Laptop appears dead?

[bigbear]

HI all
I have a problem with a Toshiba Equium L20-197.
One day it was working and now its as dead as a dodo.
With the ac adapter plugged there is an LED to indicate this.
Press the start button and another LED briefly flash's and goes out.
I have tried removing the battery and pressing the start button for 30 secs.
Reseated hard drive and memory.
I have built quite a lot of desktops but never tackled a laptop.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated

[callumtuckey]

Mmmm Interesting :?

[mattx]

I like quizes.......

Is this one multiple choice ?

[bizzel]

Sounds like the mainboard to me

[antoeknee]

Some laptops require there to be power from the battery even when using the ac adapter.

I think it could be that the battery isn't being charged.

Have seen this on some laptops and the socket on the MB has been broken (usually due to user dropping the laptop with adapter plugged in).

Sometimes its possible to repair if its only a break in soldered connection. Most cases however are more severe and the MB is damaged. Depending on make/model the cost of repair is invariably not economic and the machine is best kept for spares.

[witch]

Have you run it on the adaptor without the battery in at all?

[PEO]

By any small chance is it a viglen dosier XT laptop? lol I have one sat on my desk with the same symptons

[broadcaststorm]

I've had a few laptops do this, and this is the solution I came accross, but it is a bit strange.
Remove the battery and the AC power, then try turning it on a few times.
Re attach the battery and the AC, then try turning it back on again.
Not guaranteed to work, but i've had success on Apple, HP and some generic notebooks.

Originally Posted by MrHappy

By any small chance is it a viglen dosier XT laptop? lol I have one sat on my desk with the same symptons

Same here, but what has worked once before was taking out the keyboard, and replacing it with another one (from another broken down viglen dossier laptop) and it suprisingly was up and running again.

[PEO]

Originally Posted by aliv25

Same here, but what has worked once before was taking out the keyboard, and replacing it with another one (from another broken down viglen dossier laptop) and it suprisingly was up and running again.

thats intresting

What made you think that it could be the keyboard?

[Oops_my_bad]

Check to make sure the heatsink hasn't popped off the CPU - we have some acer's here and if this has happened it somehow registers and shuts them off again.

[PEO]

yeh, that was the first thing i went straight too.

[ianniow]

It might sound silly but the little switch to tell it to go to sleep when the lid is shut is not stuck down is it

Originally Posted by MrHappy

thats intresting

What made you think that it could be the keyboard?

There was spilt coffee on the keyboard, and this user used to eat alot so you can imagine all the crumbs on the keyboard, gets messy ay?! Try it, how did you resolve yours?

[ricki]

I had one in the other week and they said one day it worked the next it had stopped and when I had a look it was full of cat pee the silly animal used to sleep on the laptop because it was warm.

:idea: I managed to get it going by removing the hard drive and then it got to the bios. For some reason it would not even post with a blown hard drive. After I replaced the hard drive it was ok but it never smelt the same again.

Richard