Help! P-6831FX - Caught on fire? What the hell? -w/ PICS

Hello, yesterday I heard a little crackle coming from my laptop, so I laid my screen down and lifted up my media bar wooha, everything looked fine, so right when I was about to close it back up, WOOOOOOOSH, smoke started pouring from the ribbon cable that connects the two, I had like a panic attack, I yanked out my cord and battery, my poor baby was on fire.

The damage doesn't look that bad, the ribbon cable has a chunk missing out of it (see pics). I let everything cool off, I let it sit for a few mins, I blew on the socket and cable, and I plugged it back in just to see if it would work, and to my surprise it started, everything seemed fine until I heard the emergency shut down/power loss noise, the noise of death, PEEEEEEW. I tried starting it a few times and I was even able to log in a few times before PEEEEEW.

The only thing I could think of is that something is overheating so I grabbed a big room fan I had and put it under the bottom of it and sure enough, it stayed on, so I downloaded speedfan and it turns out the GPU was overheating, It is then that I noticed that neither of my fans where working.. the laptop is silent, I looked into the bottom of it and neither of them will spin no matter how hot it gets.

Did I fry my fans or did I fry the motherboard? I'm so scared and I have very little money to fix it.

Here are some pics of the ribbon cable wooha:

 

Wow, the fans actually kicked on when I moved the cable slightly, how can this ribbon cable affect the fans? Now I can't get the fans to come back on.. Is it even safe to use the cable anymore?

 

WHOA, that's a first!!!!!! Do not recall anything like that happening to anyone before.

I don't have alot of advice to give, but that cable is toast and I would not try to reuse. it I think I would first try another cable although you may have deeper issues now.

Revised the part number was under the impression it was the lcd cable try
50.4V606.001

 

Wrong part number Andy.
His main cable looks fine (the LCD part # you specified)
His media bar cable is the one that's fried.
Not sure of the part number on that either..
Good luck with it!

 

I figured out that my fans weren't working because I was still using the burned cable, as soon as I took the cable out my fans started working. (So now I have no way to start my laptop). If anyone can help me out with a way to start it without the media or power button, I would be very grateful.

Read this please:

I sent my laptop to gateway awhile back because my gpu was overheating even though it was clean and everything, they sent it back with a slip that said "Part not available in main warehouse" and my warranty ended right after I got it back (ef yourself gateway) so they wouldn't give me the part, so I had to buy another myself, they also ripped the power button cable in half so for the past year I've been using my media button key to start my computer because I couldn't find a cable to replace the power button, so I guess whenever I did this the media cable was being heated up really hot, and it finally gave out.

I don't know what to do here, but I know for sure I will never buy from gateway ever again.

 

Hope the cable fixes it, but i wonder what cud be the reason for short circuit, thats what i suspect. Looks like a m/b issue to me. Hope thats not the case.

 

Agreed. After you have a major problem the rip-off companies like Alienware seem like a better deal (although I would personally go for a more moderate company like Toshiba.) According Square Trade's records Gateway and Acer are the second and third worst companies for laptop reliability (HP is the worst.) Laptop reliability survey: ASUS and Toshiba win, HP fails -- Engadget

 

Or maybe its the cable itself thats shorting it, thats what i feel after your last post.

 

Updated prior post with media cable part # 50.4V606.001
Thanks for finding my goof Maverick!!!

 

Another goof up. Lol

 

You replaced the GPU with what?