Has anyone experienced this problem?

The battery was very low, possibly discharged, on starting up today.

Windows XP started up to the login message, and the message 'You should
change your battery or switch to outlet power...' appeared, even though the
mains was connected.

Instead of carrying on and logging in, I turned off the mains power at the
wall, and the laptop just died. Now it will not restart - the system
self-test splash doesn't appear, and there are a couple of attempts to
access the hard drive, but nothing else.

Ironically it appears the battery is now recharging, and it makes no
difference how the machine is restarted, ie with or without mains power, or
even with the battery out of the machine.

It seems to me the machine may be in some sort of 'locked' mode - have had a
look at the manual and the Toshiba web forums, but cannot find anything
relevant. I suppose the hard drive might have failed (hell of a
coincidence), but in that case I would have thought the boot message should
still appear - if I take out the DIMMS and start up, things are exactly the
same - no video whatsoever.

Any ideas at all would be very welcome - TIA!

Vaughan

"Vaughan Butler" <vaughan@verdon.plus.com> wrote in message
news:5badnU_sHdzBMZ7V4p2dnAA@plusnet...
> Has anyone experienced this problem?
>
> The battery was very low, possibly discharged, on starting up today.
>
> Windows XP started up to the login message, and the message 'You
> should
> change your battery or switch to outlet power...' appeared, even
> though the
> mains was connected.
>
> Instead of carrying on and logging in, I turned off the mains power at
> the
> wall, and the laptop just died. Now it will not restart - the system
> self-test splash doesn't appear, and there are a couple of attempts to
> access the hard drive, but nothing else.
>
Stop there and read through the above, the computer was asking you to
switch to 'outlet power', but you are assuming that because the mains
power is connected, the computer is therefore wrong, but what you have
not considered is that the mains adaptor could be faulty, and this would
then fit in with the symptoms you are now getting, so my first action
would be to try another mains adaptor.

Harry Stottle wrote:
> "Vaughan Butler" <vaughan@verdon.plus.com> wrote in message
> news:5badnU_sHdzBMZ7V4p2dnAA@plusnet...
>> Has anyone experienced this problem?
>>
>> The battery was very low, possibly discharged, on starting up today.
>>
>> Windows XP started up to the login message, and the message 'You
>> should
>> change your battery or switch to outlet power...' appeared, even
>> though the
>> mains was connected.
>>
>> Instead of carrying on and logging in, I turned off the mains power at
>> the
>> wall, and the laptop just died. Now it will not restart - the system
>> self-test splash doesn't appear, and there are a couple of attempts to
>> access the hard drive, but nothing else.
>>
> Stop there and read through the above, the computer was asking you to
> switch to 'outlet power', but you are assuming that because the mains
> power is connected, the computer is therefore wrong, but what you have
> not considered is that the mains adaptor could be faulty, and this would
> then fit in with the symptoms you are now getting, so my first action
> would be to try another mains adaptor.
>
>
Or just try replacing the fuse in the mains plug if there is one and/ or
plugging something else into that socket, & see if that works. It'd not
be the first time I've had a power socket or extension lead die on me
for no apparent reason.

Sounds very much like a dead power brick, though. Your battery has gone
totally flat, as it's not being charged for some reason.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.