Powetr Problem with Toshiba Laptop

[John_371]

I have a 2006 Toshiba Tecra lap top, with the original battery, which has accepted only a few minutes of charge for quite a while now. After recently moving, with the laptop disconnected from power, once I plugged it back in, the power on light is green, but the charging light stays yellow, even for a whole day. When I press the start up button, nothing happens (always came on before), and the charging light disappears, then the green power light turns yellow and blinks (even when I remove the outlet power source). I've taken the battery out, then tried to power up with just the cord, but still nothing happens. When I put the battery back in, the blinking yellow light turns solid, and the green power light comes back on, but the laptop still won't power up. Any idea what's going on?

 

[Laptop_Nerd]

Hi,

It seems like it's a hardware problem to me but please do try these troubleshooting steps that may help. If all these will not work that could mean that the motherboard has died.
- Start by doing a hard reboot, remove the battery and unplug the AC adapter then press and hold the power button for 20 seconds then try booting it up again.
- If this will not work, do test the AC adapter if it's working properly. Remove the battery and power the laptop with just the AC adapter connected and see if it will boot up or not. do also try a different AC adapter that has the same voltage and see if it will work or not.
- Proceed with reseating the RAM's if trying a different AC adapter will not work, remove them all for couple of seconds then put them back in making sure everything is seated properly.
- If it will still not work, connect an external monitor and see if you'll get any display from it. If there's a display on the external monitor that could mean that the problem is the built in display.
- But if there's still no display on the external monitor that means the problem lies in the motherboard.
- Please do contact Dell for a repair specially if the laptop is still under the factory warranty.

 

[John_371]

Thank you for your quick response Laptop_Nerd. I've tried pretty much everything you've suggested, including powering it up without the battery in it, but every time I press the power button, the two green lights turn off, and a single blinking yellow light comes on, nothing else. I live in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where electronic repair work is fairly cheap, and they have an authorized Toshiba dealer/repair place I've dealt with many times in the past, so tomorrow I'm just going to take it in and see if they can find the problem. It's an outdated laptop ('06), with several other problems; which may be ready to be laid to rest, but I have a lot of data on it which I'd like to extract if I could just power it up one more time to do so. Thanks again for all of your help. John_371

 

[Im Spartacus]

Your power button on the laptop could be in a depressed condition. i.e. stuck down. Toshiba laptops have a known problem with their power buttons. The solution is to open up your laptop and remove the cable leading from the power button to where it connects onto the motherboard then you should be able to boot your laptop by switching on at the mains. Power buttons are hard to find for Toshiba's due to the this problem. I also own a Toshiba which has the same type of button that suffers from this issue and at some point will fail as the plastic bubble will one day not pop back up.