Laptop failure - any advice?

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lovelybug's laptop has now failed the same way mine did; I am posting this from a jury-rigged setup made from a broken laptop.

We bought two Toshiba R500-100 laptops (PPR50E-01401TEN) from dabs.com at the end of September 2007. On April 15th, mine did a weird thing - it turned the fans on full, then shut itself down. It would not turn on again; just blink the AC power light amber, in a repeating pattern: short long short short short long short long. So we were down to one laptop for a month; then on Saturday, inevitably, lovelybug's did the same thing.

We can't really afford to hand them to a repair place if we can possibly help it, but my Google-fu is failing to turn up any information on what this fault code means. From Dabs's returns web page, they'd rather we went straight to Toshiba, and Toshiba seem to want us to go via Dabs, so any advice on what my next step should be very gratefully received.

I think I'm suffering from some sort of computer curse.

Comments

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We bought two Toshiba R500-100 laptops (PPR50E-01401TEN) from dabs.com

Well, there's your first mistake ;-)

(I know other people have had problems with DABS return/repair policy before. Doesn't sound like they've changed.)

The manual is here which says on page 6-3:

http://support1.toshiba-tro.de/tedd-files2/0/userman-en-20070816120350.zip

DC IN indicator

Flashing orange: Indicates a problem with the power supply. You should initially try plugging the AC adaptor into another power outlet - if it still does not operate properly, you should contact your reseller or dealer.

Which isn't too helpful. (You've tried running it on AC alone, or battery alone, I assume? Got any access to a spare pre-charged battery?)

http://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/FAQ4500ME000DR01.htm

This says much the same thing. There is a whisper on the forums that overheating could also do it if the cooling system has come loose, but I wouldn't expect that to be so rapidly fatal.

any advice on what my next step should be very gratefully received

I'd try to find some web or email based contact for Toshiba EU and try and beat the error codes out of them. (I assume from the pattern that it's a single byte value 0x45 binary coded into the flashes. Manuals used to come with a section saying what these meant, despite the fact no one had a POST port analyser to find out the error code. Now that error codes are often displayed for all to see you can't find out what they mean. Bastards!)

If you're lucky it's a dead AC adaptor or battery. Somewhat unluckier is a dead laptop - either a fractured track coming from the power socket (repairable yourself with a blob of solder if you can find it), or a burned out component in the power system (new motherboard - probably a good excuse for a new machine altogether.) You could try widdling the cooling components too, just on the off change.

Longer term - not go with DABS.

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Some laptop power management hardware will refuse to function properly if the battery is dead, so it's quite possible that replacing the battery will fix the problem.

Might be worth trying to run the machine with no battery in it to see if that's the cause of the fault.