Laptop won’t boot/post

Hi Everyone, 

I have a toshiba satellite L855-S5372 laptop. Recently it stopped posting the most part. Power light still turns on, fans run, screen is black. When it does post maybe 5-10% of the time it says RTC battery is low. I advance to the bios settings and try to reboot from there. It remains in the black rebooting screen and doesn't really reboot. I have changed the cmos battery and even bought a new one to make sure it wasn't that. I also tested the cmos battery with a voltmeter and it definitely works 3+ V. 

Of note I Recently upgraded the hdd to ssd. Both hard drives when connected to the main sata have this posting issue.

Any advice on what to do next? I really rather not replace the motherboard if I don't have to. No experience doing that and it seems quite pricey. 

Thank you in advance, and happy holidays

Hi Everyone, 

I have a toshiba satellite L855-S5372 laptop. Recently it stopped posting the most part. Power light still turns on, fans run, screen is black. When it does post maybe 5-10% of the time it says RTC battery is low. I advance to the bios settings and try to reboot from there. It remains in the black rebooting screen and doesn't really reboot. I have changed the cmos battery and even bought a new one to make sure it wasn't that. I also tested the cmos battery with a voltmeter and it definitely works 3+ V. 

Of note I Recently upgraded the hdd to ssd. Both hard drives when connected to the main sata have this posting issue.

Any advice on what to do next? I really rather not replace the motherboard if I don't have to. No experience doing that and it seems quite pricey. 

Thank you in advance, and happy holidays

 

I found this and think it maybe be helpful with your laptop not posting: Computer Hope: POST troubleshooting steps and as for the RTC or Real Time Clock provides power for the internal clock/calendar and for maintaining system configuration settings and runs all the time, even when the computer is turned off. It sounds like the RTC battery need to be replaced as it is near the end of it’s life. These tend to be long life batteries like a coin cell, but given enough time with the machine off they will die in a year or two. Open up your computer and look for something like this to replace. On older machines you occasionally see these with the black battery being that or a small box.

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Hi Everyone, 

I have a toshiba satellite L855-S5372 laptop. Recently it stopped posting the most part. Power light still turns on, fans run, screen is black. When it does post maybe 5-10% of the time it says RTC battery is low. I advance to the bios settings and try to reboot from there. It remains in the black rebooting screen and doesn't really reboot. I have changed the cmos battery and even bought a new one to make sure it wasn't that. I also tested the cmos battery with a voltmeter and it definitely works 3+ V. 

Of note I Recently upgraded the hdd to ssd. Both hard drives when connected to the main sata have this posting issue.

Any advice on what to do next? I really rather not replace the motherboard if I don't have to. No experience doing that and it seems quite pricey. 

Thank you in advance, and happy holidays

 

I found this and think it maybe be helpful with your laptop not posting: Computer Hope: POST troubleshooting steps and as for the RTC or Real Time Clock provides power for the internal clock/calendar and for maintaining system configuration settings and runs all the time, even when the computer is turned off. It sounds like the RTC battery need to be replaced as it is near the end of it’s life. These tend to be long life batteries like a coin cell, but given enough time with the machine off they will die in a year or two. Open up your computer and look for something like this to replace. On older machines you occasionally see these with the black battery being that or a small box.

 

Thanks for your reply. I actually did replace the original cmos battery that was in my laptop for almost 8 years. It still doesn’t post unless the replacement cmos is faulty. But I did test both coin batteries with a voltmeter and it showed 3+ volts discharging 

You don't need to quote everything it just makes the thread way longer.

Only thing I can think of now is your bios settings got messed up when the cmos died.  Check all your settings and report back what they are.  Take pics if necessary.

Sorry my mistake there. I can’t get into the bios settings 95% of the time. It usually is just black screen. When I am able to boot to the bios settings I’ll upload some photos. Thank you.

https://imgur.com/a/RlSQW7J

Here are the screenshots from the settings

What OS did it come with?

Would have liked to see the "Boot" Tab! but getting the Advanced Tab was good.

I think you should try to Disable UEFI, save and see if it boots.

os was windows 8, now it is 8.1

boot tab is my ssd then the usb, then cd drive in that order. I have no usb and nothing in the cd drive

i remember playing around with the uefi, if i disable uefi it goes to legacy

i remember playing around with the uefi, if i disable uefi it goes to legacy

Yes, then try to boot in Legacy

oh that took a lot of time, i got the error message check cables, no bootable drive. 

Windows 8, you need to go back to UEFI

Can you boot some kind of other medium like Linux or Hirens Boot CD?

i have no familiarity with linux so I will stay away for now. I will try making the hiren boot drive.

Any chances if i upgrade to windows 10 this will resolve anything? Or is it a hardware issue?

Try this

If your Windows 10 PC reboots to a black screen, just press Ctrl+Alt+Del on your keyboard. Windows 10’s normal Ctrl+Alt+Del screen will appear. Click the power button at the bottom-right corner of your screen and select “Restart” to restart your PC.

HTG Fix

I wonder if you have a damaged SATA Cable now

Edited by pcpunk, 29 December 2020 - 10:37 AM.

i mean it does properly boot about 10% of the time, just a lot of powering off and trying again.

USB boot from hirens did not work. stuck on black screen when i choose to boot from usb

Oh damage sata cable would make sense as well given that I was recently changing out the hard drive. I assume there's no way to change that unless I get a new mobo given that this is a laptop?