toshiba laptop

[divxdude]

i recently got interested in laptops.. found a broken Toshiba A105

http://www.devicemanuals.com/guide/Servi...UUTQ=.html

hoping to fix it.
It just powers up for 5 seconds and powers down and repeats this 5 more times. (6x5)
Not knowing that much about them was wondering if if this might be the equivalent of a beep code trying to tell me whats wrong. since it was stripped of parts before i got it, I do need to confirm the RAM and CPU are good but the retry counting and timer and the power lights (power , power LED,Battery LED, F9+F10) all seem to point to signs of life.
was wondering if theres a more detailed reference on laptop boards
because the Toshiba manual is not that helpful.
"Replace the mainboard" seems to be the catch all solution in the laptop world business model.
I'm wondering if laptops are security minded like game consoles that attempt to prevent repair or tampering.
Also wondering if there is are really firmware virii that attack the bios
which is hard soldered to the board making harder to rewrite.

also looking for good forums that get into this level because the laptop forums i found aren't going this deep really.

i am considering soldering onto the bios chip to re-flash it externally
but would need a guide.
I know it seems like its not worth it i should just go buy a working board but the whole point in this exercise was to learn these things.

thanks for any help.

[MrTangoWhisky]

I would prefer to concentrate on replacing the hardsoldered BIOS-chip with a socket though you can replace a bad flashed chip...
As I always do I wish you good luck with this project!

[presola]

On a side note: this site is such a rip-off - it asks to enter a captcha so it can redirect you to Tim's manuals