New Laptop, plugged in, discharging? m30x

I just got my M30x also and I have noticed the same problem.

I'm curious, try lightly fooling around with the power cable where it plugs into your laptop. I found that mine is pretty flimsy and depending on what position it is in, the laptop will either show AC power in (discharging) or (charging).

While it is good to hear that someone else has this problem (so it is probably a design flaw), this is not a good sign, I only hope that the soldering holds up in the long run.

Other than that, it runs fast as heck. Quicker than my souped up tower! Wireless is great, far reach, screen is wonderful. Overall I can't really complain, this problem just makes me a bit nervous...

Found this statement in the specs for the m30x on the Toshiba site:

Battery life may vary depending on applications, power management settings and features utilised. Recharge time varies depending on usage. Battery may not charge while computer is consuming full power. After a period of time, the battery will lose its ability to perform at maximum capacity and will need to be replaced. This is normal for all batteries. To purchase a new battery pack, see your accessories information that shipped with your computer or visit the Toshiba website at http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com.

I just purchased an M35X to replace an A75 I bought a month ago that had the infamous static electricity problem. The M35X was running very well until it began turning off very abruptly. I realized that the battery was discharging to the point of not being able to operate the machine.

Here's the weird thing: the green AC light on the front turns on when the AC adapter is plugged in. However, I have to wiggle the plug just right for it to illuminate the battery light at all. Where I'm confused is why the machine would recognize that the AC adapter is plugged in (by the green AC adapter light illuminating and saying so in the power management window), but that the power is not flowing the the battery at all.

This has been a debilitating problem for me. I will be working on something and all of the sudden the computer will flip off without warning (because it is running off of battery power and not the plugged-in AC adapter).

What course of action should I pursue? Obviously each of us is not alone in experiencing this problem. Any specific diagnosis of the problem and suggested solution would be hugely appreciated. I am a college student and, like most of you I'm sure, my entire life is on this computer. Besides that, I can't afford the lost time of sending my computer to the horrendous Toshiba Laptop Depot.

I would like to contact them as a group, they have to be aware of this problem by now. Maybe they have a fix for it. I am in the same boat as you, I purchased this laptop just a month ago because laptops are required at my college. This whole flimsy power supply crap is not gonna do well for me, but I would rather not ditch my laptop as I love everything else about it :-/

I'm going to call Toshiba on Monday and see what they think of the fact that several people I have come into contact with are having this problem.

Please keep us informed about what they tell you over the phone. I'm going to try to return it to where I bought it and see if the tech support department there has any ideas (and/or if they will exchange it for another model).

It's looking like Toshiba laptops are not what they used to be.

Battery Discharges when plugged into AC

We have a 2 yr old Toshiba Satellite with problem similar to that described. I believe that there are two separate problems but who knows, maybe they are related somehow. We have been through the overheating issues. The intake fan on the bottom of the laptop seems to be a dust suction device for those who place laptops on sofas and beds (three cats doesn't help!). We got good results with a "hoovering" as suggested by a British gal on line. Take the vacuum hose, place over inlet and outlets, seal air gaps best as you can and then suck out dust. It really seems to help. The computer will shut down if it overheats. It will overheat if the fan cant function properly. The second problem appears to be more serious and has showed up on this machine in the last month or so. When plugged into AC and booted up, the green plug light shows on the front. The computer on light glows green. The battery plug is variable. It can be red or blinking red or green or not lit at all. In our case, it is never green anymore and here is why. While plugged in and booted up, if you go into the control panel and look at the toshiba power management area, this is what you see. It shows that the AC power is on. It shows that the battery is, for example, charging. Then, for no reason, it starts using the battery! The battery gets used, is shows it as discharging, until the power becomes critical and if left alone, the computer shuts off. Sometimes, if you catch it at about 30% or so, you can pull the plug and plug it back in and the batter will go from discharge to charge and you are back in business. Other times, no matter how many times you fiddle with it, the battery mode remains dominant and she shuts down. When that happens, you have to wait a bit before turning it back on because the machine seems to need a bit of battery to boot up. I have looked around on line and this doesn't appear to be an isolated problem but I have not seen any useful suggestions for fixing it. I don't even know if it is a hardware or a software problem! We have two satellites, one with the problem and one without. Tried swapping the batteries and or the power cords, didn't make a difference. Suggestions appreciated. Betsy

The second of the problems you described is verbatim how I would describe the problem I am having.

After talking to guys at CompUSA (where I purchased the machine) and calling the Toshiba tech support line, I realized that either these people don't know about the problem or they don't want to admit that it is, in fact, a problem. I packaged up the laptop last night and shipped it to the Toshiba Depot in Louisville.

I am very interested to hear what they say is wrong with it. I will post back here as soon as I hear something, as I know this problem is immensely frustrating (particularly, as you described, when it shuts off).

I have the same problem, you'll have to send it in, it has nothing to do with "flimsy ac adapter" because if you take the battery out it runs fine. If someone can't send it in right now, just take the battery out while using it plugged in,that is better anyway because batteries have trouble with too much heat over long perods of time. Charge the battery only when the laptop is turned off, because it doesn't seem to have these problems then.Just don't leave it in too long.

I think I have the same problem as you guys here. I got a M35X-S459 just a bit more than a month ago. I noticed this problem since the second week I got it. I tried to wiggle the plug and AC adaptor cable. Sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't. What's weird is that it's very inconsistent for my case. (don't know if this is the same for other people, too.) Sometimes it charges alright. I could use it plugged into AC power for one whole day and battery indicator is still 100%. But sometimes, while charging the battery, it will change from "online, charging" to "online, discharging" all at a sudden. The battery light in that case, changes from orange to off. Once that happens, if I don't play with the plug again, battery will go down to 0% without me knowing. And sometimes playing with the plug has no effect at all.

It always charges fine when the laptop is off though.

I don't know if mine has something to do with heat or not. I just got a Targus chill mat which works great on my little Sony before. I will post again if my case is heat related.

So great to know that I am not the only one having this problem.

I just got my machine back from the Toshiba Notebook Depot 6 days (4 business days) after I shipped it to them. They replaced the system board. It appears to be working fine so far, however I am not totally convinced that it is a permanent fix.

If you have time to ship your computer away for a few days, I would recommend doing it (provided you're still under warranty). I know I was getting hugely frustrated by the power issue and right now the computer seems to be back to normal.

Good luck!

Unfortunately I have no suggestions, AND unfortunately I echo everything you said. My Satellite 2430 is about 20 months old, so of course it's outside the 1 yr. warranty. I have, however, been calling about these problems since day one. I've taken "tech support"'s advice from upgrading the harddrive (silly, but I wanted to put in a larger one anyway), increasing the memory (ditto), (and I've added a WIFI card for unrelated reasons) to taking apart what I could and cleaning out the dust with "Dust Off" air spray. I also bought a cooling fan to elevate the laptop and "cool" it. All of which each seemed to help for a day or two at best.

Yesterday, after it shutting down for the billionth time, I decided to call TS again, which is pretty unproductive when you're out of the warranty period. Anyway, while turning the unit over to read the serial number to them, I saw this:



I then looked at the cooling fan, and the plastic casing of that was equally as melted.

I told the tech about it and his suggestion was to bring it to a repair shop. I asked what could be done and he said "nothing, you'll probably need to buy a new unit". *sigh*

The thing could have burned my house down, but I know that I will get nowhere pursuing it. For one it's out of the warranty period, and two I've "modified" it by installing a larger harddrive, more memory and a WIFI card. Very, very frustrating, and unfair.

same problem here with m35x

i have the same problem going on with my laptop, the same thing. what is going on?

Are these Toshiba's made by Compal. 3 year old Sat 3005-S307 with P3M. New motherboard, FDD, HDD and screen inverter mostly due to heat. Thing runs fine after Toshiba issued a dumbed down BIOS clocking my notebook CPU down to 1/2 of its rated speed of 1.13Ghz. There was a class action lawsuit on the 5005 which came from the same factory.

BTW, get your money back. Dont let them give you the runaround. Call the BBB.

This stinks!

My daughter's lappy (Christmas Present) just started with the battery drain problem being described here. But here is another concern .......

I have had lappys from almost every reseller. If there is one thing I've learned is that you have to drain and recharge the battery once a month or so - if you don't the battery will quickly lose its ability to hold a decent charge. So, HOW DO YOU DRAIN AND RECHARGE EFFICIENTLY AND AT WILL IF YOU CAN'T DEPEND ON THE DARN THING to work and charge at the same time. I guess you could schedule the drain and recharge for a night when you won't be using it instead of a time that is convenient and at will ;-(

When it happened on my daughter's PC I had her shut it down, unplug and plug it in again, and leave it off for a half hour. When she turned it back on it charged up fine. I have had lappy's where the battery was so incapable of holding a charge that the only way to run the lappy was to take out the battery out cause the battery gets the attention instead of the PC. I can see this heading in that direction if she can't depend on the charge-up.

There is another thread describing a WIFI card power setting that might be related to this. Anyone here tried this as a fix?

no power at all

I used my laptop yesterday on battery. Turned it off. Today I went to use it - still unplugged from AC power. The laptop started a low battery beep saying it only had 5% battery power left. I remembered it being at 75% yesterday. I plugged it into AC power and it did not start charging and then turned off. There are no lights when it is plugged into AC power at all. If I turn it on it turns off within 2-3 seconds due to no power. I took the battery out and made sure it was in correctly. Checked a different AC power socket. Nothing - not charging. I called toshiba and the guy had me take out the battery then hit the backspace for 20 seconds and hold it and then turn on the power - had me repeat this with just the battery - with the battery and AC power plugged in - even with battery out and no power. Same thing it would come on for 2-3 seconds and turn off. He gave me a service number to call - they are only open 8-5 Mon-Friday. He said I could wait a couple of hours and then try the same thing again. He said that if it did come on to go to the control panel and change the hybrination mode. If none of that works to call the service number he gave me. This computer is 20 days old. So now I am past the 14 day return at Circuit City and from what I've read here it looks like I will probably have to send it in. I bought this for "online" school which starts Monday (4-18). Any advice? Should I take it into some place and pay for it to be fixed since it looks like a lot of you have not had good luck with Toshiba?

i have m35x-s309. keyboard stopped working, then touchpad. called toshiba, sent it in for repair. they told me it's grounded improperly and they had to change the case and keyboard. it didnot have this funny battery issues you are all experiencing, but i wonder if it was all related, if it's not grounded correctly, batery just drains, or doesn't charge, then it fried the motherboard, keyboard etc.
toshiba has to get its act together and fix this mess.

toshiba problem

I've sent my Toshiba m35x s149 back to Toshiba 2 times with this same problem and they have changed the case and power supply the first time(keeping it 1 month and 15 days waiting for parts). It still did the same thing but the second time it quit altogether, no power, wouldn't boot. This time they kept it almost a month and had to change the motherboard and casing and resolder the ac connection. I got the computer back and they sent back the wrong ac adaptor so I had to wait close to a month total for the motherboard and ac adaptor.
Now it started doing the same thing that it originally did, that is, when the ac adaptor is plugged in the battery discharges. The toshiba power management window says "Current power source is -> ac power " and the battery power meter says "online discharging". I will give them a call to see whats next.

Online discharging means the computer is running only on the battery, even though it says otherwise. If you run the computer without the battery , or take out the battery when it says "online discharging", the computer will crash.

talked to service rep today and they said to "send it in". This will be the third time for the same problem.