Satellite Pro 6100 = no boot

[tworak]

Hi all,
Im having troubles with my 6100 was working fine, shut it down tried to restart it when i press the power button it just starts flashing yellow......
if i dont use the power outlet, and just battery it does the same thing..... if i plug the AC power in then the battery both the AC light and the battery go green as soon as i hit that power button both go out and AC just starts flashing yellow.... i bought the laptop of a friend and there was no waranty etc :-( anyone any ideas???

thanks

[query]

Try reseating the memory module(s), and any mini-PCI cards.  Clean the battery contacts.

If you have another power supply, try it - otherwise, it's time for a trip to a Toshiba repair depot.

[golsen]

I believe this is a known issue with this model (I have one too, and was speaking to a reseller's service centre about it today).

Apparently the problem is caused by the video card coming loose (which causes video failure in the first instance). The loose card can also dislodge or interfere with other components, including the motherboard (I think). Failure to boot and the flashing orange light you report is a typical symptom, but other unusual behaviour can also be caused by this problem (crashes etc).

The problem is most common in machines that are moved around a lot, and least common in the sedentary ones that spend most of their time parked on desk tops.

In Australia, Toshiba is repairing affected machines, modifying them to hold the video card more firmly in its place. There is probably a similar arrangement in other countries.

It sounds like you should contact a Toshiba service centre for advice. If this is the cause of your problem, they should be able to fix it for you.

Anyone else had experience of this?

[gertw]

Thank you - this was really useful! My girlfriend encountered the same problem when she took her SP6100 to Taiwan, where the people at the Toshiba service center said they would have to order expensive parts from Europe and believed it was a major fault. Reading about golsen's tip with the video card I told her this and she went back to Toshiba - voila! It was the loose video card, they fixed it for free, no exchange of motherboard or CPU or RAM necessary.