Laptop shut down by itself while working. Since then it is dead and doesn’t power up.
My Toshiba laptop shut down by itself while working. All light indicators were out. clicking the power button did not help. After few minutes, I pressed the power button, the laptop came on but shut down again after few moment. Since then it is dead and does not power up. Any idea what could be the problem?
Test the power adapter first. Plug the adapter into the laptop and check if the power LED lights up. If the LED is still off, most likely the adapter is bad. Here’s my guess. The power adapter died while you were working on the laptop. After that the laptop worked for a while until the battery got discharged and finally shut down. The laptop will not power up anymore because you have a dead adapter and empty battery. Find a voltmeter and test if the adapter puts out any power at all.
January 21st, 2007 at 6:39 am
My laptop (Toshiba TE 2100) shut off very suddenly. Only after unplugging and taking out the battery it would sometimes boot up again. This went on for weeks but then, finally, the laptop was completely dead.
A Toshiba service center (very unfriendly, not keen to help me) told me it was the motherboard being broken and I should buy a new one. I ordered a new motherboard and disassembeled the TE 2100.
Now I am in big trouble: With both motherboards (the old one and the new one) I will not recieve a green LED light when plugging in the DC adaptor. Only for a very short time an orange LED blinks after which the laptop (motherboard) is dead. This is strange cause the old motherboard at least gave me a green led when plugging it in – before disassembeling.
Very sometimes the power board will give me an error code sequence with an orange LED flashing. Unfortunately I do not know how to convert it into an error code.
Thanks a lot for helping – if possible.
January 21st, 2007 at 8:04 am
Thanks. That’s what it really was. I got a new adapter and I am back to business. Thanks again.
-Viv
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Benjamin,
I saw your comments 133 and 134 on other site.
It looks like you’ve fixed the problem already.
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:31 pm
I have a HP DV1010us laptop with a power problem. I was working on the laptop when it needed to be charged, i proceeded to plug in my adapter and upon doing so the laptop immediately shut off (10-15% power still left in battery). Now when i try to charge/turn-on the laptop the charge led will not light up, nor will the laptop power on (no lights) without the adapter, wont power on without battery in and adapter plugged in. Nothing i have tried will get power to computer. Any thoughts or comments are highly appreciated.
thank you
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:45 pm
So the battery still 10-15% charged but the laptop will not power up without or with the AC adapter? No LED light and the laptop is “dead”?
To me it sounds like a bad system board.
January 29th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
My Dell Inspiron 9300 power switch is not working. If I remove the battery, and reinstall the battery, the computer boots up without even touching the power switch. If I leave the battery out and just plug in the AC adapter cable, the computer boots up, again without touching the power switch. Computer operates normally and I use the software shut down as is normal in WIN XP Pro. If I press the power button when the computer is running, nothing happens. Even if I hold the power button in, nothing happens. I continue to use the computer, starting it by removing the battery, and reinserting the battery, and then pluging in the AC so it recharges the battery. Any ideas here.
Thank you
January 31st, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Toshiba Satellite A60 “DEAD”
I was using my Toshiba A60 as usual when it suddenly shut down, the battery was not empty, Now when i put the AC cable into the laptop with or without the battery installed , no lights will light, no use pressing the power button either.
But some times i take the AC cable out and in again ( i will say its randomly), the power light turns on but still pressing the -power on- button it will not start. So its “dead”.
I have tested the Ac adapter on another laptop and it did start that one ( i took out the battery on it) so i think the AC adapter is working as normal.
I took out the Wireless card+the hard drive+one mnore card(think it was the sound card) still the same problem. No help.
So any suggestions?
(Yes i can dissable the notebook if required)
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:02 am
Nilsen,
May be you have a failed power jack?
Even with a failed power jack the notebook still should run on the battery power. Are you sure the battery was charged when the laptop shut down? May be it drained the battery first and then shut down?
It will be necessary to open up the laptop and take closer look at the power jack. If the power jack is loose or broken, resolder/replace it.
February 2nd, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Hello and thanks for your reply.
I followed the link to failed power jack and thought it maybe is the problem bacause of the sympton of wiggling the power cable to get LED activity, but i must say that i do not know how to get LED activity every time, meaning i dont know the spot too wiggle so the power jack gets connection to the motherboard, i couldnt find that spot even trying to wiglle for some minutes many times, any way, as i said i was quite sure the battery had over 80% rest.
So i found a volt meter(note that i do not know much of using it) , but i can read volt on small batteries 1,5V and 9V(like those in the smoke detectors) so i tried on the Toshiba battery and put both the voltmeter “pens” to the metal on the battery and got -15.4V on first try, so i just changed the + and – and got +15.4V so the battery is 14.8V so if it shows 15.4V then it should be charged?
And with the battery in the laptop it does not start.
So any new suggestions?or you still think its the power jack?
Thanks for helping.
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Nilsen,
I think you have a problem with the motherboard.
February 5th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Hi I have a toshiba tecra A-3 it does not power up.(NO LIGHTS) I have checked the a/c adapter and it works I have resolder the red and black cable that connects the power socket on the MB and nothing still no power. Culd it be that the fuse blew. I have not heard of any chronic problems like the tecra 9100,8200,8100. any suggestions
February 7th, 2007 at 2:36 am
i have a gateway mx3230 the leds go on and i can hear the h/d ,the fan and the wireless led turn on but it wont turn on can some one help
February 7th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Edd,
Try start the laptop without the hard drive installed. Does any video appear on the screen? If yes, then you might have a faulty hard drive. If not, test the memory. You might have a faulty memory module.
February 9th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Hello,
Just encountered some problems with my ACER TravelMate 4672WLMi. Problems was this morning I was unable to turn on my laptop. No reaction on the power button. The night before I accidentally left the laptop charging and when I woke up I noticed that and the LED for the battery was burning Green as usual when it’s charged.
Now, I came to college and couldn’t turn it on. At the end of the class I retried and succeeded. I did some work on it what I had to do and turned tha laptop off after 15-20 min I guess. When I came home I couldn’t turn the laptop on. After some time I tried again, and again I succeeded. Then after some time I tried to open a browser and suddenly the laptop turned off again :’(
After some while I was able to turn it on again.
Later I shaked the laptop (on purpose) very short in one very short movement and it turned off again…
Maybe some connections aren’t fully isolated from eachother.
Now, I’m typing this message on my laptop which is NOT plugged in with the Power Adapter. But My LED for external power is burning green and my battery LED is OFF :s. This I find really weird. I can’t notice the battery is empty after a very short time. As far as I can remember it discharges at a common speed.
Anyone with any thoughts about this? Thank you very much!!
I was just thinking of bying a second battery, but with this problem I don’t know if the investment is such a good idea. So if any1 knows what to do: I will be very grateful to you. Many thanks, Andre
February 11th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Okay, I have a Dell Latitude D620 and it randomly shut off (the adapter was plugged in) and I tried to turn it back on but the only light that lit up was the orange one, low battery. I tried different adapters but the laptop appeared to be…dead. I have NO IDEA what to do, I can’t buy a new laptop! I just bought this, this is ridiculous.
Dell sucks.
February 12th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Amy,
If you just bought this laptop it still should be covered by warranty. Check the warranty status and call Dell.
February 19th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Symptoms:
Resoldered the Jack in the back… computer worked all night no problems and I turned it off to go to bed. In the morning, it started powering up for 5 seconds then turned back off. I tried the following:
Took out HD, memory, dvd and tried to start with the same problems. Replaced them each individually as well with same problem. Unplugged the computer and took away the battery and held the power button for 2 minutes followed by plugging everything back (battery and DC power) with the same results. The only way that the computer doesnt shut itself off is when I removed the CPU or release it from making contact with the board…
Do I have a burnt out CPU or is it simply overheating???
I have not applied any new thermal grease to the cpu, but if the cpu had been overheating it probably would not have lasted me all night before I turned it off on my own.
Please help…. I’m serious hating my Toshiba and need this laptop working ASAP
February 20th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
drew,
You know that the CPU socket has a screw-lock, right? The CPU must be locked in the socket otherwise the laptop will not boot. Most likely you know that but I’m asking just in case to make sure if everything is right. It’s necessary to apply some thermal grease on the CPU before you put the heat sink on, otherwise it will overheat.
Remove the motherboard with CPU and cooling module from the laptop case and try turning it on outside the case, maybe you have some kind of grounding issue. Examine the laptop case, make sure nothing is touching the motherboard.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Ok.
I tried removing the motherboard from the case and removing everything but the CPU…. I applied some thermal paste to the top of the cpu after removing the old paste. I then locked the CPU in place… my computer still starts powering up for 3 seconds max, then just shuts down……
Any more suggestions??
February 21st, 2007 at 5:39 pm
PS.
The computer doesn’t shut itself down when the CPU is removed
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 am
I ordered another CPU, when it comes I’ll try installing it and letting you guys know if it fixed my problem.
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Drew,
That’s a risky game you are playing. From my experience CPU failures are not very common, but you never know. Good luck! I hope it will fix your problem.
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
New CPU didnt work. Must have short circuited the motherboard somewhere….. Guess I’m just gonna buy a new laptop and sell my busted one on ebay for parts….
March 1st, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Hello everyone!
After looking through all of these posts for about 3 hours I am ready to try and fix my Toshiba Satellite A60! Ok, so I had the similar problem posted here. I was working on my laptop and then it completely shut down like it had a power failure. Now now lights light up, there are no sounds, and pressing the power button has no effect on it. After reading some topics I tested the power supply out on another laptop, no problems, the power supply is good. I even bought another one just in case. The next step many people talk about are bad or failing power jacks. Sooo, I went through the dissasembly guide to have a look at my jack. Its not cracked or anything, but as I understand it could still be bad. My first question is how can this connection be tested? (I do have multimeters and what not). I am very interested in going to the extreme to fix this myself and actually learning about it. If I cannot fix this thing, I will later ask if there is a reasonalby priced way to get this fixed. I hope I can fix this myself and have this post go down in history as the great A60 laptop ressurection. Thankx in advance for everybodys help!
March 5th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Terrance,
From my experience, Toshiba Satellite A60/A65 power jacks are pretty strong and do not fail a lot. If you disassembled the laptop but cannot see anything strange with the jack, most likely there is nothing wrong with it.
Usually power jack do not fail like that. It sounds more like a problem with the motherboard.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Hi,
I have a Toshiba Satellite A75-S231. When I turn on the laptop, it will run for about 10 – 20 minutes and then shut off without warning. The indicator shows that it’s on AC and the battery is at 100% but shuts off anyway, and when I try to turn it back on, it doesn’t even make it through boot up before shutting off again. I’ve actually narrowed it down to the power supply, but I was curious as to possible causes. I took out the battery and ran just on AC and the same problem occurred. So then I disconnected the power and ran only on battery and it operated all the way up until the battery ran down, about 85 mins, pretty normal. So as I said it seems to simple point to the power adaptor. I’m just confused as to why it will charge the battery but not run the machine. Do you have any suggestions, short of replacing the power adaptor?
March 15th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Titus,
Maybe the laptop overheats? Check the heatsink and if it’s clogged with dust (very common with Satellites A75) blow it off with compressed air. Test the laptop again.
You’ll ask why it runs 85 minutes on the battery power? Here’s my guess. I believe Satellite A75 might have a utility where you can throttle down the CPU when the laptop runs from the battery. So it runs slower – cooler on the battery and will not shut down.
April 27th, 2007 at 4:12 am
I have an ACER ASPIRE 1524 (1520 series as I found out on the net ) and the problem is very similar. It just turned off out od the blue and cant be powered up. The power adapter works perfectly on another laptop and it should work on mine, but doesn’t , with or without the battery .
.
I think it might be the motherboard but I have hopes for the fuse thing I saw written before, but all I can find for my laptop series is the part numbers and not a guide to disassemble it
If it’s possible how do I open it up and what should I look for ?
Thanx in advance
May 9th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Hi I ve an Hp Pavilion dv1000. There ways a power failure from the electricity supply company and the laptop has stopped powering ever since. The adaptor works just fine. I help though to figure out a way forward. Am suspecting the power supply or main baord. How do i go about it.
I ll relly appreciate your help.
June 15th, 2007 at 7:00 am
Hi,
I have a five-year-old Toshiba Satellite 1135-S125 with a peculiar problem (at least I think it might be a problem). First off, it has five LED lights on the front panel – from left to right, they are AC Power, On/Off, Battery charge, HDD access and CD/DVD access. Recently my daughter was operating it and I had removed the battery because I didn’t want it to get overheated (which didn’t help it anyway, but that’s a subject for another post). During this time, we had a thunderstorm and lost power briefly, which of course shut off the computer. When she turned it back on, the On/Off LED and the Battery charge LED became amber instead of green. Now, the AC Power light remains lit constantly, even when on battery power, the On/Off and Battery lights are a constant amber, and the CD/DVD access light remains on all the time. However, normal operation is not affected. Did the loss of power do something to a component inside the computer, and if so, what can be done about it? It may or may not be a problem, but it bugs me. Thanks for any help you can offer.
July 9th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Hi
Apologies if this has been covered before, but there are quite a few posts to go through. I have a Toshiba Portege A100 which appears to be dead. For the last few weeks the power cord appeared to be a bit iffy i.e. even when plugged into the back of the laptop it didn’t appear to be charging, then sometimes when you moved it around it would again.
Last night it was left on overnight by mistake and when I came to it this morning the screen was blank and power appeared to be off. When I pressed the ‘power on’ button the button flashed blue as it usually does but nothing happened to the screen and the laptop didn’t sound like it was ‘firing up’. I kept it plugged into the power cord and the button switched between the ‘stand-by’ orange colour light and off altogether. When depressed it would flash blue.
Now the power on button doesn’t light up at all and the LED displays at the front of the laptop are not lit.
What do you think the problem is??? AC adaptor? Battery? Motherboard? Need some help here!
July 11th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I have a dell latitude c540/c640 when I power it on it boots up like normal then about 3 to 5 seconds pass then it shuts off, it worked fine before. I know it is not a battery problem because the battery is fully charged. I also have a burnt out backlight does anyone know a website to buy one it from.
Does anyone have any suggestions how I could fix my problem.
Thanks, Chris
July 19th, 2007 at 10:26 am
I am having the same problem as Bejamin,
My laptop (Toshiba TE 2100) shut off very suddenly. Only after unplugging and taking out the battery it would sometimes boot up again. This went on for weeks but then, finally, the laptop was completely dead.
Very sometimes the power board will give me an error code sequence with an orange LED flashing. Unfortunately I do not know how to convert it into an error code.
My amber codes are 1 long
3 short
1 long
1 long
1 short
1 long
Thanks a lot for helping – if possible.
July 21st, 2007 at 10:11 pm
rwcrazy,
Here I covered a Toshiba TE2100 notebook boot problems. It’s a very common problem with this model by the way, probably a bad connection between the power board and the motherboard or the video board and the motherboard. Reseating the power board and the VGA board might help.
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:17 am
Hi,
I was working on my Pavilion DV 1000 notebook while plugged in and suddenly out of nowhere it turns off.. that wasn’t unusual since I had a problem with over-heating and the laptop randomly turning off. I turn it back on, a few minutes later, there’s still battery, it turns off again, but this time, never turns back on. No LED lights, doesn’t show charging, no noises, NOTHING! absoluttely dead. I tried another charged battery and adapter, nothing. I’m really hoping it’s not the mother board, is there any way I can check? What other possibilities are there? I heard something about either the fuse or the keyboard short-circuiting.. could it be those? is there anything else? how can I check for these or others.. Really appreciate it.
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Hi I have a Toshiba Sat. (M35x-s111) I just replaced the power DC jack. Now I have a new problem. Whenever I turn it on, it powers up, the fan comes on, but within a30 seconds or so the fan stops it stays on but nothing else…nothing on the screen. I have been reading a lot that it might be a dirty fan which I cleaned still no luck…any ideas
September 26th, 2007 at 12:13 am
HI,My laptop Acer Aspire 1400Xc keeps rebooting, I thought it might have been a problem
with the OS so i formated. the first two times the computer started to
format then rebooted again on the third try the format was complete
but right after it formated again. Now I cant get A OS on it. Im
thinking its the fan because it seams to be running very hot. I tried also to change my Ac Adapter but nothing change at all!
Anyone know what might be causing this?
Any help would be welcomed
Thanks
September 29th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Sieg,
The laptop reboots or it just shuts down by itself?
Yes, this problem can be related to overheating. Clean the cooling module with compressed air and see if it helps.
Can you hear the fan working, maybe the fan is dead?
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:36 am
Hellow…!
Can u help me how can i find my acer aspire 1400xc laptop, VGA driver and Network driver!
Thnx!
November 13th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I have a Toshiba Portege A100. Works fine on AC but battery always shows 99%. When laptop off and AC cord in, power light is green and battery light is amber and flashes.
Laptop doesnt work on battery at all tried 2 batteries same problem with amber battery light flashing.
Any ideas?
November 13th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Ian,
The battery plugs directly into the motherboard. If you experience the same problem with two different batteries, there has to be something wrong with the battery charging circuit on the motherboard.
It means you’ll have to repair the motherboard of find a technician who can fix the motherboard on the component level.
You can try this. Remove the battery and start the laptop from the AC adapter. Now insert the battery while the laptop is still running on AC, it might “shock” the battery and it will start working. This is just a guess, so proceed on your own risk.
I worked on a Portege A100 only one time and has created a disassembly guide for this model, just in case if you need it in the future.
December 10th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
LTF:
My problem is that the notebook randomnly shuts off–makes a little “click” sound and then the computer goes dead. The batters LED signal is a constant amber color. Sometimes I can reboot it successfully, other times not so much.
What can I do? Thanks.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
I have a Dell Inspirion 9300 which has been working just fine until yesterday, when it started giving some beeping sounds like radio static, today it gave that sound and the an error message came up on the screen saying that the laptop has to be turned off to prevent computer damage. Since then the laptop doesnt come on, actually when you start it normally, the lights all flash on and then flash off without the computer starting unless you hold on to the start button for a long time and then it starts but after sometimes it makes that beeping sounds and then switches off. I have removed the battery and started it with ac and it still gives the same problem. Can someone help me?
December 22nd, 2007 at 8:58 am
Help…we have a M65 Toshiba with a power problem. We tried different AC adapters, no help there. Then we had someone replace the AC power adapter that goes to the motherboard, nope…then we bought a used motherboard, still no power. When you plug the laptop in, it makes a clicking/buzzing sound, but no lights. At the beginning, we were more hopefully because we had the blue light come on for about 3 seconds and shut off, but not even that anymore. I think that was from the remaining battery power though. Any ideas would be really appreciated.
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:29 am
hi
i am having a pc with intel d945gnt,1.5gb ram,6200 xfx
and when i start using an application or installing a long appln like msoffice it shut down automatically but the led lights are on after some time i used to get started it again it works fine for some day
please any one help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 1st, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hi there, I’ve got a Toshiba Satellite A60 and I’ve had problems with the AC connection for about 6 months, which I understand is a common problem with Toshiba laptops. The laptop would switch to battery power unless I wiggled the adaptor tip when it would run off AC power for a little while, before going back to the battery. It gradually got worse until last week I could only use the laptop if I held the adaptor tip into the computer all the time.
A few days ago I couldn’t get the laptop to run off AC power at all, so I removed the adaptor and put it back into the computer quite forcefully to try and get it to connect. There was a crackling sound and a burning smell, and the laptop shut down. I’ve tried resoldering the connections on the DC jack and have tested the AC adaptor which is working, but now I can’t get the laptop to turn on at all. So my question is, is the problem likely to be with the DC jack or could a power surge have damaged the circuit board? There’s no visible damage on the circuit board. Thanks in advance for your help, Shane
January 28th, 2008 at 7:55 am
How can be fixed a dv1000 series notebook that shuts off after a few seconds. (system board problem ??)
Thanks
January 31st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Hi,
Same problem here as Terrance.
My Sony VAIO VGN-FS660W after two and a half years just shut down wile being plugged in to the wall. With or without the AC adapter and/or battery there is no power or lights.
I did upgraded my RAM a month or two before that happened. And two month before I had a problem to where windows would not load past the Windows startup screen, which I fixed by pressing the F8 and recovering my system.
Any known problems with power that you can think of for this Sony?
I will try removing/replacing my RAM when I get home and see if that dose it.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Hi laptop freak. First of all, you are a guru!
I have a Toshiba A100, and it’s cooling fan was starting to make a bit of a noise 3 days ago, though if i tipped it on it’s side, it would go away.
Then when I opened it up today, nothing came on the screen – it was just blank.
I held the power button down, and it went to amber as normal after five secs for a warm shutdown.
When I press the power now, it makes the normal boot-up sounds, but nothing on screen.
wi-fi light does not come on, and it is not visible on the network (damn).
Any ideas?
February 21st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Oh, it is not the power adapter – I have two separate ones!
And it was fully charged when it wouldn’t turn on the first time!
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:25 am
I need some help although its not the right topic,
but i poured some water on my comp by accident and now it is short circuit, all water near keyboard wiped, no water seen from overview but now my laptop on button
wont work, need some help! By that i mean it cant on… but the lights below the screen are still green for sum reason :s
PLEASE HELP! VERY IMPORTANT!
February 24th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Andrew,
Are you sure the noise was coming from the cooling fan and not from the hard drive?
Try turning on the laptop without the hard drive installed. Can you boot the laptop to the Toshiba logo on the screen?
February 24th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Isaac,
If water went down to the motherboard, most likely it’s fried and has to be replaced. I cannot help you to troubleshoot this problem over the Internet. It’s necessary to disassembly the laptop and take a closer look on the motherboard.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Hi laptop freak,
I have HP dv1000 series. Today ot suddenly switched off while I was working and I could restart it only by removing hte battery and pressing the power switch. After that I kept the battery removed and th patop was on direct power supply. Again the laptop switched off while I was working but his time I could switch it on by pressing the power switch as the battery was already removed. I am not sure what the problem is…it cannot be the battery as even after I removed the battery it switched off. Is it due to overheating but I can hear the fan work.
Please help/advice asap.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Ruchi,
Will it turn back on after a while, after it cools down? If it does, probably it’s heat related issue. Even though the fan works, it’s possible that the heatsink is clogged with dust preventing normal air circulation.
Clean the heatsink with compressed air and test the laptop again.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Hi Laptop Freak –
re my Toshiba A100 – the HDD seems fine.
I pulled it out and got all the data off it.
Any further ideas?
Also there are no beep codes if I pull the memory out and try booting without it.
Thanks
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Hi Laptop Freak!
Similar situation.
I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop
No prior issues however yesterday I was working on it, closed the lid (which would normally put it in “standby mode”) and left to do other things. Several hours later I came back to finish my work and when I lifted the lid it appeared my pc had never gone into “standby mode” and the screen was exactly as I had left it. The computer was locked up; nothing would work, not even the mouse >:) So I held the power button until it turned off. The pc was a bit warmer than normal but I assumed it was because it never had a “rest”.
From that point on the pc will not turn on. It will do nothing. I have taken the battery out, checked the power cords and all seems fine. The lights on the front are: solid green in the power spot, no light in the middle spot and a yellowish color in the battery/last spot.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 am
I’ve had my Portege A100 apart quite a few times to replace ram, network card etc but today I’ve tried to replace the hard drive and cant get it to power back up.
With either the old or the new drive it wont fully power up. The light changes from blue to green but there is no display and no fan or hd noise.
Step 12 at this guide says “slide the hard drive to the left” but this doesn’t seem clear. Surely it is just necessary to put the hard drive into the cage and then slid it firmly into place?
Any ideas much appreciated.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:25 am
Paul,
Will it start without hard drive installed?
I believe so. Make sure the hard drive is oriented correctly and pins on the hard drive match holes on the connector on the motherboard.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:07 am
Thanks Laptop Freak. I’ve now got it to start after unplugging the CMOS battery for a while but now I get a corrupt bios screen which looks a bit like http://img229.imageshack.us/my.php?image=487b1os8.jpg (someone elses picture). I’ve seen this before when a BIOS gets corrupted so I reflashed both the bios and the firmware (I always thought they were the same thing) using toshiba’s dos based chgbiosa.exe and chgfirma.exe but that hasn’t helped. I now suspect the video bios or a damaged or badly seated internal monitor cable.
I’ll try to find an 855GM video bios and flash it from DOS + check the connection on the lead.
Oh, I also tried to install XP but it crapped out after copying loads of files with a “the BIOS in this system is not fully ACPI compliant” BSOD.
I’m sure there’ll be a single root cause to all this but damned if I’ve managed to find it yet.
Ideas welcome.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:54 am
It just might be fixed. Even though I memtested it a few weeks ago and it was fine, there were just too many weird errors so I stuck the memtest disk in and it started erroring straight away. One discarded stick later and the screen corruption at startup has gone. I’m just starting to install windows. Fingers crossed.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 pm
hey laptop freak,
in need of urgent assistance! please!
okay so i got a TOSHIBA SATELLITE A200 (don’t know if you need this but the model number is PSAF3A-0QH01N) less than a month ago and all has been well until now.
i had been playing the sims for a while when all of a sudden i noticed the orange light (battery low) was blinking. i dont know how long it had been doing that, not more than 10 minutes though. and it was plugged in and everything.
so i made sure everything was plugged in adequately and then all of a sudden in shut down on me!
i took the power supply cords out and waited a few minutes befor eputtign them back in. now everything seems to be workign properly (excpet theres no battery,its charging)
this has never happend to me before and i would liek to know if you know wat the problem was and how i can stop it occuring again?
please and thankyou!
May 5th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Ellie,
Could you please provide a better description of the problem you are experiencing right now?
The battery is not detected by the laptop or what?
May 28th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Hi Laptop Freak,
Normally I don’t work much on laptops. I do some minor upgrading Didn’t see this issue in your past posts, or any where for that matter. I inherited a HP 2100, (2188CL), and was impressed with the toughness of the unit. I upgraded it to an 80 gig hard drive, 1 gig ram, and left the AMD CPU in it. I have two batteries for it. I have tested the charger, which has the correct amperage, and voltage. On a full charge, the batteries run for about 30 min, Windows tells me the batteries are low, machine shuts down. If I restart the machine, the batteries work great for another hour and a half, minimum. Machine dies, I immediately reboot, and it works for the full time the batteries should run it. Both of them. I recharged and tried this same sequence of events several times, to verify the issue. CPU is running cool, ram is good, hard drive checks out. I put Windows in desktop mode, so it wouldn’t go into standby or be shut down by the ACPI. Went to the drive manager, removed the items under Battery, restated to reinstall them, then put in the batteries. Cleaned the registry. Removed any ACPI and batter setting references in the registry. Tried the HP Battery Optimizer. Had the batteries tested, which shows the cell are all good, and fully charge. Any help would be appreciated. Bios is the newest version. XP is a clean install.
Stumped!!
May 29th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Hello
I have a Toshiba Satellite A50 laptop that will powers up for a few seconds and then shuts down. The laptop will literally be on for no more than 20 seconds and then it will shut down totally. There is no problem with the adapter, nor is there problems with the battery, but the laptop will not remain on. I have taken it to a technician (I am currently living in Honduras) and he has tested the power supplies and the cooling fan and is sure that these aren’t the cause of the problem. I have read on the internet the Toshiba laptops have common overheating problems that causes the laptop to shut down, but the processor doesn’t even have a chance to get hot before my laptop shuts off. Is this a problem that you have encountered before with Satelitte A50′s?
Do you have any idea what might be causing this to happen? Could it still be the cooling fan, or is it something more severe?
If you would like more details about the problem, please let me know. And if you happen to know what might be causing this, please help me out. Thank you
Chris
May 30th, 2008 at 8:38 am
We had a problem with our M65 not powering up, after we had to get a new power supply/plug because the original from Toshiba broke. The wattage of the adapter was to much, we got a Targus that said it would work for our laptop, but it didn’t. After we ordered the right one, it works fine now. Also, for those of you that have problems with your system restarting…SP3 has caused this problem with 2 of our home PCs, a hotfix/patch came out after and it works fine after we restarted the system in Safe Mode and looked on Microsoft for a new patch. I really hope this helps.
Good luck
June 12th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I have a toshiba satellite a100 series. Basically what i noticed was when the battery went low to 5% it ask me to recharge it. I plugged in the ac adaptor and this seem to power it up and kept it on for hours and hours but the battery sign would not show it was charging which left me a bit worried.
Here is my dilema though, I turned off the laptop and had a look i removed the battery from the laptop just out of curiosity and this seemed ok. I tried to turn on the laptop after that but all i would get is the flashing orange LED by the battery icon. I put on the ac adaptor and it does the same thing also, all it does with the ac adaptor when plugged in is doesnt show on any lights on the LED, to even show its connected or powering up.
By this time i was out of patience, so i took it to a friend of mine to get looked at and this is what he said.
—————
I have used another Toshiba power supply in replace of your one, with same voltage and silmilar power capability, which did not fix the problem (Still flashing orange light after ~5mins of chargin?). Also i have tested your toshiba power seperately and it is definately working fine.
As for the input jack on the laptop, I have tested it with a multimeter, whatever power you put thru the jack, it goes to the motherboard, hence there is nothing wrong with the jack. However once it gets to the board, it gets very complicated and it is very hard to trace where the power is going/gone and where it ends up etc… due to complex design and I am unfamiliar of how the circuitry works.
All i could do is check for obvious faults on electrical components which could be tested. i.e Diode, Caps, Inductors etc.
However is not able to check any IC as there is no way of tell if they are operating correctly or not using simple equipment such as multimeter.
When i assembled it back together, the orange light was still flashing, once power button is pushed.
——————————
So now im just basically stuck as to what else I should do???
June 12th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Not sure if you need this but model number is PSAA9A-118038
June 12th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Harry,
On some Satellite A100/A105 laptops Toshiba addressed this issue in the BIOS update. Hopefully, your laptop is one of those. Go to the Toshiba website and search for the latest version of the BIOS. Update the BIOS on your laptop if needed.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Hi laptopfreak,
even if i get the bios update i wont be able to load it as I cant even power on the laptop
All i get is the flashing orange led on the battery LED
July 18th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Hi Laptopfreak,
Very same issue as Harry. Mine is a Toshiba A100 PSAA9H.
Noticed 2 weeks ago battery wasnt charging even though plugged in. Battery was full so spent a few minutes investigating why it wasnt showing the AC power icon, or usual LED. Adapter was tested fine. Shutdown laptop normally and then havent been able to use it since. Orange LED flashed when attept to turn on. With Battery or AC or both.
Brought to repair shop, they say needs new motherboard, which costs too much. When I took it back from them now no LED work flash, just dead. Checked they hadnt left something disconnected which they havent.
So same idea as Harry, How can I update Bios if the device wont turn on. do I need a time machine for this one?
Can the Chip be powered and Bios be updated by toshiba??
August 10th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Hello,
I have a similar issue regarding a Toshiba Qosmio (G35 AV600). I plug the battery in and let it charge, but when I turn it on and do something more intensive like a game, the laptop works fine for about 25 minutes then the display starts switching from a lower to higher brightness. The LED lights for the AC and the battery blink both, in unison to the display. After blinking for around half a minute the whole computer shuts off with no LEDs on. Then if I turn on the computer again. It is a mix of different symptoms, from the same screen brightness problem to the blinking LEDs.
I recreated the situation again to see if it would happen again and the computer reacted differently. The game was shut off when the LEDs started flashing and I got back to my desktop. The computer then made a click sound as if my hard drives had been turned off. The AC and Power lights were still on but the display was black. Then the fans turned on really high.
I don’t know what the problem is and can really use some help.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
hello everyone, my english is not so good but hope u will understand me. I have toshiba satellite pro a100 (PSAASE) and few weeks ago power button just lost function. Laptop works as well, everything work normaly but I need to start laptop on media-player button or internet explorer button. When laptop get warm then power button work but when he’s cold button don’t work. There is a problem with led too. Blue led when laptop is on sometime working normaly but sometime doesn’t work and orange led doesn’t work at all.
I would appriciate any sugestion. Thanks!!!
October 6th, 2008 at 11:36 am
hi my sons advent 7108 packed up took it to pc world and was told the motherboard was no good.we was using it one night and turned it of as normal.next day went to turn it on and there was nothing .managed to get motherboard of ebay (new)?fitted motherboard and switched it on i have no display and the fan doesnt work.the dvd rom makes a noise and the power lights are on.i have checked the fan with 6v battery and that works fine just wondered if the new motherboard is faulty as it has 30 day warranty.i have tryed taken memory/hard drive/dvd rom/out but still nothing is it motherboard or somyhing else?
October 7th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Hi. The unsubscribe link in emails is not working. It returns a 404 page. Please unsubscribe me from any future mailings. Thanks
December 16th, 2008 at 9:11 am
I´m not sure what the problem is…I believe I may have fried something in it with a power surge or something. Anyway, I´m in Peru right now where the voltage is 220, my transformer on the power supply is rated from 120-240, so I plugged it in without the voltage converter box (converts the 220 current to the US current of 115), only using a surge protector (probably my first mistake).
The weird thing is, that it will still turn on, whether connected to the power supply or not, but when I get to my login screen to enter my password, it shuts down at the same point each time…when I hit the ´p´ key, which incidentially is part of my password. Now I can let it sit there for 30 minutes and it will sit on the login screen, but every time I hit the `p` key on my keyboard, it instantly shuts down.
Frankly, I´m completely stumped and I personally have no idea how to solve the problem. I know it´s very odd and I doubt I can find much help until I get back home next month, but I figured I´d give it a shot in here to see if anybody has ever had a similar problem. Any insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys, hope somebody can help
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:24 am
an video image appears on the screen of my pc at the time of getting it started or shut it down. I want to delete that image. Please advise.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
My toshiba laptop has the same problem.
But I find my problem—it’s overheat because the fan doesn’t work nicely
January 31st, 2009 at 2:35 am
I have a Gateway MT6840. I was using it yesterday in the office. It was even playing music while working on it. It was running on battery. Then, when i decided to plug it instead, it suddenly shut down on its own. I think it sparked for a second. I could not power it up even when plugged in, without the battery. No lights are coming on. What do you think happened? The laptop was still functional until yesterday. I always put it on Hibernate Mode. The battery life has diminished over the past 1 year and 3 months so I’m using the adapter now more often for power. Is my laptop still “save-able”? Is the hard drive damaged already? I’m really worried. I have a lot of files on the hard drive. HELP! Did my laptop just short-circuited? What should be done? It really can’t power up any way that I know of. Hope you can shed some light or give advice. Thank you.
Paige
February 1st, 2009 at 6:27 am
I have a toshiba laptop it was upgraded on line from service pack 1 to service pack 2. However i was not anble to update it on required expire date now it still not update yet . How do i go about updating on line when its due date expired? Please i really need your assistance.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Laptop Freak,
My Toashiba Satellite A100 was running hot for several weeks, but nothing dangerous.
One day, it decided not to turn on. No LEDs flashing or anything, without the power supply.
With the power supply connected, even after charging for hours, the battery LED flashes 10 times, but still fails to turn on.
Any help would be great! Thanks
February 28th, 2009 at 12:14 am
My dell computer isnt working properly. The battery simbol on the bottom claims that its plugged in but not charging. Unfortunately, whenever I pull the charger out, my laptop immediatly shuts down.
Help please and thanks.
March 1st, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Emma,
It’s either a bad battery or motherboard. Try replacing the battery first.
March 10th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
i tried to fix a friend’s tecra 2100 which has blinking power led.when i was putting it back together conector from vga to lcd got “accidently” came off….
any idea how i soldered it back with a regular soldering iron. or should i gave it to the pro
April 11th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I have same issue as many above with Tosh Sat A100
PSAANA-04E005 – was a great laptop , just outside warranty ,( 3 months ) battery had been working fine – Laptop was charging Ok , all systems normal . UNTIL !! – Battery power message was displayed ( whilst plugged in ! ) and eventually laptop turned off . That was the last I iver had the laptop going . Charger is OK – tested at shop & and have Flashing Orange LED 10 times , but no boot . Seems like a bad motherboard power controller chip . I have traced power from the jack point while p[lugged in , via fuses & inducttors on the Mboard , that eventually go to what is described as a Power controller IC ..this IC is used to charge the Battery and control the powerflow to the rest of the PC . Its a universal IC , that is programmed in the factory to be used for what ever battery type / and or voltage / cells etc used on various models today . EVEN IF , I get a new IC , its a BLANK IC , and woint be programmed to suit the TOSH A100 . Sadly I feel that the Warranty conditions on laptops are just not acceptable for the price you pay for the hardware ! Im major pissed off about the failure of this A100 – it was and is a fantastic performer when it was powered up . The cost of the motherboard is at least 550 – 600$ NZ . It should be $100 for the reliability that people are getting . Toshiba I feel are not what they used to be – ive used them for years , and feel this time ive been ripped of big time .
April 16th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I have a Toshiba a135 With the battery only it will do nothing. When you plug in the a/c power the blue power on led just blinks. no sounds when you try to turn on the computer by the switch just blinking blue led a/c power indicator.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 am
my toshiba was shutting off due to over heating so i did my best to keep it cool. Now this last time it shut off i cant get it to stay on for more then a few sec. it lights up showing that it is plugged in and charging but when i turn it on it starts fine then shuts off. all the lights flicker for a few min. then go out. i have to take out the battery and put it back in to get the lights back on. do you think it could be the battery? or something else. wana know be4 i spend a 120 dollars for a new one
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Retrieving dead laptops that have faulty power circuits
I was a satisfied owner of a Qosmio G35-AV650 until after about two years service the mains power light went off and the unit continue to run until the battery ran flat. After that point the machine would not run at all other than with a charged battery, which of course one can no longer obtain.
I had my unit tested by three different repair people and they all stated that a replacement motherboard would be required(which would be expensive) and the unit was not worth repairing as one could obtain similar performance at much less cost with a new unit. I thought this was a bit rough considering the unit is only two years old and retail pricing at that time was about $6000) but I did purchase a replacement (Toshiba A200) which offers much the same performance at a considerably lower cost (and lack many of the bells and whistles.
The solution: a Mains-powered battery unit
I got to thinking about the problem a few days ago and the essence of the solution is based on the fact that the unit can still run from a charged battery. As I saw it, if one could adapt a battery pack by removing the actual batteries while retaining the internal circuitry and then provide DC power to the appropriate points in the circuits (using the original AC/DC power supply) there was a possibility it could work. Incidentally, this technique might well work for other brands of laptop provided they are exhibiting a similar fault in the power supply system,
I realised of course that the catch was in the phrase the appropriate circuit points, which might have been difficult to determine. However, after carefully separating the batteries at their attachment points on the internal circuit board and metal circuit straps, it turned out to be fairly straightforward.
Shown below in Fig.1 is a photograph of the first mains battery that I built which was actually overdeveloped in that it had 2 DC power supplies coming in: I thought I had found an intermediate takeoff in the middle of the battery chain and it seemed possible that this might be vital to some monitoring function. When tested without the secondary power supply unit it functioned perfectly, so this element is redundant and can be omitted. The following figure (Fig.2) shows the wiring harness out of its enclosure so that the connections are clearly evident.
Fig.1 The Mains-Battery cell
Fig.2 Circuit wiring
Procedure
• Carefully separate the two halves of the battery casing using a sharp knife or screwdriver and endeavour to preserve the integrity of the two parts so that they can later be glued together.
• Detach the batteries from the wiring harness taking great care to ensure that the harness itself is not damaged in the process. This step requires the use of a soldering iron with reasonable heat capacity so that the solder in the joints can be melted sufficiently to enable the attachments to be levered off.
• Prepare the input DC power lines by cutting off the plug that normally fits into the rear of the computer and preparing one set of positive and negative connections. The power supply can then be connected into the circuit either via a connection block or by direct linkage into the circuit. The positive input links with the resistor on the end of a chain of components and the negative input links with the terminal located at the base of the circuit board (see Figs.2-3).
• To ensure that the components do not get damaged subsequent to assembly, I recommend lining the base of the battery casing either with double sided adhesive tape or non-conductive foam plastic.
• Finally, reassemble the battery casing with the necessary amounts of either superglue or PVC cement and modify the battery holder sufficiently to permit the cable to exit on the underside of the computer.
Fig.3 Circuit board
If all is gone well, you may then experience the delight I felt when I plugged the battery case into the computer and the power source into the wall and saw a blue light appear awhen I pressed the start button.
I hope this solution worked for you, but if it fails please remember that I was unable to provide any guarantees other than the fact that I built two of these cells for a Qosmio G35-AV650 and they both worked.
Good luck!
Tony Holland-Batt
PS I see that pictures are not accepted in this document, so if any fellow sufferers out there who would like full copies of the article, feel free to contact me at my e-mail address are provide them.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Hello I need help, and am not sure how to post a question on here. I spilled about 2 lbs of water on my bed and my laptop was right in the middle of the water. As soon as the water touched my laptop it immediatly shut down and wouldn’t comr back on. I took my sisters hear dryer and dried off as much as I could and it still wouldn’t turn back on. I unscrewed the 2 bottom peices and dried them out as well. I’m not sure how to open my laptop or check if there’s any more water in it. If someone can help please e-mail me at jadenduelist@yahoo.com. By the way my laptop is an IBM Think Pad.
February 9th, 2010 at 4:34 am
I have a Acer Travelmate 5730, I was using it and it shut itself off. I since then have managed to get it on long enough to reformat it, afraid that it could have been a virus. It didn’t help. I cannot turn it on at all today. The AC cord is plugged in, the battery light stays lit up. I push the power button, it lights up, along with an icon with a lightbulb(guessing the power)…the fan runs for a second, shuts off and then so does the laptop. Less than 2 seconds the machine stays on. Any suggestions?
March 25th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
hi too all! i just want to ask if somebody know to fixed my laptop sony vaio bcoz it shutdown by itself. just send me some info on how to fixed it please.
and my other one laptop is very noisy everytime i used it thanks and god bless all
September 27th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Hello everyone
I have a Toshiba A200 and it does not light.
Yet I LED “power” which is on and the LED “battery” which is also lit.
Do you know where it may come?
Thank you all
September 29th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Alex,
Could be memory failure.
Do you have two memory modules installed? Try removing memory modules one by one. Test the laptop with each module individually.
If one of the is bad, the laptop will start properly with the second module.
May 25th, 2011 at 9:22 pm
My acer laptop 4730 did not shutdown. It is need to manually off. So please help me what can i do now.
——————————Siraj.
May 25th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
My acer laptop 4730 did not shutdown. It is need to manually off. So please help me what can i do now.
——————————Siraj.