When you first run the program, you will see a My Devices window displaying the Western Digital drives the software has found, both USB-attached and internal disk drives. Other storage media will be shown under Other Devices.

Click on the Western Digital drive you wish to check on to see details on that drive including disk space used, disk space available, and disk space capacity as well as the interface speed, drive temperature, health, and performance information.

[ More Info ]

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A family member said a Windows 10 system she is using for gaming is running slowly and inquired about adding additional memory to the system. I didn't know the model of the motherboard in the system nor the maximum amount of memory it could accomodate. Rather than opening up the desktop system, I checked on the manufacturer and model of the motherboard from a command-line interface (CLI) with a Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) command and found it was a Hewlett-Packard (HP) 3047h motherboard.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19043.1766]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Colleen>wmic baseboard get product,manufacturer,model,serialnumber,version
Manufacturer     Model  Product  SerialNumber  Version
Hewlett-Packard         3047h    MXL11925F3


C:\Users\Colleen>

I also saw 3047h listed as the "baseboard product" ("baseboard" is another name used for "motherboard") when I typed System Information in the Windows "Type here to search" field and selcted that application.

[ More Info ]

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Boot Device Menu
================

  1. Normal
  2. Hard-Disk Drive C:
  3. IDE CD-ROM Device
  4. Diskette Drive
  5. USB Flash Device

  6. System Setup
  7. IDE Drive Diagnostics
  8. Boot to Utility Partition

Enter a choice: 1

You can configure the system to always attempt to boot from a USB device before the hard disk drive (HDD) by hitting F2 when you power on the system and the Dell logo appears to enter the BIOS setup. Under Hard-Disk Drive Sequence, you can put "USB Device" at the top of the list, if you wish by using the "+" or "-" keys to rearrange the order in which the BIOS will choose boot devices. You will need to put "USB Device" prior to "System BIOS boot devices" to have the system attempt to boot from a USB drive first. You can select "USB Device" and use the minus key to move it to be entry 1 in the list.

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Note: you can download the MemScope Memory Tester software here. At the moment there is a missing image on the page that has a link associated with it for downloading the software. The link appears immediately below the "Test 7 Random Data Sequence Test" paragraph or you can click here to access the form you need to fill out to download the software.

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I tried a couple of memory sticks, but the result was the same. She could sometimes move files from a memory stick, but then attempting to access the memory stick again would cause the Windows Explorer to stop responding.

Download Site: HP
Download URL: Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader

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[ More Info ]

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Eventually, the Toshiba Power Management Utility will show that the battery has fully discharged. Then within a minute or two, the system will power itself off.

I had configured the Toshiba Power Management Utility to put the system in hibernate mode when the power got down to a a very low percentage, but it has never done so; the system just powers off. And, even though I had it configured to warn me when the battery power got down to 10%, I'm never warned either. The system just abrubtly powers itself off.

I had found other people reporting similar problems with this laptop when I searched for information on the problem previously - see Toshiba M35X Laptop Powers Off Randomly. The system had been showing 100% power yesterday evening and I hadn't noticed the charge state decreasing - I use Laptop Battery Power Monitor to constantly monitor the charge state of the battery - and I hadn't saved a lot of notes I had made regarding a problem I was working on. I know better than to use Windows Notepad, since it doesn't do any automatic file saving, but I had pasted output from a remote system and URLs related to the problem I was working on at the time into Notes. So I utterred a few curses when the laptop powered itself off, since all those notes were lost.

When the system is not charging, I see the two left-most LED's lit green on the front of the laptop. The left-most one indicates the laptop has A/C power. The middle one is lit green indicating the system is powered on. When the system is charging, the right-most one is lit amber when the battery is charging. And the Laptop Battery Power Monitor will have an orange arrow pointing out of it to notify me that the laptop battery is charging.

When the system powers itself off, I've found that if I power it back on immediately, it will show a zero percent charge and power itself back off within a couple of minutes. If I do nothing, but leave the system off for awhile, when I turn it back on, it may show the battery as fully charged or show it is in a charging state, depending on how long I've left it powered off. Sometimes, though, it shows the battery in a partially charged state and immediately starts discharging again.

Today, I found that if I tipped the laptop backwords, I could get the state to go from discharging to charging. If I put it back down, sometimes it would show that it was charging, other times it would be discharging the battery. I also found that if I pulled the A/C power plug from the back of the laptop and plugged it back in, sometimes I could get it to go to the charging state. Sometimes the Laptop Battery Monitor utility would show briefly that the battery was being charged, but would almost immediately switch to showing it was discharging. If I removed the power plug and put it back in multiple times, I could sometimes get it to stay in the charging state. At the moment it's charging again.

I did some more online searching with Google again today to see what others were saying about such problems with Toshiba laptops. I found others reporting similar problems with other Toshiba laptops. Many, like myself, stated they are unlikely to consider a Toshiba laptop for future laptop purchases. I found a lot of very informative postings on the problem by various people at Toshiba Satellite P25-s520 AC Power Problem. Some people had reported resolving the problem by simply opening the laptop and blowing out dust. Others fixed their problem by replacing the nib on the power adapter. Others replaced or adjusted the placement of components inside the laptop. For anyone experiencing similar problems, I would recommend reading the postings there. If those webpages ever disappear or the site is unavailable, the Internet Archive, aka the Wayback Machine, has them archived at Toshiba Satellite Ps5-s520 AC Power Problem. One of the posters even posted a link on how to disassemble a Toshiba Satellite P25 notebook, which you might want to try to get rid of dust inside the laptop or if you want to check the power connection to the motherboard. The link is Disassembling Toshiba Satellite P25 notebook. It may be helpful for those who need to disassemble other models of Toshiba Satellite laptops as well.

One poster even said he was able to rectify the problem by wrapping aluminum foil around the nib of the power plug that goes into the back of the laptop. I tried that; it didn't help and, when the foil comes off and remains inside the connector on the back of the laptop, it may be difficult to get all of it back out, so, personally, I can't recommend that solution, though, if you are desparate, you can try it.

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I have the Toshiba Power Management Utility configured on the system to sound an alarm and display a message when the battery charges drops to 10%. I have it configured to sound an alarm, display a message, and hibernate when the charge drops to 5%. But it never takes those actions. Instead, the laptop just powers off.

So that I could at least have some forwarning of when the battery charge is getting very low, I installed Laptop Battery Power Monitor, which places a battery widget on the desktop which displays the battery's charge level and which appears above other windows.

[/pc/hardware/toshiba] permanent link

Click either image to see a larger version

Manufacturer: BFG Tech Model: BFG550WGSPSU AC Input: 115/230V~,60/50Hz,10/6A Specifications ATX12V 2.2 Dual 12V Rails SATA Connectors PCI Express Ready Efficiency: > 80% Typical Silent 140mm Intake Fan BFG Thermal Control Technology Protection Circuitry MTBF: 80,000 Hours at 25° C Safety Approval: CCC, CB, UL, TUV, CE, CSA, CUL, NEMKO, SAA, GS, VDE Dimensions: 8.6cm W x 15cm H x 14cm D (3.4" W x 6" H x 5.5" D) 1 Year Warranty
DC Output +3.3V = 35A +5V = 40A +3.3V +5V Max. Combined Wattage = 130W +12V1 = 18A +12V2 = 18A +12V Max. Combined Wattage = 432W -12V = 0.5A +5VSB = 2.5A
Included in Box 1 x 550 Watt Power Supply Unit 1 x US Power Cable 1 x User's Guide 4 x Mounting Screws
Connectors 1 x 24-Pin (20+4-Pin) Motherboard Connector 1 x 8-Pin (4+4-Pin) CPU 12V Power Connector 1 x 6-Pin PCI Express Connector 1 x 8-Pin (6+2-Pin) PCI Express Connector 4 x 4-Pin Molex Connectors 1 x 4-Pin Floppy Connector 4 x SATA Connectors (also includes connectors for IDE drives)
Works With The Following Motherboards PCI Express AGP PCI

Manual

BFG Tech "GS" Series User's Manual - Microsoft Word Document
BFG Tech "GS" Series User's Manual - HTML Document (produced by OpenOffice.org Writer)

1. GS-550 Power Supply
   BFG Tech
2. BFG Tech "GS" Series User's Manual
   BFG Tech

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