Toshiba Satellite S50-A will not turn on

[dandiogenes]

Hello,

So about 2 months ago I woke up and tried to turn on my laptop and literally nothing happened except for the power button lighting up. I sent it in for repair about a month ago and thought the problem was fixed until about a week ago when it started to happen again. The unusual part about it is that after a day of it refusing to power on it starts working fine again. So I'm in this perpetual cycle of having a working laptop every other day of the week. I originally thought it may be a hardware issue but now I'm really not sure. Any help is appreciated, thank you.

 

[drtweak]

Try pulling battery and unplugging AC Adapter and then hold down power button for 1 minute

Then plug back in just the AC adapter and see if it turns on. If it does then its some kind of hardware issue that is going on and when all the power is drained from it, it gets reset in a way (Because having the battery in the motherboard still has small amounts of power to it).

 

[dandiogenes]

Try pulling battery and unplugging AC Adapter and then hold down power button for 1 minute

Then plug back in just the AC adapter and see if it turns on. If it does then its some kind of hardware issue that is going on and when all the power is drained from it, it gets reset in a way (Because having the battery in the motherboard still has small amounts of power to it).

The problem is that the laptop has an internal battery, and I don't have any tools to open it up. Is there any simple way to remove an internal battery? Learned my lesson to always buy a laptop with an external battery

 

[drtweak]

Your thinking of the CMOS battery. that only saves the setting sin the BIOS and the Time. It should have just a normal battery that can be removed from the bottom.

 

[dandiogenes]

Your thinking of the CMOS battery. that only saves the setting sin the BIOS and the Time. It should have just a normal battery that can be removed from the bottom.

No for this model the battery is connected to the motherboard and is secured by four screws. There is no attachable battery for the laptop at all. I suppose I should invest in a screwdriver even though that's inconvenient for a poor college student like me but I don't want to wait however many days it would take for a repair shop to fix it. Is there a possibility that it could be a software issue?

 

[drtweak]

No. The only Software reason that would cause this is a bad BIOS. Otherwise its purely hardware issue thats giong on.

And your kidding on the non removal battery party? WTF Toshiba. IDK. To me they have only gone down hill. They use to be a good brand but to me they just seem to have gone cheap.

Only thing i can think of is either take out the battery or try to keep turning it on if it at least stays on at all and have it drain the battery. Its that or take it back and have them fix it agian.

 

[dandiogenes]

No. The only Software reason that would cause this is a bad BIOS. Otherwise its purely hardware issue thats giong on.

And your kidding on the non removal battery party? WTF Toshiba. IDK. To me they have only gone down hill. They use to be a good brand but to me they just seem to have gone cheap.

Only thing i can think of is either take out the battery or try to keep turning it on if it at least stays on at all and have it drain the battery. Its that or take it back and have them fix it agian.

Would updating the BIOS possibly fix the problem?

 

[drtweak]

To update that you need to get it to startup to begin with and a lot of BIOS updates these days are done though windows. Some still have DOS BIOS upgrades. New motherboards are nice in a way you can update the BIOS though a thumb drive with only power. No CPU, Memory, nothing. but not sure about your laptop though.

 

[dandiogenes]

To update that you need to get it to startup to begin with and a lot of BIOS updates these days are done though windows. Some still have DOS BIOS upgrades. New motherboards are nice in a way you can update the BIOS though a thumb drive with only power. No CPU, Memory, nothing. but not sure about your laptop though.

Yeah like I said, the laptop boots up every other day so I can carry out a BIOS update, but is that a possible fix to the problem and are there any pieces of hardware I need to update the BIOS or is it just purely a software installation? And are there any negative repercussions that could happen?

 

[drtweak]

Well as long as the PC doesn't lose power during the BIOS update you will be fine. And to me it sounds like its some kind of hardware issue going on for sure. I don't think a BIOS update will really solve the issue. Sounds like after a few days the battery finally dies and it resets and then your able to use it again. Really had to diagnose it without having it in my lap lol

 

[dandiogenes]

Well as long as the PC doesn't lose power during the BIOS update you will be fine. And to me it sounds like its some kind of hardware issue going on for sure. I don't think a BIOS update will really solve the issue. Sounds like after a few days the battery finally dies and it resets and then your able to use it again. Really had to diagnose it without having it in my lap lol

Alright, thanks alot for all the help, I greatly appreciate it
EDIT: I found a possible loophole to this problem in where I just keep the laptop on 24/7 haha. Because if I ever turn it off it doesn't turn on for 2 days

 

[drtweak]

haha that is one way. Just make sure you set the power options to never go to sleep or hibernate. Doesn't quite fix the problem but it allows you to get around it.

 

[LindaR]

I have the same laptop and I had to call Toshiba. I was still under warranty. The directed me to a pin hole on the bottom of the laptop and had me place a paper clip in the hole for 10 seconds. They said it would "reset the battery". On a side note, it did seem like there might have been a tiny button that was pressed with the paper clip. Anyway it solved my problem.

 

[ambg4920]

Try pulling battery and unplugging AC Adapter and then hold down power button for 1 minute

Then plug back in just the AC adapter and see if it turns on. If it does then its some kind of hardware issue that is going on and when all the power is drained from it, it gets reset in a way (Because having the battery in the motherboard still has small amounts of power to it).

The problem is that the laptop has an internal battery, and I don't have any tools to open it up. Is there any simple way to remove an internal battery? Learned my lesson to always buy a laptop with an external battery

Turn your computer over. On the bottom near the top right you'll see a small hole that is unmarked. Stick a pin in the hole. That is your battery reset. It does the same thing as pulling the battery.