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Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:38 pm
by Jonah Bron
I realize that this site has nothing to do with hardware, but I don't know of any sites right now where I could ask this.

My laptop is dysfunctional.

Symptoms:
  • Lights turn on
  • Disk drive spins a bit
  • Power button light turns on
  • Fan turns on
  • Screen is blank
  • HDD does nothing
Anybody even ever heard of this? I turned it on one day, used it for a few minutes, and the screen froze. Completely, totally, and entirely. Stuck. So I turned it off. Tried to restart: experienced said issue. Tried again a few days later, and it turned on. Used it for a few minutes, then it froze again. Same routine today.

The lack of HDD spinning leads me to believe that it's not getting to the OS. Toshiba Satellite S105.

?

Thanks a load. :)

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 5:22 pm
by Jonah Bron
Hm. It seems to be working ok now...

Edit: well dang it, it stopped working again...

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 6:28 pm
by Benjamin
Does it post? Does it Beep? Does it beep if you press a bunch of buttons for a while?

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 7:37 pm
by Jonah Bron
Thanks for the response.

The problem is intermittent now. Earlier the BIOS gave me a "CMOS checksum bad" error and asked to reset the settings. Another time I got a grub "not found" error with a rescue prompt.

I had it on mute. Will that keep me from hearing the posting or beeping before loading the OS? Because I can't hear anything. Pressing keys doesn't produce a reaction either. If I get it to turn on again, I'll boot from my live thumb-drive and un-mute it.

The whole dang computer's blowing up! :madblow:

:)

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 8:30 pm
by Benjamin
The beep would come from the internal speaker mounted on the motherboard. There is no way to silence it. If it's not posting there could be an issue with the motherboard. It sounds like it could be a bad (CMOS) battery, failing motherboard, loose ram or video card chip or a failing hard drive. Laptops are quirky though, it could be something seemingly irrelevant such as a bad power cord, bad power supply or the dvd drive shorting out.

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 8:59 pm
by Jonah Bron
Okay, I just turned it on again. It beeped for the first time, and didn't boot. It went beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep. Three beeps, then four beeps, then three again.

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:12 pm
by Doug G
You might want to try pulling the battery and trying on just the AC adapter power. I've had weird stuff happen when a laptop had a dying battery in it.

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:26 pm
by Jonah Bron
Thanks Doug. Same thing happened. Three beeps, four beeps, then three beeps. It might be worth mentioning that the very first beep is very quiet. I'll call Toshiba tomorrow and see what they say.

Good night. :mrgreen:

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:56 pm
by Benjamin
The beeps are the error code.

Edit, What brand is the Bios? From what I see the code means the video card has failed or "Error in first 1MB of system memory".

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:16 am
by Jonah Bron
I know it's the code, I just didn't know what it meant. Where did you find the meaning of the code?

Edit: Just got off the phone with Toshiba. She said that the error code indicated a memory failure, and that it was a Phoenix BIOS. I guess a RAM replacement is in order.

Edit: Oh. Memory failure. That's what you just said. :mrgreen:

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 9:47 am
by Bill H
These guys will certainly be able to help.
http://discussions.virtualdr.com/

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:49 pm
by Jonah Bron
Thanks Bill. If a memory replacement doesn't fix it I'll post there.

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:06 pm
by Benjamin
Jonah Bron wrote:Thanks Bill. If a memory replacement doesn't fix it I'll post there.
And buy a new motherboard ;)

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:19 pm
by Jonah Bron
Benjamin wrote:
Jonah Bron wrote:Thanks Bill. If a memory replacement doesn't fix it I'll post there.
And buy a new motherboard ;)
Yeah... :cry:

Memory total: $81.98

Sigh.

Re: Dysfunctional Laptop

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 1:24 am
by Benjamin
If you have another laptop you may be able to test the ram in it before you buy another one. You can also pull out one stick at a time if it has two.