Computer Hope

Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: familygeek on September 30, 2010, 02:31:45 AM

Title: Toshiba Satellite laptop
Post by: familygeek on September 30, 2010, 02:31:45 AM
I have this laptop that when you turn it on it will power up for about 2 seconds and then will automatically turn off.  It then restarts and will go on and off.  I needed to get a new battery for it which has been installed.  I was told that I need to sync the new battery to the laptop.  Any help would be appreciated.
Title: Re: Toshiba Satellite laptop
Post by: quaxo on September 30, 2010, 04:14:47 AM
How far along the booting process does it get before it restarts? What's the last thing you see?

Remove the battery and try booting with just the adapter only. Will it boot normally?
Title: Re: Toshiba Satellite laptop
Post by: familygeek on September 30, 2010, 02:01:24 PM
It does not get to the point that I can see anything.  It does the same thing with or without the battery.
Title: Re: Toshiba Satellite laptop
Post by: Allan on September 30, 2010, 02:03:51 PM
1) I never heard of syncing a battery.
2) If it does the same thing with or without the power supply, the problem has nothing to do with the battery.
3) It certainly sounds like a hw problem - could be ram. I suggest you download, burn and run memtest to check your ram: http://www.memtest.org/
Title: Re: Toshiba Satellite laptop
Post by: BC_Programmer on September 30, 2010, 07:42:24 PM
I was told that I need to sync the new battery to the laptop.

1) I never heard of syncing a battery.

It's ancient, and was never called "syncing" to my understanding. With older batteries the architecture was different, and it was possible for the computer to think the charge left was different then what the battery had. (I believe it operated on a scale where the battery said how much was being used but never actually reported the charge remaining, so the computer had to estimate based on a value that it thought the battery was at). This happens with an old laptop if you leave it for a while- the battery continues to drain and when you use it again a few weeks later the computer still thinks the charge is the same as when you shut it off. The method for remedying this was to completely discharge the battery, and then recharge from 0% (some battery applets even provided this function).

However, this has not been an issue for laptop batteries since the early 90's.