Toshiba Laptop Battery Nightmare
I have had my new baby Toshiba M35X-S349 for a bit over two months. I loved the size, the bright screen, and light weight. But I am fed up with its battery problems.At the beginning for a week or so, it was all great. Then there was one day that I had to use it for 8 hours or more for work with AC adaptor plugged in. It got hot of course, but it shut down by itself all at a sudden--battery was out.
What dah? I had the AC adapter plugged in! The AC light was green, meaning yes the AC adapter was hooked up alright and there was current going in the laptop. It was then that I discovered that the laptop was running from battery at the end of that day even though it was plugged into to AC power.
It was weird. But I would assume that with the AC power intact, it should at least attempt to charge the battery if it was running off from it. But alright alright, it might be because the laptop got too hot after long hour of usage. I could understand...
Second time, I got shocked to find out that the battery was running low again with AC in. I unplugged the power and plugged it back in. Yeah? It started charging again. How strange...
Some time later it happened again. I found out that there must be some problems with the battery or power supply or the connector. The battery would charge alright for a while, then the status would change to Online, Discharging all at a sudden. Most of the time it would go back to Online, Charging if I re-plugged in the power. However, this was not the way I would like to behave for a $1500 laptop.
I looked up online for possible solutions. I could not find anything from Toshiba's website about this. Only a few forums had posts with similar problem, yet, no replies.
The problem got worse after a month. More than 50% of the time unplugging could not do the trick any more. What's worse was that the battery light started to disappear whenever I turned on the computer. It would turn amber when the laptop was off, yet automatically turned off when it was powered on. Although the battery light was amber, it was not charging at all.
I finally found one, only ONE, post, somewhere, that some nice folks were all having the same problem as I did. I was relieved a bit, knowing that I was not only imagining it for it was nearly driving me nuts at that time.
It appeared that this problem was not known to Toshiba technical support people, although it was common among many people. There could be a fix, but at that time, none of the tech people were helpful.
Now my baby got so "ill" that 95% of the time it would not charge at all no matter what I do. I did the BIOS-battery reset cycle. I secured the battery. I unplugged and plugged power. The battery light just wouldn't go on at all!!
Frustration kicked in... I wanted to cry.. :'S Why on earth did I choose Toshiba? Even the ill-famed Sony had less problems than this.
It was a nightmare. And it's continuing...
Somebody.. Help me..
posted by Sandy @ 2/26/2005 03:02:00 PM
5 Comments:
I have the same problem as you, with a toshiba 35X-S149 laptop. They've(toshiba) changed the case and A/C adaptor. Still has the same problem. Mine also crashes completely (black window) without the battery and now will not boot without the battery. My charger gets extremely hot as well as the connection at the case. Mine gives the "online discharging" message on the battery checking software. Its hard to use a computer when you have no power source; you can quote me on that. My laptop was made in China.
Just want to add an update on my laptop battery/charger problem. I finally called Toshiba tech support again. This time the support guy just told me to ship it back, no more testing/questions. I sent it through UPS and got it back about a week later. Charging problem was fixed! They opened up my laptop and did something (I don't know what exactly). All I can tell is that the AC adaptor is changed (doesn't get so hot now) and they changed/fixed the port that the AC adaptor connected to (it's very tight right now). What else was changed? I couldn't tell from the little sheet that was sent back with my laptop.
All seems to be working great now. Except two new annoyance after the repair:
1) sometimes the computer makes a high pitch noise when it's plugged into power. It's not loud, but I have very sensitive hearing. So it drives me nuts when the envirnoment is quiet.
2) RAM compartment gets really hot now. The battery is okay, so is the HDD. I am a bit afraid that it might melt the plastic case outside some day..
I just wanna say, I have the same laptop and the same exact thing is happening to mine. Now that I've read your entry I know its definately not just my laptop and I'm gonna call Toshiba and see what I can do to fix this thing!!!!
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My a/c adapter doesn't get connection when I plug it into my laptop. I shipped my laptop to Toshiba, and they fixed it in July 2005. When I got it back then, I could tell they did something to the a/c adapter port, as it was a tight connection. Now in May of 2006, I'm having the same problem. Luckily I have an extended warrany, but I have to ship it off again. What a major inconvenience, considering that I work on my laptop all the time, and I don't have a pc at home.
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