€100 REWARD OFFERED TO FIX THIS. Toshiba laptop knackered?

ScouseMouse

Hiya all,

Banging my head off a wall here with a great laptop. Toshiba Satellite P300 About 18 months old, Harmon Kardon speakers, plenty of speed and I love it.

I have emailed Toshiba and mentioned it should last two years under UK Sale of Goods act 1979 but no reply yet. May go official and go small claims, but rather not have the hassle. Bought in Liverpool so bit more complicated.

Now it wont work. Am open to suggestions, offers and advice. I am putting in as much detail as I can and hopefully someone can come up with something.

When I switch it on, I get the Toshiba screen, a brief flicker of the hard drive light, a brief flicker of the cdrom light, and then nothing.

There are lights on the keyboard which do light. The bar above the mouse pad, the touch sensitive buttons for the media player and then NOTHING.

I have googled and googled again.

I have tried to reinstall the BIOS using a memory key, but go good.

I have powered down, removed the battery, held the power down with no power cord to drain the battery, and restarted with AC only - no good.

I have removed the hard drive and restarted the machine with it out, nothing new, same symptoms as before.

I have pulled the harddrive and put it into another machine as an extra drive and I can see my backups, but cannot access them as it will overwrite my new machine (I think)

I have tried the Fn B keys at startup but nothing new

F8 does nothing, cannot get into safemode as it hangs before I get to the operating system.

What the hell.

In Dublin and will give €100 to anyone that can get it running.

Any ideas ???

Ghost Train

Anything on the screen?
If not, anything if external monitor plugged in?
Any beeps at power on?
What type of backups do you have?

ScouseMouse

Ghost Train wrote: »

Anything on the screen?
If not, anything if external monitor plugged in?
Any beeps at power on?
What type of backups do you have?

screen black after Toshiba logo.

I turned off the HDMI port at startup a while back to speed up the boot.

No beeps whatsoever

I backed up files to external passport but to reinstall, wont that kill the files on my NEW notebook?

youcancallmeal

I know you said you did the power drain test but your problem sounds very like what the power drain test normally fixes.

Can you get into the BIOS? If so can you boot from CD and run a utility like memtest?

Ghost Train

superscouse wrote: »

screen black after Toshiba logo.

I turned off the HDMI port at startup a while back to speed up the boot.

No beeps whatsoever

I backed up files to external passport but to reinstall, wont that kill the files on my NEW notebook?

Might be worth trying an external monitor to see if anything shows

Depends what type of backups they are, are they made with the windows backup program? If so what version of windows is it? Usually you can restore backfiles to a folder without interfering with pc

ScouseMouse

youcancallme>al wrote: »

I know you said you did the power drain test but your problem sounds very like what the power drain test normally fixes.

Can you get into the BIOS? If so can you boot from CD and run a utility like memtest?

Tried getting into BIOS but no luck

I dont have a cd to boot from.

strangel00p

When you boot into the bios does it have the correct date and time? If not replace the cmos battery. Take a note of all the settings in there and restore them to factory defaults. Is there an option in there not perform a quick boot? It would be good to see any errors when the laptop is booting.

Have you tried removing the memory? Try that and post a reply. Sounds like your display and harddisk are fine.

ScouseMouse

Ghost Train wrote: »

Might be worth trying an external monitor to see if anything shows

Depends what type of backups they are, are they made with the windows backup program? If so what version of windows is it? Usually you can restore backfiles to a folder without interfering with pc

Will try the monitor in the morning, and will check what kind of backups I have.

I mean it, €100 to anyone that fixes this and I will bring it to anyone that knows what they are doing....

ScouseMouse

strangel00p wrote: »

When you boot into the bios does it have the correct date and time? If not replace the cmos battery. Take a note of all the settings in there and restore them to factory defaults. Is there an option in there not perform a quick boot? It would be good to see any errors when the laptop is booting.

Have you tried removing the memory? Try that and post a reply. Sounds like your display and harddisk are fine.

Cannot get into BIOS, memory has been checked by someone and says its fine.

strangel00p

you can't get into the bios? When you turn on the laptop do you get prompted to press a key to enter setup? usually f8 or the del key.

ScouseMouse

strangel00p wrote: »

you can't get into the bios? When you turn on the laptop do you get prompted to press a key to enter setup? usually f8 or the del key.

No. Stops dead after Logo

foxinsox

I'm no expert and I haven't a clue what BIOS is? :rolleyes:

But that all sounds very similar to what happened to my HP laptop, it was the motherboard.

After lots of googling I found that it was a "known fault" with the model I had... I had very good hissy fit and motherboard was replaced when laptop was 3 years old.

Hope you can get it sorted..

strangel00p

ok, that doesn't sound good at all. Sounds like the issue is with the motherboard. Is it worth replacing part on a laptop...probably not.

foxinsox

strangel00p wrote: »

ok, that doesn't sound good at all. Sounds like the issue is with the motherboard. Is it worth replacing part on a laptop...probably not.

OMG!
It might be the motherboard!
I am so not a bimbo!

ScouseMouse

WAIT WAIT

pressing del at startup didnt work, but holding it down did. I am now at BIOS screen.

What next.

strangel00p

ok check the date and time. are they correct?
check it can see the cpu, memory and harddisk.
Take a note of all the settings.
Turn off quick boot if it is enabled

ScouseMouse

strangel00p wrote: »

ok check the date and time. are they correct?
check it can see the cpu, memory and harddisk.
Take a note of all the settings.
Turn off quick boot if it is enabled

Done. Couldnt find quick boot

00112984

I'm having fierce trouble with my Toshiba laptop too. I love it but every couple of hours it'll just die and starting it up again is similar to what you describe. The only thing that works is removing battery and AC, finger on power button for 30 seconds and then start with AC only. I know you've already tried this.

I'm convinced it's a problem with the positioning of the fan. On my laptop, the fan is closer to the centre of the base that I've seen on other machines and it overheats so easily if I have it on any surface; my lap or a table/desk. Even sitting here now, I have most of the laptop on my lap but have to have one side propped against a cushion so that there's nothing below it but air in an attempt to keep it from overheating.

So all I can suggest is with the laptop completely cold and not having been on for over an hour, remove the battery and AC, hold the power button for 30 seconds and then start with the AC with the laptop propped up so there's nothing under the fan.

Only a slight chance of this working but you seem to be desperate too.

strangel00p

no problem,
Are you sure it can see the correct processor speed, all the memory, and the harddisk? Is the time is also right?

If you have noted the settings there should be an option to reset to factory defaults. Try that.

phill106

When you got into the bios, did you see what version it was?
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/outFrm.jsp?ofId=AskIris&searchString=p300+bios&x=0&y=0
is the latest bios for your laptop. It is an exe which will let you extract it to a floppy and boot off that

Try it, and report any error messages/beep codes

Ghost Train

If it's getting as far as the bios but no further, I'd trying to get it to boot off something other than the hard disk, like a ubuntu live cd

if that works then you know it's just the hard disk that's the issue and you can try reinstalling the os

Voodu Child

I wouldn't even dream of trying to update the BIOS on a laptop that is giving trouble. You're more likely to brick it if something fails during the update process.

I would do as suggested above, try to boot off an Ubuntu LiveCD. (if Ubuntu is too big for you to download..its about 700MB IIRC, there are other Linux LiveCDs available, check the Unix forum for recommendations)
-Download an ubuntu ISO
-Burn to CD/DVD as a disc image
-Put it in your drive and turn the computer on.

If it wont boot, go back into your BIOS and check the boot order (the order that your computer looks for bootable devices). Make sure the optical drive is above the HDD.

If you can get into an Ubuntu environment, at least you'll be able to check whats working and whats not. Check the health of the HDD, grab any important files you need..etc

matt-dublin

if its not getting passed the bios it won't boot into an ubuntu cd.

Sounds like a Mobo issue or cmos failure.

I would suggest looking on ebay for a replacement mobo or ringing toshiba ireland and see what they say.

What keyboard lights are showing up when you boot, are any of them flashing or do they flash in a certain sequence?

Have you tried removing the ram, cdrom, hdd, battery and then booting?

if you're based in dublin i wouldn't mind having a look, i can also do data recovery from the HDD if necessary

ricman

USE imgburn program to burn image,browse to for example,xx.iso,eg linux.iso file,click burn image, burn options, use 4x speed.
MINT linux fits on cdr 700meg,google download mint linux.
google imgburn download.
set bios,boot=cd/dvd=0, boot prority cd,dvd boot first .
set boot options, fastboot, quickboot = off.

ED E

00112984 wrote: »

I'm having fierce trouble with my Toshiba laptop too. I love it but every couple of hours it'll just die and starting it up again is similar to what you describe. The only thing that works is removing battery and AC, finger on power button for 30 seconds and then start with AC only. I know you've already tried this.

If that machine is more than say 9 months old you may need to remove dust from the cooler.


OP:

As the others have said:
1. Try an external monitor(TV is fine)
2. Ubuntu Live disk, or any other boot disk.
3. What GPU do you have? They can go without causing the POST to fail(Beeps)
4. Have you reseated the ram? You should get aural warning if its the ram but just in case anyways I'd try that. Its easy to do.

If you're on the southside I'd be happy to drop around with a boot disk and another laptop with which to back up your drive if you want.

spudwiser

i am having the same problem with my toshiba except my laptop is only 3 weeks old.

Ghost Train

spudwiser wrote: »

i am having the same problem with my toshiba except my laptop is only 3 weeks old.

Is it new? Might be best to return it or contact the seller

spudwiser

yeah i have contacted the seller and they they are giving me a full refund so happy days

any word from the op?

ScouseMouse

spudwiser wrote: »

yeah i have contacted the seller and they they are giving me a full refund so happy days

any word from the op?

Op here. Got the fecker running. Got back all my new babies photographs.

I tried what strangeloop said about try this and that and the thing came back to life.

Tapping del at startup made no difference but holding it down caused it to go to the next step where the bios "came alive" and it's worked fine since.

Nothing done to it, no settings changed, it just booted as normal. I think I owe strangeloop but to be fair, will review all the answers to confirm it's him.