My NP5793 Exploded

Hello all! I am mostly a lurker on these boards and being one I ended up buying an NP5793 for my new laptop because it is a great machine! However, mine did blow up today. I was just playing a game (World of Warcraft) and the machine powered off. I then heard an odd beeping noise which ended up being from my AC adapter down in my desk. I then smelled melting/burning plastic and much to my dismay...the NP5793 would not power on anymore. I tried everything I could but...I think it's just fried. I have a Zalman NC2000 cooler and I was playing with the fans on Fn+1 Full Blast! So I know it did not overheat...I have not overclocked it in any way either.

I called technical support but Sager won't be open to help with my RMA until Monday. Has anyone had any experiences like this before with a Sager? Is the RMA process fast and painless or am I in for some more fun? (Coincidentally my other laptop just broke this week as well!) From what I described can anyone tell me if I was doing anything wrong? I plug it into a power strip...the outlets in my house aren't grounded though so I just use an adapter to plug in the power strip. I'd just really like to know what went wrong so when I get this fixed I can prevent it from happening again if possible!

Thank you all

UPDATE: All problems resolved within 1 week and 1 day. Great RMA process. Thanks PNB and Sager. =)

 

The AC adapter failed and melted down. There must have been a short in the circuit.

Any cool videos?

 

Probably just a defective power supply. Ship it off to Sager, it should still be under warranty, you'll be fine.

I don't have a Sager yet, (still need to earn a little more money,) but I haven't heard anything negative about Sager's customer service.

 

Don't worry they will fix it.

 

Sager will set up the RMA right away on Monday and will cover 3 Day Shipping both ways as long as your within your warranty period. PowerNotebooks/Sager will get the issue resolved for you.

 

Could just be the power-supply fried (sounds like at least that) - and perhaps not the computer itself. Hopefully that's all that happened and you just need a new power supply.

Whatever the case, PowerNotebooks will take care of it for you under your warranty.

You should definately use a surge-surpressor, especially since you have ungrounded plugs. One thing you can do as well is to replace an ungrounded (2-prong) outlet with a GFI outlet. That way, any shorts will pop the GFI circuit and not get passed on to your power supply or computer.

 

I recommend to always plug into a good surge protector (that actually has a warranty to cover damaged equipment), not a cheap $1 power strip.

But I like using UPS's (Uninterrupted Power Supplies), they are nice for constant and controlled power flow.

 

haha Gophn just reminded me!! I used to use a cheap powerstrip during the first year of college, like those $5/ea from dollar-store. everytime I plug stuffs in, sparks came out.

 

While we're here, can anyone recommend a good surge protector for a notebook?

 

Thank you all for the replies! I forgot to mention though, the laptop won't even power on with the battery now. The AC adapter seems to work fine when I plug it into power. It lights up like normal, but then begins the beeps again when I plug it into the laptop. Does that mean maybe the PSU inside the laptop is what fried? I don't really know anything about electricity...would installing a GFI circuit take an electrician? Because my uncle is one...maybe he could help me. And my Power Strip is from Cyber Power...it is black and has a little light on it that says "Surge" next to it. Is that adequate protection or should I invest in a UPS...uninterruptable power supply?

Thankfully my Zalman NC2000 seems to work still! Thank you Justin for your encouragement. I was fairly bummed out but I feel a little better about the situation now.

And no...no cool videos sorry! It was just sort of a...blank screen...beep beep beep...funny smell! Then that was all.

 

if you can't power up with battery, it means the circuits could be damaged already. I suggest you send everything in to sager just to be safe.

 

Any with a known brand and a warranty for the equipment that you connect to the plugs.
- Belkin
- APC
- Kensington
etc...

 

make sure you take out the battery be4 anymore testing, if it were me i wouldn't risk the system turning on and suddenly my battery started smeelinng like funny lithium.

 

I wouldnt even plug the battery or AC at all after that. Risk of fire and fireworks.

Alkaline based fires are hard to put out. Dont try put it out with water

 

@flipfire

class d fires are a real pain, and extremely dangerous. you should've seen the safety lectures they drilled us with at my co-op job. im never workin around combustible metals again lol.

 

I had a sodium fire several years ago, required 2 fire extinguishers to put out. We were very lucky...

 

Uh, don't mess around with it any more - you already know something's gone kerbluie, do you really want to knowingly take the risk of blowing up the rest? If the A/C adapter begins beeping whenever a load is put on it - I've never heard of one doing that, but I suppose it's a new warning mechanism - there is almost certainly a defect in the A/C adapter unless the load applied is simply drawing waaaaay to much current for the adapter to handle - the only thing I can think of that would do that in the case of a laptop would be some sort of short-circuit that's grounding some part of the circuitry back into the earth, which is a very unlikely situation.

In terms of not getting anything on battery - the A/C adapter probably KO'd the battery as well, so I wouldn't expect it to be providing any power.

How long before this had the A/C adapter been either making strange noises, or getting very, very hot - i.e., at least hot enough that you could not comfortably wrap your hand around it?

 

Once I short circuited my AC adapter (don't ask me how ) and it started to beep for 5 secs then it turned off.

So I guess in your case, there is a fault on the laptops motherboard that short circuits the AC adapter when it's plugged in...

 

RMA the booby trap and get it fixed, this is nothing to joke about.
There's quite a lot of Amps there, enough to kill an elephant.

 

I suggest you leave the machine alone, get an RMA, then ship it promptly to Sager for repairs.

 

They pay 3 days shipping to and from and it usually takes 2-3 days to fix the problem. So you should have yours back in 2 weeks at the most.

 

2 weeks really? Yikes...I don't know if I can be without my computer for that long...

To answer your question Shyster, the adapter wasn't making any noise until RIGHT when it happened. And it also was never too hot to touch. Very warm...I thought that was normal with this laptop though. It's quite powerful after all.

I'll be getting a UPS I suppose. We used to have one for our Desktop actually so maybe it is still around here somewhere...

But anyway yes, I plan on calling again tomorrow and setting up the RMA. I wonder if they'll replace my AC adapter. I've seen that some NP5793's came with AC adapters that had little fans in them! After this happening to me I'd like my AC adapter to have a little fan in it!

 

Its a mini vent/fan. Remember they operate during business days. So shipping is 6 business days already, 8 days total. + repair time which is another 2-3 days which is about 11 days. In your RMA description of the problem tell them that you think the AC adapter may be the source of th eproblem, then they will ask you to send it in because normally they tell you in the instructions to not send the Ac Adapater, so request a new one when you send it in.

 

Yolondo - did you say your brother or uncle or something is an electrician? If so, have him rewire that outlet and ground it. I suggested throwing a GFI in the ungrounded outlet's place before, but if you have an electrician, it's even better to have him throw a ground wire down to a water pipe or something, and give you a proper outlet. Then get a solid surge-protector - preferably with a UPS built in to regulate power. Then you should be good to go from the power grid.

 

APC

www.apc.com

Always use them. Never failed me.

Think they have some miniature ones made just for notebooks.

 

Thank you all again for your help/comments. My NP5793 is back and properly functioning! They emailed me and told me it was the GPU that failed. I figured it would still power on without the GPU...perhaps on integrated graphics (Does NP5793 have integrated?) but I suppose not. Anyway, overall it took...1 week and 1 day. It broke Saturday...shipped it out on that Monday, then got it back today, Tuesday.

The new GPU runs a little cooler too! 1 or 2 degrees C...I think they might have cleaned up the thermal paste or something. They even fixed the tiny bit of flex that my NP5793 chasis had! (I wrote them a little note in the package to see if they could tighten in XD)

And Deathwinger, I got an APC product. I got the UPS from them. The "Battery Backup ES Series". It has 8 power outlets, battery backup and surge protection! I have it plugged into an outlet in my kitchen that is one of those GFI outlets with the red & black buttons on it. I hope it is grounded. Anyway...it seems better than the outlets in my room.

As a side note...my external hard drive fried last night, the exact same way my laptop did. It's AC adapter flashes & beeps now and it doesn't work. >.< I'm really hoping this APC UPS fixes my problems!

 

Glad to hear your system is back up and running.

Your UPS should help prevent most to all power surge issues... so I would not worry about that anymore.

I would now ask you to focus on your notebook's temps... which would indicate clogged vents/fans... they should be cleaned out regularly (at least once every two months) with compressed air focusing on the vents.

 

Indeed Gophn. I have a Zalman NC2000 and I've already cleaned the vents once...even though I've only had the laptop probably less than...a month total. Sager mentioned in a reply to my email asking how I could prevent this again to keep the notebook cool, make sure the vents aren't blocked, etc.

I've taken the necessary precautions...only time will tell now! Thanks all.

 

Okay a small problem has crept up...

My GPU clocks seem to be staying at the power-saving low clocks while I try to play a game (Bioschock). But they do clock normally in other games. The drivers/BIOS/VBIOS/everything is the same as before I sent it in for repairs, and back then Bioshock worked fine.

Could this be something to do with the Power Mizer that I hear about? Or maybe it's a priority problem since it isn't downclocking with other games?

 

Problem resolved, nevermind. It clocked up the next time I played it. Dunno what was wrong...perhaps I was on battery and didn't realize it.

Thanks again everyone!