Help! Laptop is acting up.

[asiancivicmaniac]

Ok I have two problems with my laptop that I hope someone here can help me with.
1.)lately my laptop seems to only charge the battery at its will. I will plug it in and it will be charging fine but after a while the indicator light for the battery will go off and the computer will just discharge the battery. If I notice it in time I try to get it charging again by unplugging and replugging the adapter from by computer. Sometimes it takes several tries and it's getting annoying. If I don't catch it in time the battery fully discharges and the computer turns off, which is even more annoying. What's weird though is that once it goes off, it starts charging the battery again. It's a 3 year old Toshiba Satellite and it's out of warranty.
2.)About several months ago when I boot the computer up it will reach the black screen with the Window's logo and the bar beneath it and then it flashes a blue screen that is way too quick to read and it goes off and starts again. When it boots up again there's a screen that says something along the lines of Windows failed to start up and there's a list of three Safe Modes, start at last known good configuration, and start normally. When I try the Safe modes it just gives a list of stuff and then turns off. With the other ones it will go to that screen with the Window's logo again and turn off. I haven't done anything to my laptop so I don't know what it can be. If I let it go through the timer on the error message and restart normally on it's own a few times then it will be back to normal. This stopped for a month and now it returned. I don't abuse my computer so right now I'm just frustrated. I was thinking of using the reformatting disk that came with it but I have way too much stuff on the hard drive that I can't lose to erase it.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

1) Does the battery have a self-checker on it? If so, there's 5 led's the will come on when you push the self-check button. If nothing lights up, it's dead. If led's 1-3-5 light up, the battery is bad & needs to be replaced. Else, it's just shows how much charge is left in the battery. I would wager it's time for a new battery as it's more then 3 years old.


2) sounds like corruption or spyware that's caused file system corruption. Time to copy your data off the computer and reinstall Windows.

 

[-Clayton-]

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2) sounds like corruption or spyware that's caused file system corruption. Time to copy your data off the computer and reinstall Windows.

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I agree, Three years is a good run for any windows installation IMO.

 

[asiancivicmaniac]

I forgot to add that sometimes I will take the batter out and just use the the adapter and outlet power and the computer will be working fine for a while and then out of now where it just turns off. The led that shows the adapter being plugged in will just be flashing when it normally will stay lit if it is plugged in even when the computer is off.

The battery doesn't have a checker. What other ways can I check it?

 

[Mudcat]

Problem #1: The battery is shot. If you want to go cordless again, you've got to replace it.

Problem #2; Could be a corrupted driver, but it's hard to say. As others suggested, copy your data off and restore windows. You could use the file & settings transfer wizard w/in XP to help with the chore.

Problem #3: Here's where you want to check your owner's info to learn what the flashing power light indicates. You may have insufficient voltage/current from the power supply. You may have a poor power connection to the laptop. This condition can be masked when a good battery is installed, but is uncovered when the battery goes south. Another thought is the PC could be overheating and tripping off. In that case a thorough cleaning with canned compressed air would help.

 

[benjamming]

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...but I have way too much stuff on the hard drive that I can't lose to erase it.

Any help is appreciated.

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I assume then that you don't regularly back up your data deemed important. If not, it seems to be a good time to start and consider this a good early warning sign. You don't always have a warning.

 

[RTexasF]

I had the same thing happen to my Toshiba. It was where the cord plugs into the laptop itself. Turned out it was loose inside the laptop and made a good connection when the mood struck. The repair was $200.

 

[RTexasF]

Oh, I agree with others here that the battery is likely kaput. Mine croaked @ 3 years also.

 

[asiancivicmaniac]

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I had the same thing happen to my Toshiba. It was where the cord plugs into the laptop itself. Turned out it was loose inside the laptop and made a good connection when the mood struck. The repair was $200.

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I think that's it. When I notice that the charging led is off in time I wiggle the plug and sometimes it works again. Found a cheap notebook that's about equivalent to my Toshiba so not spending money to get that fixed and buying a battery. Now I just have to back up my stuff and wipe the drive to take care of the corruption problem.

 

[RTexasF]

Mine eventually reached the point where it would not get power at all due to the funky connection. It may not be worth wiping the drive if you're not going to have it repaired.....why bother?

 

[ConfederateTyrant]

When the computer cuts off, is it hot? If it is, get some compressed air and blast out the fan vent and heatsink.

If it shuts off without dropping the physical connection, it sounds like an AC jack problem on the motherboard.

I've come across two issues with the blue screen. You either have a bad hard drive, or a corrupted install of Windows. Get a Windows XP CD and boot into the recovery console and run a chkdsk /r. If it states the volume has unrecoverable errors, then get another hard drive and an external enclosure off of Newegg and pray that you can recover important data. If everything finishes and it still blue screens, try a Windows repair installation, or reformat the computer and start over. I hate to say it, but a majority of the time it comes in at work, it turns out to be a bad hard drive.

Let us know how it goes.