HELF

Dec. 30th, 2005 08:02 am
[personal profile] ewt
Purr, my laptop, is sick. It was fine last night, but this morning it won't power on, or even give me a little light to tell me it is plugged in.

The light on the power supply does come on.

When I tilt the computer there is a noise like a screw loose in there, but that may have been there before without my particularly noticing.

Possible causes of this problem:
-we had a brief power surge and fritzed the power supply, so the light comes on but it isn't working right
-the power supply cord or connector has worn out
-the power connector on the computer has worn out
-something Vitally Important has come unscrewed
-the fan died, and something melted
-we had a brief power surge the power supply couldn't deal with, and something melted
-something else I do not understand
-ghosties are in there
-the lions got out of the battery and made a mess
-[livejournal.com profile] lynnyn decided to have a walk around in there for her birthday yesterday, and accidentally stepped on something.

The good news is that I still have the desktop computer, and thanks to the extra-long ethernet cord [livejournal.com profile] sci gave me, I can actually use it on t'intarweb.

The bad news is that the laptop is old, not a standard make (Sager, which I'd never heard of before), I have no spares, I don't even have a multimeter to tell whether the power supply is working right, and I don't really know what the next step is in fixing it, beyond asking you lot for help. [livejournal.com profile] shevek doesn't think he can do with it (see no spares, no tools).

The other bad news is that the aging CRT on the desktop makes my eyes and my brain hurt something fierce. I might see whether I can hook the deaded laptop up as a screen, instead...

Date: 2006-01-01 04:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wintrmute.livejournal.com
90% of the time that fault is due to the power connector in the laptop breaking it's contacts off the board.

I've repaired such a condition twice before, but it's a real pain of an operation, and usually a bit hit and miss. A slightly better solution is to remove the plug from the laptop, glue it onto the outside, and then run wires from the socket there, to the motherboard. At least it doesn't break again, but it's not ugly as hell, and it's still a pain of an operation to perform.

It's possibly best fixed by a professional; although the cost may make it a better move to just buy another old laptop, since you said yours is quite old.

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