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Okay, this seasoned computer wrangler is about to give up... I was looking for a blown fuse but no-joy.
Pammie undocked the CD-ROM while running W2K. It froze up. Unplugged and replugged power and batts to do a restart but now the laptop is totally dead- no lights, spin-up, sounds, flicker. Power button does not cause anything to happen. The power brick light is on and it gives 17V. Replaced the battery with a fresh one but no help. I removed the HDD, CD, Batt, and keyboard and unplugged the CMOS batt for 30 mins. Reassembled but still dead. I saw that there is charging voltage at the CMOS battery when the external power is plugged in but as soon as the laptop power button is pressed, this voltage drops to 2.0V. This happens whether or not any peripherals are plugged in such as the CMOS batt itself, keyboard, HDD and/or the system battery. I was first looking for a board mounted fuse but when I saw the the external supply shut down when the power button is pressed, it looked like over-current detection was shutting in the external power. Power on the board is restored when the external plug is removed and replugged but the system is still totally unresponsive and the system battery does not charge.

Thanks for any help on this. -DJ

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by mjdodd
Member Avatar for mjdodd

cant give a lot of help but sounds like you are on the right lines. I had an HP compaq with same fault (but different cause) and hte charging circuit on hte motherboard of the computer was blown. I suspect you may have both problems there and in the charger. Can you measure the charger voltage when it is 'running' the laptop. It should not drop appreciably. It is also true as I found out that these charges are very machine specific and if anything does go wrong they tend to cut ouot. In my case a new stronger non machine specific at least enables me to run the laptop on mains but there is no way I can charge the battery other thna changing the motherboard. Might be worth trying a generic larger charger and see if it works.
M

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