Batteries and Power

[Seneca]

Alright, I've got a weird failure for you all.

My year-and-a-half old Satellite is no longer working right.  It developed this problem just last Wednesday when I tried to wake it up out of a prolonged Standby.  (Fyi - I normally use Standby near constantly)

Instead of springing back to life like normal, it blinks the Power On light: "Blue Red Red Blue Red Red" over and over.  The hard drive did not spin up, and after several seconds, the CPU fan revved wildly to full speed.  The wired NIC did not appear to function in this state, but the CD drive and WLAN were getting power.

This is 100% repeatable - EVERY time I try to wake from standby this happens.

The more disturbing failure: I decided to compensate for the failing Standby mode by using Hibrenate instead.  Well! I was watching a movie, as my battery began running low.  No abnormal fare, Windows says my battery is low, low battery alarm sounds - my movie starts getting graphical glitches, and the framerate drops to almost nothing.  The rest of Windows is working fine.  Then the battery reaches Critical and the system goes to Hibrenate.  I get my AC adapter, and power the system back on, but it does not power up, in the following fashion.

Cold boot.  Press power switch.  Power light lights blue, all systems normal.  HDD light flashes as the drive spins up.  Power On light begins flashing.  "Blue Blue Red Red Blue Blue Red Red".  CD and HDD have power, WLAN does not.  Once in this state, it's very difficult to bring it back to operable, I cannot either reliably reproduce, or reliably recover, the laptop.  However, I had an interesting occurrence just today.  While checking if wired LAn was working, I connected a cable, and powered the system on.  I got the "Blue Red Red" from the Standby failure, and the LAN was working.  I disconnected the cable, killed power, and restarted the system - it came back on normally.

I've tried looking online for these blink codes, but it seems all published Power Light Blink Codes apply to older Toshiba laptops.  Also, all blinks are the same length - the only difference is the color of the light.  I intend to test the LAN cable remedy above again.

All conditions and failures happen irregardless of battery or AC power.  Please help! I miss having my Toshiba work right!

[Seneca]

Update.

It did the No Boot failure again.  The NIC is getting power, and working correctly, in this state - and apparently has absolutely nothing to do with whether I can get it back or not.

I am completely unable to reproduce these failures, or their recovery, with any form of repeatability...

My Mom suggests an internal connection problem.

The kicker, is that the laptop works flawlessly when it does, and is a complete brick when it doesn't.

[sokoll99]

I am not a PC professional and I am having the same problem with an A205 - S 5000.  This is the second Toshiba laptop I have owned.  The first developed a similar problem at age 8 years (yeah that one made it to ripe old age) however my A205 is about a year and a half old and is having the same issue.

I wish I could be more scientific about this but I have figured out how to get the thing to work 9 times out of 10 so try this:

1. Set your laptop down on a smooth hard surface.

2. Put your left hand on the lower left of the case equidistant between the touch pad and the left edge of the case. About 1" below the key board and press lightly, not too hard but you should feel the plastic give just a little. (sometimes I have to use my thumb to give it a little upward pull at the front edge at the same time.

3. Turn the power on with your right hand and keep your hand in place through startup...when you remove your hand do so gently.

9 times out of 10 it works on my machine, if your surface is hard and smooth (I use a glass table top, or a polished wood surface)  the pads will grip the surface and when you pull your hand away it will hold position for a good while.

I have also been able to get this to work in my lap by pressing on that general spot and lifting up gently on the front edge at the same time with my thumb. 

On my last Toshiba I had to apply pressure on the top and bottom to get it to work once the problem showed up but as I said this didn't become a problem until it was ancient.  I have searched everywhere trying to find out what the issue is but so far no luck.  I know it isn't the power jack because the AC lights never flicker just the drive lights and the PC power on light.  The drive light is a blue/red/blue off combination and it can happen at anytime whenever the PC feels the need: as soon as I press the button, midway through startup, when I am typing my password, three hours later when I am on the web, or when it is in sleep mode.

The only theory I have at this point is it has something to do with an electrical contact on the access hatches underneath the machine (I don't even know if those are wired into the power supply chain at all so this is not gospel by any means).  The main reason I suspect this is because the first time it happened to me I removed the hatches to make sure nothing had been shaken loose (nothing was) but I made sure all the hatches were put into place carefully and any metal parts that looked like they should contact, were in contact.  When I turned it back over it fired right up no issues.  With that and my previous experience with a similar problem this is what I came up with.

Hope it helps but I would love to hear the real reason this is happening...on the older laptop the drive was on the front left so I just thought it was a problem with the drive pulling away minisculely and causing the PC to hang at startup.  On this computer I don't remember exactly cause it has been about three months since I took this one apart but I seem to remember the drive being on the right. 

So I don't know what is causing the problem but it seems to be some sort of structural mechanical issue with the case and the parts inside it not maintaining contact.

I have been searching forums everywhere for a reason that this might be occurring but so far I have been completely unable to find out.

[Seneca]

I've found lightly hitting the laptop around the bezel - the entire area around the keyboard - followed by restarting, tends to bring it out of "blue blue red red" state.  "Blue red red" state can be recovered by a simple restart.

I'll attempt your remedy next time it fails, and if it works, I'll pull the forward left access hatch to check for obvious (or not?) connection problems.  I know both forward access compartments are supposed to be hard drive bays, though the left bay doesn't have connectors for a hard drive.  I wonder if I can buy connectors and install a second drive on this laptop..... xD