Old laptop fried by incorrect power adapter

[Paul Saulnier]

I have a ten year old laptop, and the power adapter always made annoying sputtering noises when operating the computer. So I searched around the house for another adapter that would fit that was close to correct with the voltages. This is very stupid, I know. I plugged it in, and started the computer. It worked great. Then I went to restart and while it was restarting, the screen turned yellow and flickered, and then the computer shut off.

When I would try to start it up, the power lights would blink for a fraction of a second, then go out. When I try again right after, the same thing happens, just the lights don't stay on as long. A bit of a flicker noise can also be heard from the PC speaker. This is what it's doing now when I try the correct adapter.

Now, if we ignore the fact that I was dumb enough to try this, do you have any ideas what might be wrong? I don't need this computer for anything anymore, but I'd like to have it working if I could.

 

[Exo]

well, anything could be wrong... probabely even multiple things if it was fed a incorrect power supply...

I wouldn't put much hope in repairing it, computer's are fairly complex, specially laptops (even old ones).
chanses are that even if you would find the defective part you wouldn't be able to get a replacement

 

[tansis]

I think your on a losing streak,
my five year old Dell laptop cooked itself when the
cooling fan stopped working, the quote for repair
(assuming the HD could be saved) was over twice
what I had paid for the machine

 

[Paul Saulnier]

I'd like to find which part is malfunctioning. If it's something as simple as a capacitor or something, I could probably find a replacement.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I'd like to find which part is malfunctioning. If it's something as simple as a capacitor or something, I could probably find a replacement.

I think your chances are incredibly slim!, sensitive large IC's are more likely to have been damaged by connecting the wrong supply.

 

[Klaus]

You could also look at it this way: Laptops are designed to be powered from a battery. When you plug in an AC adaptor you are most likely just charging the internal battery which in turn powers the computer.

Batteries act like a huge capacitor and can absorb *some* abuse.
However, if the battery too is 10 years old it may have been close to its expiry date and no longer able to power the computer.
See if you can find another battery (and good luck in your search!) and check if that is the problem.
These batteries have a complex charging and power management arrangement, its also likely you damaged that.
I would think the processor being last on the list of things going faulty if it had lasted that long and did not overheat for some reason.

PS. I had taken a busted laptop apart recently, just out of curiosity. Its not too hard to get it apart but putting it back together again is an entirely different task. Suffice to say, you are unlikely to succeed with fixing anything inside these machines :wink:
Klaus

 

[Paul Saulnier]

I have never had a battery and always powered it using an adapter. The original adapter still works perfectly, it just makes nasty noises as it always has.

Any ideas of effective usage for the remains of the laptop?

 

[Exo]

Well, if you're in to electronics, you could take it apart and see what's inside. Lot's of nice SMD devices inside laptops to use...

If you're not then there aint much to do with it

 

[grrr_arrghh]

well if your gonna chuck it, just think for a mo.

theres plenty of sockets on the back, theres a hard drive, probably a floppy drive, and a cd-rom drive - all of which are probably in reasonable working order. If they're not, you were gonna chuck it anyway, so you havn't lost anything

There are lots of useful bits that you can salvage, before you even start looking at the circuit boards.

Tim