I have a Toshiba Satelitte L300 Laptop, the DC in power plug was loose so Pulled it apart and refixed the adapter, it ran OK for a while.

Prior to fixing the plug, there were many times when switched on the fan would start, power light would turn green and orange at the same time, run for about 3 seconds then shut down.
It would not start again until DC power plug removed and battery taken out, then all put back in again, the same would happen again, this could go on until finally giving up.
Other times happen once or twice then run without a problem.
If all is well only the green power light should illuminate.

Other times fan would start, power light would turn green run for 3 seconds, fan stop switched off, then immediately start again then ran with no problems.

Now when power switch pressed, orange and green led's come on, runs for 3 seconds then switches off, you can not try to start it again until DC power plug removed and battery taken out, when all put back in again the same thing keeps happening.

With battery in, then plug in DC, the DC and Battery lights come on at the same time.
With Battery removed, plug in DC, the DC light can take from 3 to 15 seconds to come on.



With Battery in and DC plugged in, try to start runs 3 seconds and stops , both DC and Battery lights remain on.
Do the same again and remove DC supply only, both DC and Battery lights remain on.
Do the same again and Battery only, both DC and Battery lights remain on.
Remove Battery and unplug DC, wait around 30 seconds, plug DC in again, it takes around 3 to 15 seconds for the DC light to come on.

I have changed memory, hard drive, checked all connections to the motherboard used another Power Supply, but could not find a problem.

Would appreciate any advise.
kevsim

vger,
Thank you for the reply.
Previously the DC in port had broken away from the case, this was reattached using Araldite back to the case and voltage checked at the motherboard plug.
I am having the problem with the DC port unplugged and running on battery or DC port plugged in and battery removed.
I am still open to any suggestions.
kevsim

I had a similar problem with a desktop PC, it would start up and run for about 6 seconds and then just go dead - and I remember trying to figure out what the different colored lights meant like you are doing now - turns out the heatsink was not connected to the cpu firmly, it was loose but ya couldnt tell from a quick glance, it was like it was running with no heatsink at all and a cpu can heat up to point of tripping the sensor that shuts it down very fast, in my case, about 6 seconds. When I snapped the heatsink into place correctly, it ran perfect. In your case, it might be the sensor thats loose and causing it to shut down durring startup.

May not be the case, but I thought I would throw it out there.

bum4evr,
Thank you for the info, I will double check the heat sink.
As for the lights, from memory the Orange power light comes on when the computer is in Hibernate mode, can not work out why it comes on with the green light at startup.
kevsim