Today I got Toshiba Satellite A105-S2712 for repair with the battery charging problem. It is a new model and we do not have a lot of experience with these laptops. The customer complained that the laptop will not charge the battery when it is plugged into the AC outlet.
The laptop failure symptoms:
The laptop will not turn on when I try to start it from the battery. When the laptop is turned off and plugged into the AC outlet the battery charge LED doesn’t light up. I know that the battery is not charged and the LED should light up when I plug the laptop into the AC outlet. The laptop starts fine when it is plugged. When I move the mouse over the Toshiba Power Icon in the lower right corner, the balloon will pop up and there is a line in there: Battery Remaining: N/A.
The problem repair procedure:
You can easily fix the problem just by updating the BIOS. Toshiba says that the BIOS version should be at least v1.30. So, go to Toshiba website and click on Downloads. Select your laptop model and find any downloads for the BIOS. In the BIOS change history you will see the description of changes.
After I updated the BIOS, the battery charging problem disappeared.
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July 21st, 2007 at 8:25 pm
My boyfriend took my ac adapter to be measured by a voltmeter. UNFORTUNATLY he can’t remember what the measure was but he did say that at 1st the voltmeter didn’t read any charge on it but then all of a sudden there was a spark & the reading went up. Is it fair to say that my AC adapter isn’t working? Or is that sort of behavior normal?
Additional Info:
- When I plug my ac adapter it only charges 1/5 of the time.
- On extreamly rare occasions, my lap top runs on the ac power alone.
- Other times the lap top wont turn on or charge, and the lights just flicker blue. (I’m not sure what the flickering means).
- Once in a while the lap top will be off & the lights indicate it’s charging but when I leave it alone for an hour & try to turn it on it doesn’t.
- If by any chance I manage to turn it on at all its more than likely that it’ll shut off automatically on me.
- I find that if I move the lap top around a little or apply more pressue/force when I plug in the ac adapter , I can get the lights to stop flickering blue & begin to indicate that it’s being charge
what a headache!! =( Any ideas or answers as to what is going on? & what I should do to get my lap top working again?!
July 21st, 2007 at 4:02 am
Hey, I’ve had the same problem with my Toshiba Satellite M30. I’ve tride updating the BIOS like you recommended, but to do this, I need to have sufficient battery which, by definition, is not the case!! Can you help? How can I update my Bios if my battery does not charge?
Thank you
July 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Ryan,
If I understood right, there are no LED lights at all, but the laptop is making a clicking sound when you plug the AC adapter (even though there are no LED lights), right?
I don’t think this is a problem with the harddrive disk. When you have a faulty harddrive disk, you still should get LED lights when you plug the adapter.
Try this. Remove all extra devices you can access from the bottom – battery, DVD drive, harddrive disk, memory cards and plug in the AC adapter. If you still have no LED lights and the laptop is still making the same clicking sound, probably you have a bad motherboard.
Here’s one more thing to try. Find a voltmeter and test the AC adapter. Make sure it outputs correct voltage. I think it’s possible that you have a bad AC adapter and it doesn’t provide enough power to start up the laptop. This is just a guess.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Great Site,
I have an A105-S2716 that has been working flawlessly for the past year and 1/2. I was working on it last night, left it alone for a couple of hours and when I came back the screen was black, it was shut down and no LEDs. Now it will not boot up, still no LEDs, but when the AC adapter is plugged in I can hear a very faint clicking sound that is coming from the general area where the fan is located on the bottom. It will not do anything when the power button is pushed. I tried vacuuming it out with no change. Does this sound like motherboard or hard drive failure? Or maybe something else.
Thanks For your help.
July 11th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Exellent!! the bios was the problem, I just install the new bios software and work grate, now the battery works, thanks!!!
June 12th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Sigh….
Can anybody recommend a good do-it-yourself kit (like does radio shack sell the kit so I can make my own crappy computer?)
April 29th, 2007 at 10:57 am
apurwanto,
If I understand correctly, your laptop runs fine from the AC outlet when the battery is removed. It also runs from the AC outlet when the battery is installed but the battery will not charge. Is it right?
I think you might have a bad battery. If a new battery will not resolve the issue and you still cannot charge it, there could be something wrong with the motherboard.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:20 am
I’m having problem with my laptop accer. my laptop can’t charge battrey.when i use battrey and plugged to AC outlet, laptop still can run but it take electric from batrey and battrey not charge. meanwhile if i’m unplug the battrey so direct from adaptor AC outlet without battrey my laptop can run properly. I don’t know with my laptop.
Can you suggest to me what should I do with it.
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Scott,
I would make sure the laptop runs the latest BIOS version. Upgrade the BIOS if needed, it might help to resolve the issue without sending the laptop to Toshiba. If the problem is still there even after upgrading the BIOS and your laptop is still under warranty, then I would suggest sending it to Toshiba. Make sure to make a good note about the problem you are experiencing and include it with the laptop.
April 19th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
I’m having the same problem as Carol with my M105, I think. One additional complication that I have is that sometimes when the power cord is unplugged or “unplugged” from the computer, the computer doesn’t register that. So even though it’s getting no juice, it doesn’t use any power saving techniques and just runs through the battery really fast. I would think that you were right with replacing the socket (since jostling the cord around seems to make it charge), but that doesn’t explain this other problem, which started at the exact same time. Should I just send it back to Toshiba, you think?
Thanks for the help.