First part of this sad story:

I had a Toshiba sattelite 2405s201 for 5 years. Except the harddisc failed once, it never brough any trouble to me. Last month I accidentlly spilled some coffee onto the keyboard. I immediately shut down the computer. Two days later I tried to restart it. Everything works fine until 5 minutes later it says it had a system error and I need to turn in the computer for service. I notice the fan was not making any noise, usually it would start running after the computer was turned on for 3~4 minutes. But now it seems not to be working.

Do you think I should leave the computer aside for another month or so before I try it again?

Second part of this sad story

I have one all-so-famous Toshiba M35X notebook computer. It was the "lemon of the year" in 2004. The power connector had some serious issues and Toshiba actually held a secret recall but never inform the customers. Later in 2006 these boys charged me $70 to fix that problem.

About two weeks ago the computer refused to shut down. Usually, there is that blue screen picture after all the icons and desktop picture disappear, saying the computer is shutting down or something. Yet at that day there were some red bars from left to right when this picture appears. Then the computer would just hang on like that for hours without shutting down.

I had to press on the power button for 10 seconds to shut down the computer.

Yet this problem go away two days ago. Everything seems to be back to normal again.

But today it is officially down. The computer won't restart. The power buttom will light-on but the screen has no display at all, pitch black...

What part of the computer is most probably dead?

Part 3 of the sad story:

When both the computers are having problems, I went out to buy a new notebook. Again it's a Toshiba. The model number is A215-S7437. I later found out notebookreviews.com had tons of negative reviews about the computer screen will turn black while people using it. By far I have not seen this problem. But is it something doomed to happen? Bestbuy obviously don't take returns. What should I do? Do I need to replace some parts just to be safe?

Stop buying Toshiba!

I had been waiting for deals on Bestbuy on hp computers. But there were none.

First part of this sad story:.......Do you think I should leave the computer aside for another month or so before I try it again?
No telling what the liquid touched and what shorted out. I've had people spill things on computers and they started just fine after everything dried out, but in other cases it was time for a new system considering what the repair would cost. i would remove the hard drive and retrieve data before powering it on again.


Second part of this sad story......
Sounds to me like the power issue returned. Allowing it to stay on for hours during shutdown wasn't good. Try this: unplug, remove the battery, hold the power button down for 30 seconds to discharge any power, then try starting the computer with & without the battery in and see if it starts up.


Part 3 of the sad story:......is it something doomed to happen? Do I need to replace some parts just to be safe?
Because some systems exhibit the issue doesn't mean all will. For example: I have a client who purchased 4 Dell Inpirion notebooks about 4.5 years ago (same model, I forget the #). Later on it was revealed that this (and other models) had heat issues. Only 1 of the 4 experienced any of the symptoms and Dell replaced the motherboard and cooling system. The other 3 are still operating fine. I also ran into issues with Dell GX and SX series computers and the leaking capacitors. Not all of these systems experienced the issue, but some did.

I wouldn't replace any parts until the issue is well documented and isolated. Even then it would probably void any warranty. Try calling Toshiba (or searching their knowledgebase) and see if they documented it as a known issue and what they're doing to correct it.

Thanks Alan. The second computer just came back to life! Your suggestion saved it!!! Many many many thanks!!!

I just backed up 44GB of data to an external drive and hopefully it would hang on for a couple of few more months. I am not ready to loose it yet. I left most of the downloaded software setup files behind since they won't be too much useful in VISTA system anyway.