Power Issue With Battery or Power Adaptor??

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My Wife's employer gave her a notebook (Toshiba Satellite Pro A300) that needed a new O/S and HDD. For the price, we couldn't go wrong and I had a spare drive laying around.

When I initially turned the system on, everything appeared to work. Bios loaded ok and it booted up to the install disc. However, at the beginning of the installation, the system would shut off. I tried this a few times and used a different version of Windows to install with the same results. I then took the battery out, and was able to get a complete install with only the power adapter plugged in. Everything runs good, honky dory. Shut down, installed the battery. Started back up - pop, shuts off during the load up. Bad battery perhaps?

I thought I'd mess around just a bit, I decided to use the battery itself to run the system. It had some charge and I was able to login to Windows. I played around, connected to the internet, no problems. I then decided to plugin the power adapter to see what would happen. From what I can tell, the system switches back and forth between the power adapter and the battery. The screen constantly flickers as well as the power adapter LED (both flickering at the same time, the screen dims) as it switches between the power sources.

My question (finally) is it a bad battery, a bad power adapter or a bad motherboard? As stated above, the system runs fine on either the battery or power adapter, but flickers with both sources connected at once. Any help/thoughts in solving this issue would be appreciated, thanx =)
 
It sounds to me like a motherboard issue. It should always work regardless if the battery is bad or not. It will just use the power adapter instead. As you mentioned, it works with just the power adapter connected so you know that is good. And it works with just the battery inserted so you know that works. I'm not sure what the issue could be exactly but most likely it is with the power circuitry.

Does it charge the battery when you have both inserted?

If you don't plan to use it off the adapter I would just pop the battery out and plug it in and use it that way, done.
 
I would have to agree w/the above. In my laptop I just use my power cord and leave my battery out since I'm not mobile. I do periodiclly charge my battery to keep it charged incase I need it.
 
It could be battery problem, try buying a new replacement battery from Ebay as these days are cheap, worth a try.
 
It sounds to me like a motherboard issue. It should always work regardless if the battery is bad or not. It will just use the power adapter instead. As you mentioned, it works with just the power adapter connected so you know that is good. And it works with just the battery inserted so you know that works. I'm not sure what the issue could be exactly but most likely it is with the power circuitry.

Does it charge the battery when you have both inserted?

If you don't plan to use it off the adapter I would just pop the battery out and plug it in and use it that way, done.


Thank you all for the replies and sorry for delayed responses, busy week I guess.

Since this is the first real chance I've had to play with this notebook again, I'm doing updates using the battery as the power source. Hopefully I can run it down and see what happens.

Tommy, the battery does charge while the power is plugged in. This is where I was getting the flickering between the two power sources (Batter and power adapter). I also agree there could certainly be a motherboard issue since the system will run perfect on either the power adapter or batter (which holds charge I might add). I should also replace the battery just to make double sure. As soon as I know a bit more I'll post something. Thanx again everyone
 
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