problem first started happening I suspected RAM, so I swapped it around, tried with one at a time in different slots, and even borrowed some from another computer. No change. I don't know where to find DDR_RAMRST# without board files.

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