p7805u gave up the smoke

I was playing EVE Online this morning when my trusty p7805u (Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit, no overclocking) went "bizzt" and shut down. I've tried brining it up on battery, no joy. If I unplug the power lead from the jack (on the back of the laptop) the power brick will light up. As soon as I plug the power lead back in to the laptop, though, the LED on the brick fades out and there is a strong smell of burning electronics from the back left of the computer.

Has anyone had a similar experience? I'm wondering if it is the power button board as opposed to, say, the entire motherboard. It's a couple years old and I'm fairly certain it's out of warranty. How depressing/frustrating.

 

fades out or dies? I had a bad brick that would charge the battery but not run the laptop. The LED would cut right out..........

 

I just tested it again...the LED on the brick instantly dies. You think it's just a bad power supply? I plug the brick in to the power strip, green LED is on and bright. I plug the brick in to the laptop and the light is out like *snap*. The weird thing is that the laptop won't turn on, even when it's just on battery. I have/had a habit of leaving it on all the time though. Is it possible the brick went bad, the battery discharged and now neither will power it. Hrmm...

 

It's possible that it's the power brick, but it's possible that it's the power board in the system too. If you're smelling burnt electronics in the laptop, my guess is that the board gave up the ghost. You can get another one from ebay for about $50 ( http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Gateway-P-7...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c10f7e678)

 

If the battery dischargedthen it will not turn on even under battery only. Withthe laptop off my LED stayed lit, it just shut off when I hit power. If it is off and you plug it in then it may not just be the brick, but it could be your brick may not even be able to take a load charging the battery or the CMOS could have cleard and in seeing power the laptop may be trying to turn on kiling the brick. I'd ty and find a good known brick and see what happens first.....

 

That's the way I'm leaning as well. It seems to me the logical chain is:

power brick -> power board (DC jack, USB jacks, modem jack) -> power button board -> motherboard

Earlier I wondered if it was the power button board, but that is sparsely populated. It looks like it only has the button itself, a couple of traces and a ribbon connector that I presume leads to the power board itself.

Looking at pictures of the power board, I'm wondering if the DC jack has desoldered itself and shorted out. I had a generic ECS desktop replacement several years ago that had this problem. It would get hot enough from having the DC jack near the CPU and heatsink that the soldered legs would soften, run and eventually puddle, shorting it out. The crappy part of that design was the DC jack was mounted directly on the motherboard. At least the p7805u seems to have a separate board.

Now, it could be the main board as well, but I'd have to believe they designed the power input with filtering and protection. Maybe I should say "hope" instead of "believe," though.

So, I think I'm going to pursue this as the first step. Actually, maybe I'll get the thing disassembled and then whip out the multimeter.

I think it's probably cheaper to try the power board first. The magic smoke smell concerns me. If that doesn't do it, I'll track down a brick. On the other hand, it's possible the brick is dead and plugging it in to a good power board will cause that to fry and then I'll have to replace both. First, though, I think I'll test the power board with the old DVM and see where that goes.

Out of curiosity, is there a preferred replacement for the p7805u? Did Gateway ever make a follow up with updated/refreshed hardware? I really like the form-factor and power of my 7805, but maybe it's time to consider an upgrade. Thing is, I bought mine as part of the "oops we put in the wrong LCD" batch when it was on sale at Best Buy...it was a heckuva value!

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it!

 

Update:

Well, I replaced the power board...that wasn't the problem.

I dug around in my parts bin and found a Lite-On branded power supply that puts out 19v/6.8a and has the same connector as the Gateway brick (so, same specs, same connection). I plugged it in to the old laptop it powered it just fine. I plugged the Gateway brick in to the old laptop and it powered it just fine. I plugged the Gateway brick in to the p7805u with the new power board...green light dies instantly. I plugged the Lite-On brick in to the p7805u with the new power board...green light doesn't die, but it starts strobing like mad.

I suspect the main board is dead.

<sigh>

 

My system board died.. Mine made a pop. the power brick led still came on, and the laptop would power up for a sec then shut off. I imagine mine was the internal power supply or whatever though...

But yeah sounds like you're system board is fried... THese things aren't the greatest, now my left speaker is busted and i don't even feel like speaking to the Indians to cover it under warranty...

 

^^Dude that really sucks. Did yours die during game-play too?

Gateway I am disappoint

 

no i was just browsing the internet

 

I am having a similar issue, however the magic smoke was not released when mine failed. As soon as I plug in the power supply brick the led on the brick immediately goes out. This happens when the battery is installed and removed.

 

Did you end up replacing the main board? Any luck?

 

Couldn't find one anywhere online for sale. Couple of parts houses have them listed for $425 or $450, but none in stock. Frankly, $450 is around 25-35% of a new laptop; I don't want to do it, but I'm leaning towards a new system at this point.

 

FYI - I contacted Gateway and they said they will repair it for $199.