What the heck happened?

Tonight my 6000 randomly and suddenly shut off. Then it wouldn't turn back on. After about 5 minutes of leaving it be, it came back on. I noticed during that time, the LED on my power brick was off while it was plugged in. My powerstrip was still on and so was the lamp sharing it.

The machine couldn't of overheated, this is something a remember well from my old Toshiba with it's pentium 4m. I immediately turned it over when it happened and found the base to be relatively cool.

When I started it back up. I was running on battery because my power brick wasn't working. I plugged it into several different outlets around the house and still nothing. After a few minutes (Spent feeling sick) I plugged it backinto where it started, the powerstrip, it randomly started working again. I am afraid for my laptop's life. Any ideas on what happened or on anything I should do?

 

Niki/Susan,

A lot of things come to my mind. Power surge/spike? Humidity? Faulty PB?
Was your lappy connected to the power outlet when you tried to switch it on or was it on battery? Are your power outlets properly earthed?

 

if anything, it sounds more like the brick or a power spike? if the computer was cool to the touch, then i think, like you said, it's not overheating.

finally, it could be some kind of weird software conflict, but those rarely result in a hard crash like that, usually they blue screen or the computer freezes, but remains on.

do you have a different dell brick? maybe from another laptop?

at least you can swap and if it happens again, you know it's not the brick.

 

Niki,

I would call up Dell and complain. The worst thing they can do is say that you have to get a replacement. It is better off you doing that now, then this happening when you are out of the warrenty time.

 

Right, this morning I had a problem with my power brick as well. It wasn't getting power. Something happened to it. I'm certain it's got something to do with the power brick. I'll try to get it replaced under warrenty.