Computer won't even turn on!

My sister is a student at Alabama and for the past couple of months she has been complaining about her computer being slow and Internet explorer dropping out when the network was still up. (If it helps she has a Toshiba Satellite with Vista Home Premium.) When she came home i ran various virus checks thinking that a virus was the problem but found nothing wrong. Today though, she called me and said her computer won't even turn on. She said it was shutting down on her for no reason the last couple of days and today when she left to go to class she had it turned on and when she came back it was turned off. She says that it won't even show the windows start up screen when she tries to turn it on. When she presses the power button the button light just turns on, it makes a whining noise, then it turns back off (nothing even shows up on the screen). She proceeded to take it to circuit city where they were just as dumbfounded as i was. She has finals next week and really needs her computer. Any ideas of what the problem could be and how she or I could go about fixing it? (and sorry if this is in the wrong section)

 

Sounds like she fried it. Hence the whining noise.

 

since the power is on i guess it is fried somehow...
monitor would be fine and the power is fine. I had one of those computers that quitted on me few weeks ago after 5 years of use. I guess you can buy a new laptop and stick into the second port for hard drive like i am doing right now. (make sure it is same adapter i.e. sata vs ide)

 

just had an idea. I Left out in original post that when she presses the power button on the laptop when the battery is in, the battery light indicator flashes red and then the computer dies much like it does when the battery runs out. But when she removes the battery and she presses the power button while the laptop is still plugged into the wall, the battery light doesn't turn on at all. So do u guys think that maybe it's as simple as the power cord being fried and not the computer being fried? and if it was a virus wouldn't the computer start up screen at least show up? Thanks in advance for the help!!!

 

Motherboard fried, more like.

 

usually when the mobo fries, nothing happens, has she tried using a diff power cord(if she has access to one)?

 

harpreet, that's what i thought of too. Her roommate has the same computer as her but is at the library right now and when she gets back she gonna try to use her plug. after an hour of googling though I found this article and I don't think it's just the power cord because everything in this article is pretty much what is the matter with her computer: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2006/01/28/toshiba-satellite-m35x-a75-power-jack-problem

 

A possibility: Battery has no life left and AC power is broken.

You said it turns on with the battery on but flashes red. which could mean no battery left. It still lights up which mean its still recieving power

And when you remove the battery and try pressing the power button, you said nothing lights up at all. This could mean the AC power is dead

Try using a different AC cord first, if that doesnt work then tough luck :/

 

Shouldn't the AC brick have some sort of power indicator light? Mine does. Is that a standard feature now?

 

Yeah, that would show how far the charge got.

 

This sounds like a power issue. If the motherboard was dead it would not spin up any drives so there would be no whinning.

Try the other power suplly first and see what happens.

Most modern Dell batteries have a button on the side to allow you to test to see how much charge the battery is holding. Look to see if the Toshiba has a similar function.

How old is the laptop? If it is within it's warranty - phone Toshiba for support.

If the laptop still does not boot after trying another power cord, then it is probably dead.

You could try replacing the cmos battery incase it is not holding charge anymore and the bios is not able to boot.