Toshiba Laptop Numerous Porblems !

[Gabzee]

Hello,
Nice meeting you all out there here ! Great are the cool in heart hardworkers who can really help.
I do work on my manager's laptop for one yr passed now successfully,but this yr it has began gving problems which need patience until they are solved.Sometime back it gave me a hard time to install vision with excel which our accountants use with sun accounts but after some months it worked.Just after it started to restart itself or shut down by itself whiles it appeared as if the battery is low.It has both windows power mang,t and toshiba power mang't in the control panel .The windows' one had been set to "turn off harddisk after 25mins" but when i'm going in to change it'll disable and ask me to use toshiba's.After sometimes going in the setup which had no problem and fiddling with toshiba's power sys.it stopped. But now the weird problem is that anytime it's started,b4 it loads to windows it beeps at anyone infront of it until you press ctrl +alt (which i detected) and uptill now that's the way out 4 me ;i don't pls if can anybdy tell why and help.
Also ,another problem is that the touch pad sometimes works, sometime it doesnt( today it worked, but yesterday it didnt ),so i had to supplement it with a USB mouse.
Just yesterday somethng strange that i'm suggesting might be a virus,OS ,CMOS ,memory ,or BIOS Problem started happening ;when it boots to desktop,one specific icon down the left corner highlights and any icon else on the desktop that is opened rather opens the icon highlighted.I tried to delete the highlighted icon but a new one is being highlighted and the same thing keeps going on ,so you cant even open my computer;i bet you !!!
Also when i go in my computer's properties it opens alright but doesnt allow you to leave the general tab.
One more thing;-when you type in any application,it takes time sometimes (about 30secs) b4 they start appearing .
Pls,i hope somebdy out there can help.

These are some specs of the Laptop :-------

----Uses WinXP Pro (5.1,build 2600),ver.2002 with service pack 2-------
----System model is Satellite A75 -------
----BIOS is Phoenix BIOS 4.0 release 6.1-------
----Processor is Mobile Intel (R) PENTIUM(R) 4 CPU 2.80 GHz(2 CPUs)---
----Memory is 446MB --------
----HDD Size is 55.8Gb -------

Pls , help me revive my flavour ! I will be very garteful.God Bless the wizards or witchards!

Regards,
Gabzee.

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers Gabzee.

I'm afraid you post is quite difficult to understand, so I am going to try and state the problems you have one at a time in a list below. Can you please check what I have written and let me know if I have correctly understood you?

Hello,
Nice meeting you all out there here ! Great are the cool in heart hardworkers who can really help.

I don't think you meant flames - well not if you want people to help

I do work on my manager's laptop for one yr passed now successfully,but this yr it has began gving problems which need patience until they are solved.

your manager's laptop has been ok for the last year but now you have problems with it.

Sometime back it gave me a hard time to install vision with excel which our accountants use with sun accounts but after some months it worked.

The first problem you noticed as when trying to install vision with excel; but you have since managed to get it working.

Just after it started to restart itself or shut down by itself whiles it appeared as if the battery is low.It has both windows power mang,t and toshiba power mang't in the control panel .The windows' one had been set to "turn off harddisk after 25mins" but when i'm going in to change it'll disable and ask me to use toshiba's.

Recently the laptop has begun to restart or powerdown by itself. This happens when the battery is low.
Both windows power management and Toshiba power management are installed. The windows power management turns off hard disks after 25 minutes. You propose to disable windows power management and just allow the Toshiba power management to function.

After sometimes going in the setup which had no problem and fiddling with toshiba's power sys.it stopped.

Can you please clarify what stopped?
The machine powered down?
Setup cannot be accessed?
Power management by windows has been disabled?
Toshiba power management has been disabled?
Something else?

But now the weird problem is that anytime it's started,b4 it loads to windows it beeps at anyone infront of it until you press ctrl +alt (which i detected) and uptill now that's the way out 4 me ;i don't pls if can anybdy tell why and help.

When some one is in front of the machine, it beeps on start up... if no one is there, does it still beep?
Ctrl+Alt is usually accompanied by a 3rd key press... like Del or F2 - can you confirm that there are 3 keys to press?
It may possibly be that the cmos battery has run out and that the setup setttings are not being saved, or that one of the setup settings is incorrect and needs resetting.

Also ,another problem is that the touch pad sometimes works, sometime it doesnt( today it worked, but yesterday it didnt ),so i had to supplement it with a USB mouse.

You have plugged in usb mouse so that if the touch pad doesn't work for some reason, you have a mouse you can use.
Touch pads require drivers... have you been to toshiba to get the latest version?

Just yesterday somethng strange that i'm suggesting might be a virus,OS ,CMOS ,memory ,or BIOS Problem started happening ;

Are you thinking that a virus may have corrupted the OS, the CMOS, the memory and the BIOS? Or are you thinking that one of those is the main fault and is causing all the other problems?

when it boots to desktop,one specific icon down the left corner highlights and any icon else on the desktop that is opened rather opens the icon highlighted.

So icons automatically open with out being highlighted? This might be the touchpad problem.

I tried to delete the highlighted icon but a new one is being highlighted and the same thing keeps going on ,so you cant even open my computer;i bet you !!!

Dirty touchpads can have odd effects. Is the touch pad clean?

Also when i go in my computer's properties it opens alright but doesnt allow you to leave the general tab.

Have you tried navigating using the keyboard? The tab key should move the highlight around and then you can press enter to select the highlighted item.

One more thing;-when you type in any application,it takes time sometimes (about 30secs) b4 they start appearing .
Pls,i hope somebdy out there can help.

The laptop is slow to show the desktop? OR
When you double click an icon to start an application, it can take 30 seconds before the application launches?

These are some specs of the Laptop :-------

----Uses WinXP Pro (5.1,build 2600),ver.2002 with service pack 2-------
----System model is Satellite A75 -------
----BIOS is Phoenix BIOS 4.0 release 6.1-------
----Processor is Mobile Intel (R) PENTIUM(R) 4 CPU 2.80 GHz(2 CPUs)---
----Memory is 446MB --------
----HDD Size is 55.8Gb -------

Pls , help me revive my flavour ! I will be very garteful.God Bless the wizards or witchards!

How much free space is on the hard drive?
What antivirus is used?
When was the drive last defragged?
What's a witchard?

I think overall, you probably have virus/spyware on the machine, the touchpad is dirty or broken and the hard drive needs some free space.

[CCT]

For myself I am not a Wizard or a Witch BUT I can curse pretty well.

lol

Anyway Gabzee, I suggest you copy anything critical off that computer and then do a complete reformat (not the quick one) and re-install XP.

Do a thorough viurus scan of any files being copied off it also - it is preferable to copy to dvd/cd.


gl

[Gabzee]

Hello NooNoo,

Welcome to Windrivers Gabzee.

I'm afraid you post is quite difficult to understand, so I am going to try and state the problems you have one at a time in a list below. Can you please check what I have written and let me know if I have correctly understood you?

------> Thank you for trying to help . .

I don't think you meant flames - well not if you want people to help

------> OK ,no flames

your manager's laptop has been ok for the last year but now you have problems with it.

------>I mean i have been solving technical problems on it for the past 0ne year,but these new problems are so wierd !

The first problem you noticed as when trying to install vision with excel; but you have since managed to get it working.:

-----> YES ,I've successfully installed vision !

Recently the laptop has begun to restart or powerdown by itself. This happens when the battery is low.
Both windows power management and Toshiba power management are installed. The windows power management turns off hard disks after 25 minutes. You propose to disable windows power management and just allow the Toshiba power management to function.

-----> the restart or powerdown occurs when the battery has even been full charged, but the laptop behaves as if it has low battery by the battery amber light(not ac light) blinking .
-----> Yes ,Both windows power management and Toshiba power management are installed from manufacturer i.e toshiba and they are all in the control panel.
-----> No,windows power management doesnt turn off hard disks after 25 minutes. I mean in the control panel ,if you open "power options ",the power option properties window appears and you'll see the "power schemes ", under it if you look at "Turn off hard disk " the settings there is "after 25mins", which shdnt be so( it shd hv been "Never ").
----->No, I dont propose to disable windows power management and just allow the Toshiba power management to function.
Rather if i open windows "power options" in control panel to change it to "Never ",the whole of windows "power options properties" window in control panel gets disabled automatically and windows(or the laptop ) rather asks me to use "toshiba power management" also in control panel, but that one doesnt disable itself.

Can you please clarify what stopped?
-----> the restart or powerdown problem stopped and hv not happened again for about 3months now.

The machine powered down?
-----> Sometimes,it powered down.

Setup cannot be accessed?
-----> i can access setup.

Power management by windows has been disabled?
----->It does disable automatically whenever i try to change its settings in control panel; i mean even now !

Toshiba power management has been disabled?
Something else?
----->No ,it hasnt been disabled and it never disables:even now !

When some one is in front of the machine,
----->This is just a statement;ignore it

it beeps on start up...
----->Yes , loud ,all the time ;even now.

if no one is there, does it still beep?
----->This is just a statement;ignore it

Ctrl+Alt is usually accompanied by a 3rd key press... like Del or F2 - can you confirm that there are 3 keys to press?
----->Ok, also Ctrl+Alt +Del stops the beep.

It may possibly be that the cmos battery has run out and that the setup setttings are not being saved, or that one of the setup settings is incorrect and needs resetting.
-----> so ,do i need to change the cmos battery ?can you tell the incorect setting ?

You have plugged in usb mouse so that if the touch pad doesn't work for some reason, you have a mouse you can use.
-----> I have the usb mouse so if the touchpad doesnt work,i plug in the usb mouse and it works.

Touch pads require drivers... have you been to toshiba to get the latest version?
-----> Pls, can you give me a link to a site where i can get the latest usb driver?

Are you thinking that a virus may have corrupted the OS, the CMOS, the memory and the BIOS? Or are you thinking that one of those is the main fault and is causing all the other problems?
------>i'm thinking a virus is causing the desktop icon and slow typing problems.

So icons automatically open with out being highlighted? This might be the touchpad problem.
-----> No .
Dirty touchpads can have odd effects. Is the touch pad clean?
----->Yes , it is clean,but what can i use to clean it very well ?

Have you tried navigating using the keyboard? The tab key should move the highlight around and then you can press enter to select the highlighted item.
-----> i tried using the rigth,left,top &down arrows in a list box to select an option and it'll not select at all or rather selects a different option and you see the mouse flick ;in fact i do find it difficult to select. sometimes ,it gives the chance to highlight a different icon with the mouse but when i press enter it still opens the highlighted icon.


The laptop is slow to show the desktop?
----->No.Yesterday,my co-worker who is a marketing officer said it's faster .
OR
When you double click an icon to start an application, it can take 30 seconds before the application launches?
-----> Yes , it does.

How much free space is on the hard drive?
-----> 23.8GB Free space

What antivirus is used?
----->I used Symantec 2005 , but as the problems came up i used karspesky to scan and uninstalled it after ,but no virus was detected,i also used Lavasoft Ad-aware SE Personel to scan and caught about 30 viruses/spys.I used spybot-search&destroy but no spywares were caught.

When was the drive last defragged?
------> On Tuesday 21st march 2006.

What's a witchard?
-----> just trying to make alittle fun.

I think overall, you probably have virus/spyware on the machine, the touchpad is dirty or broken and the hard drive needs some free space.

Do you think i shd format and do re-installation ?which site do you think i can get ALL the LATEST DRIVERS ??
OR Flash anything in it ? if any, what ?

Whatever you need to help for degree can be asked of me !!

Thanks a lot .

[NooNoo]

Hello NooNoo,



Do you think i shd format and do re-installation ?which site do you think i can get ALL the LATEST DRIVERS ??
OR Flash anything in it ? if any, what ?

Whatever you need to help for degree can be asked of me !!

Thanks a lot .

OK so I can assume you have never been to the Toshiba support and read the article here

You can select the exact model here to get your drivers.

Flash and Shockwave you can download from www.macromedia.com

When you have a machine displaying all these symptoms and there is little time to troubleshoot - I would start with a clean OS.

As for the ctrl alt del to get out of the beep... it could be that you have intermittently faulty hardware and you should read the user guide to ascertain what the settings should be. The manual is available with the drivers.

[Gabzee]

Hello NooNoo,

Thanx More !!!
Was on the projects research :-



Pls, just elaborate on the above 4 me alittle ;the clarity is faint to me.

I've been to the toshiba website ,but 2 heads better than one , so may you might hv some new things .

I'll try to do all you've said to me.

Chaow !!!

[Gabzee]

Hi CCT,

For myself I am not a Wizard or a Witch BUT I can curse pretty well.
gl

LO-L-L-L-L-L ,a little fun .

But Thanx.
Will try maybe on my 70GB external HDD.

[NooNoo]

Hello NooNoo,

Thanx More !!!
Was on the projects research :-



Pls, just elaborate on the above 4 me alittle ;the clarity is faint to me.

There is a better evaluation page here will up date my signature... thanks for helping

Hope you find what you need at Toshiba