I think I fried my laptop, How can I fix it? :(

Well, I have a laptop. The cord on it is slightly frayed at one point, so I put some electrical tape over it until I got a replacement charger for it. It had worked fine many, many times since then. Tonight it just turned off completely when I was in the middle of something when I slightly bumped it (very light bump with my leg, not enough to do any kind of physical damage). It didn't keep working off the battery as if the power was lost, it died instantly. The light for the power supply doesn't light up when I plug it in like it used to, and when I hit the power button it doesn't flash the power light to indicate no battery charge as it used to. It's now a fancy paperweight, and I'm not getting any kind of repsonse out of it.

So, how do I fix it? What parts could have fried like that to where I wouldn't get any kind of response from the computer at all? Please, any and all advice would be GREATLY appreciated! I've had this laptop for a while, and it would be nice to have it for a while to come smile.gif Thanks in advance.

Woody

 

What kind of laptop? You should try to order a replacement cord.

 

So this happened when you were using teh faulty power brick?, right?

Well I think what may have happened is that the wires in the power cable may have crossed causing a short to shut your system off. What you should do, is take the ac power out, remove the main battery and let it discharge itself.
After about an hour of letting it electrically discharge, try booting from the battery or the new power brick. If nothing happens, than that short may have cause something else to break.

When this happened, did you notice if your laptop was emitting a very sharp electrical odor, such as when a capacitor blows?
If your laptop smelled like something fried, than you may be completely out of luck, but if it did not, you should be able to revive it.

Usually the memory is very voltage sensitive, so if the voltage peaks or drops, the memory will act strange and either die or become corrupt, which may be what it happening.

Do you get any beeps from the system on startup?,
or
does nothing happen at all when you press the power button?

K-TRON

 

Yes, this happened with the faulty power cord. I took out the AC power and battery, and it's discharging right now. I didn't notice any burnt electrical smells, but the cord smelled a little bit burnt when I took the tape off the fried part just now.

Nothing happens at all when I press the power button. Normally if it was just my battery going dead the power light would flash if I pressed the power button to indicate the battery is dead, but now nothing at all.

 

Well if nothing happens, and you feel a bit adventurous, I would say that it may be time, to 1) send it in for service if you have warranty coverage,
2) take the system apart and pin point the problem.

Only take the system apart after you have tried powering it up after it has been discharged.

If you decide to take the laptop apart, it would be a good idea to take pictures along the way, so you know how everything fits together.
You should look for any burnt electronics. If their are any burnt electrical components you are out of luck, and would need a new motherboard.
While you have the system apart, it may be a good idea to unplug the bios battery and all power sources, so that the CMOS can be reset, forcing the Bios back to its factory state. That would help clear up any problems which may be related to the Bios.

If you have another laptop, you may want to test the laptop memory, to see if it works. If one memory cell is dead, the system will not turn on. If you find a dead memory card, chances are the memory has a lifetime warranty, so you can send it in for an RMA, and get a new one later

K-TRON

 

Well, I know it's not still under warranty, and besides (no offense) #1 sounds boring

I've taken this thing apart a couple of times, so I'm pretty sure it won't be that hard this time around (knock on wood). Other than obvious burn marks, or things being melted, is there anything I should look for? I could just go buy another memory card and test it out, and return it when I'm done.

If the memory is bad, would that keep it from doing anything though? Like the lights not working for the power being plugged in, or the light flashing when I try to push the power button?

 

If a memory card is dead, teh system will not turn on.
Say you have 2 memory cards. If one is dead, and one works, the system will not turn on cause of that one defective memory card.
If you remove the bad one, the system will start.

So if you have more than one memory card, you can try starting it off of one or the other.
If neither memory card will make the system start, you can either buy a memory card for testing purposes, or you can see if a friend or neighbor has a working laptop you can test your memory in.

The lights are dependent on their coding, so they may not do anything if the system has a problem

K-TRON

 

Thx a lot K-TRON, I'm going to be pulling some RAM out of another one of my laptops (don't know if it works or not ) but I figured I could try that first and then "borrow" a stick of RAM from Bust Bey if that doesn't work.

 

Ok, I just tried turning the system on after letting it sit for almost 3hrs (battery was out the whole time). It didn't do anything I tried both sticks of RAM by themselves one slot at a time. Nothing. So, I'm going to try buying some RAM in the morning, and testing that out. If anyone has any other advice in the meantime I'm open to suggestions Thanks again.

 

Ok, it's more than just the RAM. I bought 2 new sticks today to test it out, and I'm still not getting anything out of it. What else should I try?

 

You need to get a new/working AC (brick) to test. I means there is so many things that might be wrong and the only way to find out is by illimination. Since you know that the wire in you existing AC is broke, then you should start by fixing that (i.e. getting another AC to test your laptop with).

Not 100% sure by your old AC might: 1- wasn't providing enough juice, and hence the battery was not charging. 2- it created a shourt out leading the battery to drain. Either 1 or 2 could explain why your laptop is not turning ON when the battery is plugged. 3- carrying using your faulty AC might have damaged something else inside your laptop such as your motherboard

Get a working AC/brick (not a universal one as those don't always work) and test, and post back the results.

 

I have another brick on it's way, and it should be here Tomorrow So I'm going to begin the troubleshooting a little more in depth. I'll definitely be back on to pick your guys' brains a little more in depth when I start narrowing it down. Thanks again

 

we will try to help as much as we can

 

Well I got my new charger today. The thing is seriously 3ft long!!? I am going to need an extension cord to use it with the outlet next to my bed ( I can touch the wall that the outlet is on while I'm sitting on my bed ) eBay! Anyways..... My RAM, motherboard, and battery seem to be fine. I think my harddrive is crapped out though. When I try starting the comp now it'll load the normal boot screens fine, but when it starts loading the HDD, it freezes and makes all kinds of weird patterns on my screen. I'm going to try to see if I can reinstall my OS on the HDD to see if maybe it just got scrambled or something got erased, and that would be really nice Anyone have any other ideas I can try before getting a new HD? Thanks again everyone!

Woody

 

If the operating system installs and the color pattern still exists, it looks like the lcd ribbon cable has come partially disconnected on the back of the lcd. You will need to take apart the lid in order to get to the back of the lcd. Than you will see a small thin cable, known as a ribbon cable. It may be 1-2 inches wide, and very thin, like 1 mm thick.
You will want to remove this cable, and clean both ends of the connection with a Q-tip with a bit of rubbing alcohol on it.
Than let the alcohol dry and than put the cable back into the screen. Than put a piece of tape over the cable, so that the cable does not get disconnected again.

Good luck man,

K-TRON

 

Well the screen seems to be working fine now. I replaced the new RAM I had installed with the original ones, and it works fine, but now it'll get to the point where it's loading the OS, and then shut off completely. When it shuts off now the power light and charging light flash like strobe lights. I've never seen any lights on my computer do this before, and I have to remove the battery and power cord for a minute to get it to go away. Any ideas?

 

Try to boot without the battery. If it doesn't help, remove one of the two ram modules and try again (with one module at the time). When you try with one module, try it in both slots. If this doesn't help try to boot with removing the wifi pci module.

questions:
Did you get a generic or a universal charger?
Did you try to power your PC using the battery only?

If all this fail try to download a Linux Live CD like Ubuntu, and see if you can use your laptop, and post back.

 

It won't boot at all w/o the battery. The lights will just flash in the same way as when the computer dies. I tried running each RAM stick by itself in each slot, no difference. I'm getting a "battery dead" light flash when I try starting it on just the battery (which it used to do when the battery was dead). I did buy an adapter from eBay, but it's not a universal one, as the specs on it match the original charger, but it is a no-name company. I think I may have just gotten a crappy charger, and I'm going to try buying a new one that says "COMPAQ" or "HP" on it.

It's funny you should mention Ubuntu, as that is what OS I'm running on this laptop, and I've been using the 8.04 disc to test if I was able to boot from disc earlier Great minds must think alike. However, I can't boot into my HDD, a Live CD, or BIOS without it dying and flashing the lights at me.

 

you may want to take the harddrive out of your notebook and connect it to a desktop, either through an external enclosure or direct connection to the motherboard. From their, you should run diagnostics on the drive from a working harddrive. You should check hdtune for smart readings, and you should run the error scanning option, to see if the drive can be fixed.
If the S.M.A.R.T. readings state any errors, it is time to get a new harddrive for your laptop.

K-TRON

 

Ok, the Error Scan came out fine, and all the stuff under "Health Status" says "Ok". Where is the SMART readings? Or are those the "Health Stauts" checks?

 

To scan your entire hardware try the "Ultimate Boot CD". It contain a lot of utilities that check the integrety of your system.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

If your laptop doesn't run without the battery inserted and if the battery is "dead", i think this is the cause of the laptop not too boot further than it is. It seems like your laptop needs to have a working battery.

 

If the battery is the source of the problem, then removing it will allow the PO to boot into Windows/Linux.
The PO has tryied to boot without a battery I believe, and failed.

 

He has tryed removing the battery, and when he did it didn't even power on. So it looks like a healthy battery is needed as it wont boot without a battery.
I had a laptop before that couldn't run without it's battery using only the AC-cord. I believe it must be the same for him?

 

please try it in your laptop and you'll see that the battery is not needed to power a laptop from the AC.

 

I had a laptop before that HAD to have the battery connected to power on.

My current has no prob just running with AC-adaptor.

Anyways, look at his reply before, this is what i'm talking about.