ancient laptop repairing

It's nearly 100 percent certain that the battery is dead for good. Even "zapping" is rarely successful on these batteries. And something that probably hasn't been charged in 10 or 15 years is even more hopeless.

You have nothing to lose by trying to charge it but don't expect miracles.

It would be worth trying to run the laptop on a DC power supply matching the battery voltage with sufficient current. However, even if you had the AC adapter, it probably wouldn't run the laptop without a good battery.

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There often is hope: If 12 NiMH AA-cells would fit into the same space as the 14.4V battery that would yield the same of even higher capacity than the original. Should cost less than $25 when on sale. Most have

2.3Ah, some are claimed even higher.

NiCd are harder but places like Batteries Plus should be able to help. Of course there comes a point where one has to think about how much money it is worth sinking into such an old machine.

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Or if you don't need the battery, just look on ebay for a compatible power supply and use the laptop plugged into the wall.

In my old Toshiba there are two BIOS batteries. When it didn't boot up, I tore the machine down, found one battery dead (not a common type). It happened after several months of inactivity. I'm going to give it a trickle charge just for test purposes, but if that brings the machine alive, I'm not going to trust the old battery. OTOH, it might have worked if I'd only plugged it in for a while before trying it.

Chargers are available for just about any laptop on eBay. In fact I once bought one for this very machine there. In any case, no harm in using one of the proper voltage, current and polarity. I'd get a ps, and try charging everything. Possibly that's all you'd need, although I agree the main battery is toast. If it's completely apart now, I would replace the BIOS battery as well.

jak

The unit won't run with less than 14v1 DC input. The batery won't charge at 12V either.

No, voltage will be insufficient and inappropriate.

I agree (I own two of those T2000SX machines)

They run with the AC adaptor both without a battery installed and with a dead battery in place.

If you want to operate the machine from an external power supply, then you will need to:

1. connect the PSU to the + and - terminals in the battery bay.
2. ensure the applied voltage exceeds 14v2. best would be 16v or so. I haven;'t measured the startup current draw as the HDD spins up, but if the PSU isn't capable of 2A I'd expect you may have problems.
3. bridge the central contact pair with a 10k resistor

I don't know about the T2000SX, but many Toshiba laptops I've used required the battery to be good in order to use the AC adapter.

But first try a DC power supply to see if the laptop works at all.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ:

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Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.