Help anyone! I have a new Toshiba A75 laptop--only a few months old.
Suddenly, the AC power plug does not seem to be working. The battery
is down to 13% even though it's plugged in to the wall. I checked all
the connections, unplugged and plugged them again; I tried another wall
outlet, just in case. But the battery is draining and no power is
getting to it. Anyone heard of this? When I pulled the power cord out
of the back of the machine, it made an odd squeaky noise. Other than
that, I have no symptoms to report.

Please let me know if you have any ideas. I tried searching Ask Iris
on the Toshiba site, and of course, found nothing.

Regards,
Diana

dianadiehl@cox.net wrote:
: Help anyone! I have a new Toshiba A75 laptop--only a few months old.
: Suddenly, the AC power plug does not seem to be working. The battery
: is down to 13% even though it's plugged in to the wall. I checked all
: the connections, unplugged and plugged them again; I tried another wall
: outlet, just in case. But the battery is draining and no power is
: getting to it. Anyone heard of this? When I pulled the power cord out
: of the back of the machine, it made an odd squeaky noise. Other than
: that, I have no symptoms to report.

The "squeaky noise" could be an indication of a loose or even broken
power connector on your laptop, which would make it impossible for
your laptop to get power. Unless you are handy with a soldering iron,
you're going to have to get it serviced in that case. Is it still
under warranty?

What if you wiggle the plug going into your laptop just a tad? Do you
notice the power coming back on, even briefly? (Seen most obviously
by the power LEDS coming back on.)

Or, the "squeaky noise" might have always been there and is a normal
sound and your AC adaptor simply died. Mine died on my Toshiba
Satellite slowly last fall - at first, I could twist and turn the
black box part of the adaptor a few times until power kicked in (not a
connector issue, since I would do this without touching the laptop
end). It just got worse and worse until it completely stopped
working. I got a replacement from Ebay which has worked perfectly
ever since.

Andrew
--
----> Portland, Oregon, USA <----
************************************************** *****************
----> http://www.bizave.com <---- Photo Albums and Portland Info
----> To Email me remove "MYSHOES" from email address
************************************************** *****************

If it's only a few months old, it's under warranty.

Problem solved.


dianadiehl@cox.net wrote:

Additional symptoms/facts:

* Of the 3 lights in the front, the first one that has a plug icon
stays on and green.
* So does the middle light.
* The 3rd light is not on now, but yesterday, it was glowing orange.
* Now, with the 2 green lights on, if I scroll over the task bar item
for the battery, it states that the machine is on battery power, and
the battery charge gradually decreases
* I left the machine plugged in all night last night and power was up
to 97%.
* I left the machine plugged in all day today and it was only at 67%
when I came home.
* My nice bright screen is fairly dim. Occasionally, it brightens up
for a few seconds and reminds me why I bought this model.

I have to check the warranty and hope that it's for a whole year. If
not, I'm going back to Dell's. the trick now is to pull my hard drive
and get a replacement while this is in the shop. I have to be able to
compute for a number of reasons, including work.

I wish there were a quick answer--and no, I am not good with a
soldering iron. Thanks for your reply (everyone).

Diana

Andrew wrote:

dianadiehl@cox.net wrote:
: Additional symptoms/facts:

: * Of the 3 lights in the front, the first one that has a plug icon
: stays on and green.
: * So does the middle light.

Then there is nothing wrong with the power cord or the connector -
it's the battery, the charging system in the laptop, or a power
circuit in the laptop. It could be a hardware problem. However, if
there is a BIOS update available for this laptop (check Toshiba's
website), that could help this problem. Their website might even
indicate what a BIOS was intended to fix - perhaps problems like this.

But as Barry said, if it's under warranty (sounds like it), sending it
to Toshiba might be the best bet. They would do a BIOS upgrade for
you also if you are not comfortable doing that.

The screen gets dim probably because the laptop thinks its running on
battery and is thus dimming the screen to preserve power. FYI, there
are power settings you can change in the Control Panel to set whether
the screen is dimmed on battery power or not (if not, it will not last
as long).

What happens if you remove the battery? (save important work before
you try this!) If the laptop's internal power circuitry is screwed
up, it will probably shut off or reboot in those cases where the
screen had been dimming.

Andrew
--
----> Portland, Oregon, USA <----
************************************************** *****************
----> http://www.bizave.com <---- Photo Albums and Portland Info
----> To Email me remove "MYSHOES" from email address
************************************************** *****************

Hi, here's an update on my Toshiba Satellite A75 with the failing power
cord. I took it in for repair today. The service rep says this is a
known problem with this and one other model (M35? Sorry, can't
recall). About 60% of this model fail because of a poor connection
between the power cord receptacle and the motherboard. They will have
to replace the motherboard one that has a properly attached/epoxied
power cord receptacle.

The squeaking that I had heard, the inability to get power from the
cord when the battery was removed, and the apparent looseness of the of
cord (it wiggled easily when I plugged it in) were diagnostic. This
assessment was at first glance, so I do not consider it to be the final
word, but I consider this to be gross circumstantial evidence
supporting the most likely cause. Thanks all for your time and
comments. Wish me luck for going cold turkey for a week. (All my
other computers are disabled or disposed of)

Regards,

Diana


dianadiehl@cox.net wrote: