Battery or Laptop

[TED BEDARD]

I have a laptop that's at least 10 yrs old. Toshiba 2595xdvd. I always used the power supply to run the computer. I decided to replace the battery and ordered one from Big Daddy Surplus. Big mistake. The battery looked like it came from the junk yard. Advertised as new. My question is how do I test the computer to see if it is charging the battery. There are 10 terminals on the computer and I don't know which terminals charge the battery. Some of the terminals have 5V. The battery is a 10.8 v.
Thank you for any help.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Isn't there an indicator to show it is charging the battery?

If you have the manual for it maybe there would be a clue in there where to look to find out. Or just let it go for an hour and try it.

[TED BEDARD]

I don't have a manual but I did notice the battery lite would flash for a while and then go out. I guess that means the battery was trying to charge but couldn't hold the charge. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the kick start.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Does the laptop work with the power supply? Can you return the battery?

Regarding 'no manual', Toshiba has excellent support online. Go to their site and download away! Manuals, drivers, software, there's lots to choose from. But I don't know if you will find a tech manual that will indicate what terminals charge the battery though but a possibility. I have seen tech manuals, some paper, some cd's, on eBay for some laptops. Worth a look, I suppose.

I see that your's is a 400mhz, came with 64megs RAM upgradeable to 192megs, bus speed is 66mhz, etc. I'm reading some of the pdf manual from Toshiba (http://www.toshibadirect.com/).

Try getting a battery through eBay. I found one for my Toshiba Tecra through one of their vendors, new. I have a dvd player ordered for it and a cigarrette lighter power supply for use on the road on the way as well.

[TED BEDARD]

I have to say you have been very helpful with the research and information you sent me. I appreciate that. Thank you.

[TED BEDARD]

I did return the battery and called them. They told me it must of been a mistake that I got a used one that didn't work and that I would receive a new or get a full refund. The computer does work with the power supply but every time I unplug it to move to another site I have to wait for the computer to run scandisk. I think I'm having trouble with my hard drive starting up. I get an error saying "can't find system files" I have to reboot several times. I'm a 67 year old musician playing at my clubhouse for dances and use the laptop for inputing midi files into my keyboard so if the computer glitches I have to wait for the computer to reboot and hope the drive starts. Can't aford a new laptop so I have to make do. Again thanks.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I assume when you unplug the laptop to relocate that you close Windows first and power down?

If Windows is resorting to ScanDisk, it thinks you didn't properly close and checks the disk for errors. I wonder if you may have some bad sectors on the harddrive. This sometimes causes ScanDisk to run everytime the computer is rebooted.

Also, it's a possibility that the CMOS battery is dead and settings are not being kept. If you could test it with a multitester, it should be very close to 3 volts. There may be a program or something in BIOS setup that can monitor the current voltage state of the coin cell battery.

Tools (http://www.harrysguitarshop.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/FEN-0136800380.jpg) of the trade (http://www.harrysguitarshop.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/ALV-AJ60SC.jpg) ;)

[Paul Komski]

Could you elaborate on "can't find system files"? A more exact message would be helpful and also which version of Windows is always nice to know.

Also, is this message at boot time a new phenomenon or has it been going on for some time? Until you get things fixed you can always cancel the scandisk at boot time by cancelling it when it starts up. You can always run it manually. You could also run a full surface scan from within windows and see if that detects any errors.

[TED BEDARD]

I believe that error message was caused by my hard drive motor not starting at boot. Sense I ran a full disk scan and defrag the laptop starts without errors. I'm still waiting for a new battery which I need because living in Florida we have a lot of power gliches and the laptop reboots to scandisk which I understand. I'm running 98SE

[PrntRhd]

I'm still waiting for a new battery which I need because living in Florida we have a lot of power gliches and the laptop reboots to scandisk which I understand. I'm running 98SE
Ted,
I would invest in a cheap UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply), they are down to $39-49 for little ones and will protect against Florida lightning strikes as well as keeping you powered up, and protects the hardware. APC is a good brand.
http://www.apcc.com/solutions/index.cfm?segmentID=1