Export thread

Is there any obvious way to diagnose this problem: my laptop spontaneously stopped charging. Like, it's plugged in like always but now its just running off battery power. The little blue light on the adapter unit on the power cord is on, but no electricity is getting to laptop. There's no obvious problem with the cord. The way I see it, it could be damned near anything. I was sitting on my bed, browsing the internet, when the little power plug icon disappeared. I checked the cable and the connection to the adapter bit was loose however plugging it back in did nothing to help the problem. I've tried unplugging the cord until the blue light on the adapter went dark, that did nothing. I tested it in a different room to make sure its not the outlet. The way I see it, it could easily be any part of the laptop's power set up (cord, battery, plug inside the laptop, etc) and I don't really have the money laying around just to have it looked at (much less fixed). Can anyone point me in a good direction?

Additional Info:

• I almost never take my computer off the charger. I never take it anywhere, so I just leave it plugged in. Mostly because:
• It drinks power like a rock star drinks whiskey. In the time it has taken me to type this out, it has dropped 7% - on power saver mode, my USB mouse unplugged, screen at the absolute dimmest level.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Remove the battery, plug directly into the wall. Does it work?

Yep. That'll tell you if it's just a signaling issue or if the power really isn't getting from the charger into the laptop.

--Patrick

I've had to open them up and resolder the power jack before. It was a really common problem on Compaqs for a while there. The jack gets flexed back and forth and finally breaks loose.

That was what killed 2 previous laptops of mine.... I have a nasty habit of being rough on my electronics *sheepish grin*

On a slightly related note... any way to trickle-charge a battery to give it enough juice to recover files from a dead laptop, without having the laptop itself plugged in?

Officer_Charon said:

That was what killed 2 previous laptops of mine.... I have a nasty habit of being rough on my electronics *sheepish grin*

On a slightly related note... any way to trickle-charge a battery to give it enough juice to recover files from a dead laptop, without having the laptop itself plugged in?

Click to expand...

It'd be easier to just remove the hard drive and copy the files to a PC or new laptop.

I don't think I'll ever buy an HP or Compaq laptop again after their issues with the power jack. I had to resolder one of mine, but it was a pain in the ass. I had a few other people ask if I'd do it to their HP laptops, but it's just not worth it.

Thanks everyone! I'd been unable to log in (READ: too lazy to reset my forgotten password) while my laptop was inoperative. It did, in fact, turn out to be a short "between the brick and the laptop", as several computer savvy folk here and elsewhere suggested. New charger fixes the problem, though the battery does also need replacing.