Toshiba Satellite T1950CT

[blackcrow]

I have a Toshiba Satellite T1950CT laptop that I picked up a couple days ago. It has no battery and I rigged a power transformer up to it. I turn it on and it stays on for a few seconds, the hard drive spins up, and then shuts off. The "DC in" LED which was solid before turning the laptop on now blinks with the pattern of long-short-short-long-pause and keeps repeating. The AC adapter did not come with the laptop, but it is the same voltage and current rating. The 18V stays constant throughout this process, and doesn't drop, so the laptop isn't overloading the AC adapter. I also measured some of the power supply outputs during the few seconds that it stays on. There is a 5V out, a 3.3V out for the memory, a 3.3V out for the CPU, and they all check good for the few seconds. The LCD never comes on, but the system does the same thing regardless of whether the LCD, hard drive, or floppy are connected. Does anybody know the Toshiba status LED code in detail enough to narrow down my search of what part of the power supply must be at fault?

[TM12]

What you describe is exactly the problem we've noted on over 75% of our Toshiba Tecra 8100s although we've never noted any distictive pattern to the LED. And, it seems to occur within one week of the factory warranty expiring. No joke. I think we have one that still works and one that takes forever to boot and then won't complete to the Desktop after logging on. We've also got one that refuses to work with ANY port replicator now. I agree with your assessment that it's the motherboard but, I can only suggest checking Toshiba's web site for info on the the LED, etc.

If you find the answer can you post back and let us know?