laptop problem, does not turn on (gateway)

So I have a two year old gateway laptop and recently in class, I found out that it would no longer start up from sleep mode. At first I thought I had ran out of battery since I might have forgotten to charge it the night before, but when I got back to my room and plugged it in, it still wouldn't start up. I tried all the stuff with taking out the battery and just running it from the adapter but nothing worked.

When I hold the power button down, the status lights would come up for a split second and then turn off. I shook the laptop and found out that something was loose inside the laptop so I opened up the back and saw a screw that had fallen out on the motherboard. Since the laptop does not really start at all I'm guessing the motherboard got fried? (could a screw really short out something on the mobo and kill it?) When I tried turning it on with the back open, I saw that the fan would start spinning and stop right away just like the status lights would go on and then go out.

I took it into bestbuy and they told me to call up gateway. When I called gateway, they told me to get it diagnosed first so I feel like I was getting put in a cycle...

So does anyone have any suggestions for what I can do?

Thanks!

 

Yes, that is quite possible...

If there is any piece of loose conductive object in the case of your laptop, never ever plug it into AC or insert the battery.


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It could also be your power adapter just isn't up to it anymore. When you plug it in does the power light on the laptop show the addapter is there?

These bricks unfortunately are usually of a lower quality and tend to die out. If you have a buddy with a compatible addapter I'd try that first.

 

I tried using someone else's power brick who had a similar model and it did not work. I measured my brick's voltage and it was 19V as it should be according to the label on the brick. I'm assuming this voltage is simply just the voltage across the terminals without a load on the adapter.