Good morning, Paul.
I am really getting confused on this.
Returning to basics -
First, this Toshiba (?Satellite?) A75-S209 functions fine except for
the fact that the wireless has no range. It works fine as long as the
laptop sits within a few feet of my router.
Second, I would suspect the range of the router (Verizon), except for
the fact that my daughter uses her laptop wirelessly here when she
visits, and she uses it on the other side of my house. So the lack of
range must be a problem with this Toshiba.
Third, the pictures you have posted clearly show a second card plugged
in on the left side of the compartment and such card is missing from
this Toshiba. Therefore I figure that the missing card may be related
to my lack of range. So - what is that card? The appearance and
dimension of the slots etc in my compartment suggest to me that the
missing card is a Mini-PCI express card. Can you post for me any
labeling on your second card?
Fourth, This Toshiba has a label on the compartment cover over the
card in the compartment that says PA3373U-1MPC. I think I understand
that this card is a wireless card. Must be, because wireless at least
works, if not with any range at all. So, why would there be two
wireless cards?
Fifth, I have the same black and white wires you have. They even go
to the mobo similarly. My wires lay disconnected and bare on the ends
whereas yours are connected it looks like to the missing card above.
In the picture here, I see the wires, and they seem to stop, over top
of the RAM chips on the left. like there was, perhaps, a thermal sensor taped
to the RAM module or something.
Maybe so.
http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/ToshibaA75/disassembly/big/Toshiba_A75_03.jpg
If you look at this picture, of a laptop motherboard, you can see roughly where
some yellow tape is located. There seems to be a three pin connector, just
below the mini-PCI slot. (The picture below, is rotated 180 degrees with
respect to the other picture.) In this picture, it looks like some RAM chips
are soldered to the motherboard. And there is a white SODIMM connector
which allows a memory module, to be plugged in just above the soldered
memory chips. It could be, that a thermal sensor, gets taped to a
memory chip on the upper module, as a means of monitoring temperature.
http://www.laptopbattery-usa.com/images/Toshiba_A70_Motherboard.jpg
I agree.
But that doesn't explain why the power went off. If isn't necessary to
put raw power connections on such a cable. They could arrange the
design a bit safer than that.
I didn't mean to say that the bare wires shorted out the power to the
laptop. What happened was that the Toshiba locked up, and I had to
re-power up.
I also considered, it might be the cable belonging to a CMOS battery.
The CMOS battery, helps keep BIOS settings, and maintains the CMOS
clock, when the main battery is pulled. If you pull your main battery
right now, is clock time maintained properly ? Or does the computer
return to "1970" if you do that ?
I am familiar with the effect of a bad or missing CMOS battery.
I am experiencing none of those problems, so I don't think that is a
problem.
Thanks again
Duke
