Trying to FIX: Toshiba LAPTOP (Satellite Pro C660)

Hi, this 'trying to fix' video shows me attempting to repair a faulty noisy laptop with a smashed screen and no hard drive.
Remember that this is just for entertainment and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things.
I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series.
Many thanks, Vince.

[brentpolk]

Fixing a laptop is one of the most satisfying projects to complete! There are so many different sorts of items that can be replaced and repaired, it turns into like ten projects into one and when everything comes together including a decent upgrade; new life arises from the dead...

[mattscomp]

These old Toshiba satellite laptops really are one of the most serviceable machines out there. Good to see another one repaired so it can live on.

[dawn]

You struck gold with the toilet roll. I found an old bottle of hand sanitizer i a week ago, I bought it about 6 months ago. 11 yr old saw that I left it in my car.. "dont leave valuables in the car he warned me" 😂

[knighthawk]

I know you always say, don't follow what you do, but you gave me enough info, and the courage to try, so last year the wife and I go dumpster diving, at the end of the college school year, and found so many good things, one was a fully working ps3 first Gen, with the flip up front part, added that to my ps collection, but the best dive was this Toshiba laptop, it is only a few months old at the time, about 1 year old now, and I couldn't get it to work, I took the knowledge you shared, and made a power cord for it, which got it to at least turn on so I could figure out what was wrong with it, I fiddled around with it, replaced a few things, and got it to work, and it's the one you can flip backwards and it becomes a tablet, a 17" tablet, I was so happy, and cause it's a foldable tablet model it also has touch screen, I have since given it to my wife, cause I use her new laptop for my electronic drums to run software on it, but want to thank you for giving me a direction to go to finally fix a truly nice laptop, thanks buddy.

[JohnSaucier]

As someone who has done this at least a thousand times, I was wincing whenever he starting pulling on things or saying, "I wonder what this does."

[adventureridergirl]

I've never seen thermal paste like that. That's definitely not how MX-4 should look.

[akhenaten]

Hi Vince, your videos are never boring, and i can never wait for the next one.
Please release your videos, and make videos of the other laptops.

[dannyhtheretrogamingmaster]

Glad that laptop is now working as it should. That adds a laptop to Vince’s ever increasing list of fixes. Take care and stay safe. Danny

[dikbozo]

I have 2 from the Toshiba C6xx series. They work within their limits. Basic fairly well designed and as you have illustrated are quite repairable. IME you might want more RAM for W10 but Linux will Just Work on everything and depending on the CPU will run faster and most things will work better (internet things like streaming Youtube). BTW my first one of these dates from 2011(8 and a half years as of this post) for which I paid 250 USD and consider the payback to be complete. My second one is a newer model with a slightly faster CPU that I purchased for 55 USD a year ago.



Well done, mate. Keep on keepin' on and be well.

[skonkfactory]

Most modern laptops use a NGFF wifi/bluetooth card that has two antennas- one of them is just for wifi and the other is shared between wifi and bluetooth. They use two antennas so they can use a technique called spatial multiplexing, where they can send different data on the exact same frequency at the exact same time, and get higher throughput. This is called MIMO, which means Multiple In, Multiple Out.

[eg]

Excellent restoration, not a single mistake. An old laptop benefits greatly from upgrading the hard drive to an inexpensive SSD. Also, the biggest issue people have after replacing the screen is non-working brightness controls. Worth checking the functionality.

[rmicrods]

Proud of you mate. Should do more laptops.

For future reference:

- be very careful with heatsinks, a bend or kink in the copper pipes can severely limit cooling capability

- MX4 shouldn't be so watery. Something was certainly off. You were spot on about that

- When repasting, avoid lifting up the heatsink and putting it back down as you introduce air bubbles which is undesired. You want a thin even application rather that too much because the paste is meant to help transfer heat between the chip and heatsink rather than act as a coolant which many people misunderstand. A tiny bit just slightly larger than a grain of rice is fine. Apply in the center and just trust you did it right. No need to check.


Last bonus tip: after you've got windows installed, if temperatures are still relatively high due to poor thermal design or a less than perfect heatsink (saw a bit was squished in the video. Can't confirm if it was intentionally like that, but usually is not), use an application called throttle stop or intel-XTU to undervolt the CPU -100mV or the highest stable undervolt around there. You can drop anywhere from 5-20 degrees Celsius if done correctly which can make up for thermal deficiencies in the laptops design, poor repaste application or less than perfect heatsink. Benifts most every laptop and is a relatively safe and easy thing to do for considerably better thermal performance allowing the system to run at its best and avoid throttling down.

Cheers. Looking forward to more laptop fixed in the future! You did great!

[nightstah]

Toshibas are generally easy to work on. In fact, you probably noticed for screen replacement it wasn't even necessary to take apart the top from bottom. That MX-4 is NOT normal, it should NOT look like that watery consistency. I've worked on laptops for a long time, it was a bit surprisingly and enjoyable to see a first-timer (more or less, and being you) get on with it. Great as always

[etiennevanharen]

Nice fix Vince, loved the toilet roll joke. Great stuff. Love these Toshiba’s, very reliable.

[Sol-sumi]

imo for laptops get a cheap 120gb-256gb ssd. makes a hell of a difference in performance.

[micahkiker]

I remember my first screen replacement way easier than I thought. Nice video Mate thank you.

[borisarchby]

Just about to go to bed and saw the notification for the vid, it was rude not to watch :). Great to see a windows laptop, looking forward to the first MacBook:) great video as usual

[zerocool]

Another good Job Vince, Stay safe and hope you all stay well.

[davesmith]

Windows installation is one of the easiest now days Vince. Back on 98 /me and server it was a pain in the back side. But it's generally self explanatory. Laptop and pc repairs is what I spend almost all of my time doing among other things. I'm at the start of this video so looking forward to following your little journey hope it goes well . Also hope you and the family are keeping safe mate

[lawrencecavens]

Great job done there. One very important minder is the battery was under a recall due to overheating issues from Toshiba so be careful and don't leave leave it plugged in and unattended - I know of this cause I have a old Toshiba C650D model and as the battery aged from 2010 back when I purchased the laptop I noticed after 5 years the battery stated to get very hot when charging so Be mindful of that...