Toshiba laptop equipped with a i5 intel core, Windows 8.1, 8GB memory, and Intel HD Graphics 4400.
Student-Contributed Wiki
An awesome team of students from our education program made this wiki.
This troubleshooting page will help to diagnose problems with the Toshiba Satellite P55t-A5116.
The laptop is failing to turn on.
First test the outlet. Plug the power cord into a known working outlet. Allow time for the laptop to reboot and charge.
Turn the laptop off, unplug the AC adapter, remove the battery, then hold the power button down for 20 seconds. Reconnect the AC adapter to a working power outlet. If there is no indication that the laptop is receiving power, the adapter is faulty. Consider purchasing a replacement adapter.
Resetting the battery could potentially restore its available capacity. This would allow the battery to last longer. Reset the battery using this guide:
If the power light on the adapter is on, make sure the adapter is connected to the laptop. If the laptop only powers up when the adapter is plugged in, regardless of charging time, then the battery is faulty. Replace the battery using this guide.
The keys on the keyboard won’t respond or appear to be broken. The Touchpad is freezing.
A faulty keyboard may be caused by water damage or external components. First, test by rebooting the laptop. Press and hold the power button until the unit powers off and disconnect any external devices (e.g. mouse/ keyboard, printer, USB-devices, etc.). If the keyboard begins to work, then there is an issue with one of the external components.
If the keyboard continues to malfunction, check to see if the Caps Lock key light turns on and off, and to try to use an external PS/2 or USB Keyboard. Make a Bios update using the external keyboard and check the functionality of the internal keyboard after updating the firmware. If the entire keyboard fails to respond, try replacing it with this guide.
When keys can’t be pressed, there may be something below the physical key holding it up. First, check for crumbs that may be blocking keyboard function. Turn laptop upside down and shake. A keyboard vacuum or can of compressed air, you can clean around individual keys to suction excess crumb or dust particles. Furthermore, liquids spillage over keys can cause key damage, so keys should be wiped down with a moist towel and/or rubbing alcohol. You may need to wipe off the area underneath. Once it is sufficiently clean, snap the key back into position.
If the touchpad is freezing, reboot the laptop by pressing and holding the power button until the unit powers off and disconnect any external devices (e.g. ext. Mouse/ keyboard, printer, USB-devices, etc. Make Bios updates using the internal or external keyboard and check the functionality of the touchpad.
The user’s laptop gets very hot and shuts down randomly without informing user.
If the laptop overheats, check the surface that the laptop is resting on. Make sure the air inlet vents are allowing air to flow through. Remove any soft materials that might block airflow.
Laptops can overheat due to excessive dust and other materials stuck in the vents or fan. To fix this, use a compressed air duster to carefully blow the dust off the vents and fan or disassemble and clean out the dust or other particles of heat sink and fan. Disassemble the laptop using this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOOhiIef…
The laptop may not have adequate contact between the heat sink and processor. This is usually caused by a lack of thermal paste or by air in between the two components. To fix this, completely clean off any old thermal paste, then apply a bead of new thermal paste directly in the center of the processor. Gently push the heat sink back in place and tighten screws to lock down the heat sink.
If first two steps did not solve the overheating problem, then replace the cooling fan using this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOOhiIef…
Your laptop is operating slow.
The RAM could have been burnt out, corrupted, or over used. Take a stick of RAM out and test your laptop to see if it runs fine. It will show if the RAM is at fault. The user must have at least one stick of RAM in the laptop to run it. If laptop is running smoothly after removing the RAM stick, then the RAM is faulty. Replace the RAM using this guide.
The RAM could be the problem. By opening the windows start button (or pressing the window key) and go into Computer tab, right clicking in an open white space, click on properties. Then check the Installed Memory (RAM) to see if all the RAM is being read properly.
If the laptop is running slow you can check the RAM by right clicking on your task bar (The very bottom Display tray) and click on start task manager. Then go under the Performance tab and see if the physical RAM is being processed or not.
Laptop is failing to hold a charge.
First test the outlet. Plug power cord into a known working outlet. Allow time for laptop to reboot and charge. If this solution does not work, check the power cord for tears, breaks, or frays. Replace cord if above problems occur.
If the power connecter of the power jack does not align with the laptop case, flip laptop over, disassemble laptop and place the power jack cord in the correct position.
If the power jack input looks cracked, flip the laptop over, disassemble laptop, remove power jack cord and replace cord. For more information see guide.
