Techra 8000 will not power on

[jhines2]

My wife has a Toshiba Techra 8000 that up until yesterday has performed like a champ. She powered it off yesterday morning to do some cleaning elsewhere in the house and later wanted to check her email, but it would not power on. I checked it out last evening and indeed, there is absolutely no response when you try to power on. When you plug in the AC adapter, the power-LED on the adapter glows steady green if you do NOT plug it into the laptop. The moment you plug the adapter into the laptop, the power adapter power-LED blinks green on-and-off-and-on-and-off, etc. Specifically, it blinks on, then fades off and then immediately back on, and repeats that for as long as the adapter is plugged into the wall outlet and the laptop. The moment you unplug the adapter from the laptop, the AC adapter's power-LED immediately glows steady green again (no blinking). This is 100% repeatable and I don't see a pattern, such as if a code is being displayed. It is just an on-and-off-and-on-and-off blinking "pattern." I tried removing and re-inserting the battery many times, unplugging/re-plugging adapter in the wall, trying to power up on just battery, and even removed everything connected to the unit such as her printer cable, wireless card, and the wireless-mouse transceiver. I also tried holding in the power button for extended periods of time. No matter what you do, the laptop has no response of any kind...no lights on its panel or anything. Meantime, the power-LED on the power adapter continues to blink green on-and-off constantly. This laptop has worked perfectly and we've never had any problems with it of any kind. The only thing that happened was my wife powered it off yesterday morning and it's been dead ever since. Ideas?

 

[gavinseabrook]

Could be a problem with the Power adapter. Sounds like it might have a short of some kind.

 

[raybay]

First, trace the cable on the power adapter... to the wall and to the computer... feel for lumps and strange places where the wiring could be torn or crimped. Does the power adapter feel about as warm as normal? Do you know anyone else who has one so you can test another adapter in your unit.
A power adapter for the Toshiba Techra 8000 sells on eBay for $19.94 to $39.00. Try to avoid buying any except a Toshiba OEM adapter... the Chinese "made for Toshiba Techra" are highly unreliable.

What is the age of the Techra?
First I would remove and reseat the memory modules, and the hard drive, as well as the cmos battery. If you know how to remove the keyboard, remove and reseat the keyboard cable.
Usually the signs and symptoms in that model lead to a failed hard drive... so have another handy to test... If you know how to access the inside case, get a can of Dust Off or other difluorethane gas to clean out the cooling vents and cpu fand and heat sink.
I am betting on the hard drive as the cause of failure. L:uckily hard drives are very low priced now at several online sites such as Directron, ZipzoomFly, Outpost, and so on.
Please let us know what you figger out.

 

[Tedster]

https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic55208.html

 

[jhines2]

Thanks for the info! One of our IT guys here has a spare power supply (Sprint and Embarq use Toshiba notebooks as the company standard, so plenty of spare parts laying around) and might have a hard drive I can try. I'll give them a whirl and let you know what happens.

Thanks!

 

[jhines2]

Well, I tried one of the two power adapters one of our IT guys gave me to try and...PRESTO! The problem was the power supply. The laptop came right to life and works like a champ again. Thank goodness that's all it was! Thanks everyone and especially raybay for the tip on checking the power supply itself.

 

[raybay]

Thank you for taking the time to let us know the real problem. Too often, we never know.
Good luck to you.