jj,

Does it have a CD drive in which you insert a bootable disk?

I am not sure where that would get you/us but there will be gurus around here who understand things like BIOS etc.

Presumably it would identify if your internal hard disk was working which is where your flash memory will need to look for booting instructions....but I waffle as I am already out of my depth.

TP

The BIOS which boots up first will give you a beep code to indicate which component is at fault if it cannot complete it's boot up. The software (Windows, Linux etc) should then boot up after the BIOS. So, question is, does your laptop beep before it shuts down and if so what is the sequence (long or short beeps)? Then you will need to go to the BIOS manufacturer's website (American Megatrends etc) and have a look at the relevant beep code to identify the fault.

Here is a list of common bios beep codes - http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

Thanks guys. No, I don't get as far as a beep. It gives a whirr, then a grunt..nothing opens on the screen. It does have a CD drive though. I am going to try and get through to Toshiba and shall report back. J

Whaen that has happened to me, it has been the PSU. Not that easy to fix on a laptop though. If it is in warranty then let them fix it.

jj

As you have a CD drive you may also have a recovery disk from Toshiba - something to look for whilst waiting for the phone to be answered.

TP

Thank you all.

Yes, Toshiba call centre is the only place where they tell you how many minutes wait you have and it increases in length of time as you wait! Sending it back and it will take up to ten days.

The one thing they did make me try was to plug it in with the battery removed and then press and hold the power button for five seconds to see if that had any effect. It didn't.

Jennifer

I don't think you have any choice, as any parts (+ labour) they need to replace are going to be free to you. Only downside is that the postage is going to cost! Hope you kept the box & packaging??? Also hope you copied any important stuff to USB stick regularly????!!!

Ironically, Harry, I have the box for once but I am not to use that. Have to pack in something "more substantial", (their words) as going via UPS to Germany. No cost to me to send though and Courier picks up and delivers back. Important stuff to USB..ouch ;-) Guilty as charged!

The remove battery and connect to mains and hold start button is to dis-charge the system to earth and then start again with battery in. sorry it didn't work jj50. BB

My turn to ask a question: Was updating/altering an xl spreadsheet from info on my halifax bank account, so connected to internet and bank. Suddenly xl sheet and web page plus tabs on other web pages lost info, the screen was all over the place with bits missing. So thought of being hacked in some way so shut router down quickly and shut down comp. Re-started and scanned comp, all clear of any virus attack. tried opening xl sheet, un-able to open, either in use or encrypted or read only. Tried name change and saving but will not allow. Tried restore point to last friday, no good. Have back up, so tried to delete, still won't let me delete. Presume file is corrupt in some way, any suggestions of how to restore file or delete would be useful. At the end of day it can stay and I'll rename my saved copy. cheers BB

There are a number of delete utilities that let you force a file to be deleted. They let you marke the file and then delete the file on reboot when processes cannot be holding the file. They can be found through google.

thanks haystack.

Since a couple of days, I've noticed videos on Youtube are lagging quite badly. I'm pretty sure the problem is with my laptop as a couple of other machines at home seem fine with Youtube. The problem on my machine started after a Flash Player update followed almost immediately by a Windows update.

Done all the usual things - ran CCleaner, cleaned the registry, ran defrag. Still no good. Tried uninstalling Flash Player and installed an older version. Weirdly, same result.

Can anyone speculate on the causes of this lag? I'm running Vista on a HP DV6 laptop.

Not sure of the causes but what browser are you using? If Firefox or Chrome etc. try viewing the video's in IE and see if it still happens? I'm not 100% on this but I think different versions of the Flash Player plugin are used depending on if you're on IE or one of the others.

Also have a look at the performance tab in Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) to make sure no 'rogue' process is using a lot of CPU power.

Jon, I have the same problem sometimes in Firefox, also get it with BBC iPlayer which depends on Flash, so will experiment

Hi jonuk76,

I'm using both Opera and Chrome. The problem is definitely worse in Chrome. Prior to the update, both my browsers played videos absolutely fine. Task Manager does not show any single process hogging CPU big time. I've even tried forcing Chrome to use an earlier version of Flash Player (by disabling the built-in plugin under "About:Plugins"). Darn! Pretty frustrating!

SC, I have a problem on one computer on iPlayer. I don't know if yours is a similar issue. It's an Acer Revo (small, low power Intel Atom computer) which I've connected to a TV, and it's really bad when trying to view iPlayer HD. It's pretty much unwatchable due to the skipping video.

In my case, the PC has an Nvidia Ion GPU which is able to accelerate video decoding (a GPU is generally much faster than the main processor at doing that). But for whatever reason, iPlayer is not using the video acceleration, and all the work is being done by the slow CPU. I've seen other complaints about it, but haven't been able to find a resolution yet... I can view high quality, 1080p MKV or MP4 files that I've downloaded elsewhere on this PC with no problems, but iPlayer unfortunately is a problem.

If its a fast GPU that you want - Chip maker Nvidia has revealed details of a new graphics processing unit (GPU) which it says will create the world's most powerful computer.

Mine is a pretty fast machine with loads of ram but no dedicated video card. I've wanted a twin screen for some time but that entails upping the PSU as well as the video card.. Maybe it's time I did.

Skinny - don't want it that fast - would have a problem keeping up with the video in that case :-)