jaffra

Hi everbody, I am new to this forum and this is my first post.
To keep my wife's hands off my laptop, her brother kindly gave her his old Fujitsu Amilo laptop. His reason for giving it away was, he said it's rubbish and has bought a new Toshiba. The thing starts and runs well (it's on xp) but the problem is, when you turn it off you can hear a small buzzing sound from the top left, it's as if something is still running. The yellow battery light comes on and it drains in a couple of hours. You can take the battery out and leave it for days, when you put it back it's still 100%.

I thank you for any help you can give me...

Madcatz

top left of the bottom portion, or top left of the LCD panel?

jaffra

Thanks Madcatz for your reply,
It's the top left of the base unit, it comes from a vent, not the fan vent which is more to the right. I am not a computer expert, just an ordanary guy, but I do understand the basics. It sounds like it's still running when you turn windows off, as if it's in sleep mode or hibinate. My brother in law never parts with anything unless it's knackered and a while back it went to a workshop to have the mains jack plug resoldered, as some kluts fell over the cable and yanked the wire out. So the back has been off and he did say it's all been cleaned out, as it was overheating. They are all the clues I can give you, maybe he's done something to it, or the overheating has fried the motherboard.
Thanks if you can help.
Frank.

Madcatz

ok, load it up to windows. then hold the power button down until it shuts off, usually about 4-6 seconds. do you hear the buzzing now?

jaffra

Ok, started windows, let everything boot up, left it a couple of minutes, pressed the power button, it all shut down and bugger me, it still does it. 10 minutes later, it's still buzzing and the battery is draining. Now mate, what's the next plan of action.

jaffra

Just found another clue. With it swithed off it buzzes running on the battery, now connect the mains cable and it stops, any help.

Madcatz

next step would be to update the BIOS, you'll have to go to fujitsu's support website, downloads section, and should be BIOS updates in there. These can usually be done while running windows now, just have it plugged into the ac adapter and close any programs and windows you have open.

Also, is it possible for you to try another battery in it?

night_shift

Is the buzzing there with the battery out and running on AC power chord?

jaffra

TO night shift, the answer is no, it starts and runs with the battery out. The only time it makes the noise is with the battery in and turned off. Something is still running with the battery in, that's why it runs flat.
To Madcatz, before I went on the fujitsu site I downloaded Belarc advisor to get the model and any numbers I might need.The only thing that found was it needed updates from windows (security, explorer 8 and media player). I then downloaded a system diagnostics program from Fujitsu, ran the full scan, which took about 45 minutes and it found sod all wrong with it. You can give up on this if you want, but it's bugging me and I would love to find the answer. It runs perfect as it is, so I just take the battery out when she has finished with it. Anymore ideas would be welcome from anybody.

Madcatz

You should be able to find the model number on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop. Unless its been rubbed off or taken off.

BIOS update is a big factor atm, if that has never been updated, there very well could be a whole lot of fixes done, one of them being not shutting down properly on battery power.

Another thing to try would be to use another battery and see if it gives you the same problem. That will say if its a bad battery or not.

jaffra

Hi, we have three laptops in this house,Dell, Toshiba and this Fujisu. As usual, none of the batteries are interchangerble. So I had a look online £85, wow that hurts, so I will have a look around for one that doesn't have a Fujisu badge on it. I suppose it's the same as cars, buy one with a Ford badge on it and pay twice as much. I will still try other things until I find a battery.

Madcatz

Yeah, some brands are higher priced than others when you buy directly from them. You can try looking at batterybiz.com, or ebay, those will usually be cheaper than most.