Can this Toshiba Satellite be saved?

Question

sk88rz 0 Newbie Poster

14 Years Ago

Hello Everyone..

I am working on a Toshiba Satellite P305D-S8834 that has no power at all.

The client decided to work on the laptop while there was a nasty storm in our area. He said he was just putting in the login password when it just went off - it apparently made a small sound.. like zoop.. ? .. and would not power on again.

The power cord that he has with his machine is a universal one, so it doesn't have a light on it to show if it's working or not.. so I ordered a replacement cord & adapter from Toshiba and it shows full power when plugged in. There is absolutely nothing from the laptop when plugged in. No lights or anything.

I plugged it in, without the battery in place, and there is nothing. Nada.

My next thought was that the battery is dead - but of course, I don't have a multimeter to check that, and it's a $90 part, so I want to find out if there's anything else that can be done, before going that route.

I searched this forum last night and found several options to try including removing and replacing the CMOS battery. I must admit that laptops are not my forte, so I'm not sure what the CMOS battery even looks like in a laptop (I'm a PC girl).

So here I am now..

I have an opened laptop. I checked the site where the power cord plugs in and everything looks fine. There are no singes or otherwise burnt looking items in there. It does have a smoky smell, but the client is a smoker so I'm not sure if that's a cigarette smell or a burnt by lightning smell.

Nothing looks out of the ordinary. I removed the RAM sticks. It does have a wireless card connected, so I'm unsure if the CMOS battery is under that??

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So my main questions are:

1. If everything appears to be dead.. new power cord not working, how can you tell if it's the battery itself if there's no multimeter around to test it and is there anything inside the computer itself that could be a tell-tale sign?