[KingofHarts]

So, my fiance is having issues with her laptop. It is a Toshiba Satelitte A665. She has had it for over 2 years now, and has had small issues with it on and off again, but now the problems are getting much worse. She cannot get WiFi service all of a sudden. The touch panel mouse doesn't work. Her top touch panel above her keyboard no longer functions correctly, and shows random lights lit up... When she starts up, she gets a black screen with white text, not unlike that of it asking you to run in Safe Mode, only this time its asking her something like which OS to run... or something. I wish I could be more descriptive but I'm not there with her. She has tried to restore her laptop to factory settings, twice, with no luck. I've told her to not do this again, as it is not helping her computer any. She also noted that when she has the battery in... its apparantly starting on its own... It's giving her all sorts of issues. From what she told me, even the power button isn't working. Nothing but the keyboard is working for her, for that matter. Again, I'm not there so I can't confirm what's up... but it's stressing her out... she's nowhere near proficient with hardware so without help, she's gonna ditch the bitch and buy a new one... which I'm REALLY not ok with...

Does anyone else have any similar experience with Toshiba products? Or any insight as to what could be an underlying issue? I'm thinking it could be a virus, but then wouldn't restoring to factory settings have fixed it? She has all this Chinese software like 360 app and stuff on it so thats not helping, I don't think. I've urged her to remove it, to no avail.... I think something she downloaded recently is causing the issue.

If you need more info I'll ask her.

This post has been edited by KingofHarts: 18 February 2013 - 05:50 AM

[TmEE]

Sounds like hardware failure. What is written on the screen with text that is not like windows asking for safe mode ?
Time for warranty if it still had it.

[KingofHarts]

TmEE, on 18 February 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

Sounds like hardware failure. What is written on the screen with text that is not like windows asking for safe mode ?
Time for warranty if it still had it.

I don't know exactly. She had me on video chat via phone for a short time and I couldn't see it very well. I think it said something like choosing which OS to run... though I don't know exactly, as I couldn't see it very well, and it disappeared soon after. I'll talk to her again tomorrow and ask her if it appears again.

Before she left, she was able to get it working fine with no problems, but this issue has been on again off again the past couple weeks... so I imagine it'll occur again soon enough.

As for warranty I don't think she still has it. Even if she does, not sure what we could do, considering she got it back in Colorado, while we are in China now...

If it's hardware failure, I'm guessing we are better off with a new laptop then?? If so, any recommendations? I think we will stay away from Toshiba in the future. I'm looking to return to the US in August, so we can get a new laptop then.

[Chilly Willy]

I'd use a linux LiveCD for testing... if you boot a LiveCD and the touchpad works (along with the other issues you think are hardware), then you know it's the OS, not the hardware. Of course, she probably doesn't have a LiveCD lying around.

[KingofHarts]

Nor do I even know what a LiveCD is. I could find out with a google search, sure... but I'd still have to wait until I return home to the US in August to get one anyhow...

Is it possible to get hold of a LiveCD iso instead, save the time and trouble? If so then I can just run it on her computer and give it a try.

I dunno anything about LiveCDs or how they work. Guess I'll do some homework tonight.

[Epsilonsama]

KingofHarts, on 19 February 2013 - 03:03 AM, said:

Nor do I even know what a LiveCD is. I could find out with a google search, sure... but I'd still have to wait until I return home to the US in August to get one anyhow...

Is it possible to get hold of a LiveCD iso instead, save the time and trouble? If so then I can just run it on her computer and give it a try.

I dunno anything about LiveCDs or how they work. Guess I'll do some homework tonight.

A Live CD is a CD or DVD media that loads an Operating System on the disk itself, from there you can either run the OS to check if the hardware works without issues to see if the problem is with the hardware itself.

[TmEE]

Get Hiren's Boot CD. It has a variation of XP on it aswell as some Linux plus a ton of diagnostic tools.