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Laptop Power supply

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:30 am
by Chris Corbyn
My Dell laptop won't run off mains power any more. It's been heading this way for a while. It started switching to battery power even when the mains was plugged in because the connection has gotten really sensitive and flaky.

Now it just won't charge at all :( I believe this is a common issue but before I open my laptop up and go at it with a soldering iron does anyone know how easy the repair job will be for a DIY disaster like me? :)

/Laptop is out of warranty so I don't wanna let dell charge me ££££++++ to do it

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:33 am
by feyd
Have you made sure the battery or other parts haven't had recalls? Dell has a huge recall on batteries that's been going on for quite some time now..

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:37 am
by Chris Corbyn
feyd wrote:Have you made sure the battery or other parts haven't had recalls? Dell has a huge recall on batteries that's been going on for quite some time now..
I wasn't aware of this :oops: I don't think it's the battery because wiggling the power supply around used to help which suggests it's just a loose connection on the port.... I'll check that out though :)

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:42 am
by feyd
hmm yes..

I seem to remember seeing them having a modular power linkage PCB.. so you may luck out and be able to order a replacement interconnect (hopefully that's the part busted, as they are often fairly cheap)

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 5:02 am
by pilau
I hope it's not conected directly to the board, or you may have difficulty replacing it without damaging your board. If it's with wires it's not much of a problem, but extracting a componoent out of a circuit board is not fun to do.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:55 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Thanks guys.... I've been out all day today and I'm off to bed now but I shall take a look at this tomorrow. If I can get a replacement that's be brilliant... Maplin or somewhere probably stock stuff like that :)

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 3:16 am
by php3ch0
HI everyone.

I had a dell with the same problem. It only costs about £30 for a new power lead. well worth not taking the risk at blowing me or my laptop up.

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:16 am
by Chris Corbyn
OK I think I've decided well and truly I need a new laptop :( Actually... I'm better building a desktop.

Not only do I have a dodgey battery/power supply... the hard disk has completely gone now! All it does is clicks and clunks.. tried freezing it, tried reading it over usb on Red Hat, tried throwing it at the table :P Sad thing is I'm hopeless at having a backup routine for my personal computer stuff so I've lost a lot of development work :(

Hehe... I'm currently installing Ubuntu on the machine though, to get me by for a few days :P Just using a USB 3.5" external hard drive... it'll be interesting to see how slow this runs until I can afford to buy a new drive a week today :P

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:07 am
by phpScott
Don't jinx my laptop from Tiny has it has just gone out of warranty, not like they exist any more to fix it, and I couldn't even afford one of those cheapos from Tesco's.