Presario M2000 power short...

So my girlfriend has an old Presario M2000 with Ubuntu on it (I love that she's a geek), recently it has begun to short out in the power cord area. I purchased a replacement power cord, and we come to find that it is not the power cord, but rather the internal plug bit that shorts out. The internal bit will heat up very very hot, and burn the plug itself if she uses the laptop for more than an hour or so. I did a little research on the matter and I come to find out that that M2000 is actually a modded version of another compaq laptop. Basically what they did was add these little extender bits to make the laptop a bit bigger. So inside there is this little DC-DC extender chip type thing that makes the laptop itself about 2 inches longer. Apparently these parts short out and cause the type of problems we are encountering. Does anyone else know where you can get the part, or perhaps have any ideas how to circumvent this issue? Any help would be appreciated.

 

I'm bumping because I would like an answer...

 

I have seen a couple threads like this in the last 3 months or so and usually what happens is the corner of the motherboard breaks where the part you are talking about connects, thus it shorts out there. The best advice I can give you is to talk to a TV or Computer repair shop and see if they can re-solder it for you. It is possible to solder on a wire extension to prevent it from breaking again, so you can fix the existing plugin but it will require some modifications (but it really depends on how its shorting out). As far as I know you cant just order this part from HP/Compaq but you may be able to find a broken laptop that you can use for parts (try craigslist or ebay).

Other than that you'd have to send it to HP/Compaq for repairs. If you do send it in make sure to backup all data and put windows back on it (the tech's have been known to simply send you back your broken laptop and claim "non-standard OS installed" so they don't do jack, usually they say its an OS problem even though you clearly have a hardware problem). I know, I know, I never said they were smart.

-Reby

 

Are you able to wiggle the ac adapter plug to make the laptop charge/power on?

 

I've shorted three AC adapters so far. Did replacing the power connector board fix your problems. I re-soldered a cold solder joint I found on mine. The joint was on the board from the hot lead of the external supply. I'm waiting for a new AC adapter but considering replacing the power connector board if there is a good reason to. I found no electrical problems with the board using my ohm meter.