Member Avatar for Bongo2k

(this isnt the problem, i just wanted to write a nice story. The problem will come later:))

Being a college student i dont often come home, i came home this weekend to find the aformentioned Laptop lying around. From what my old man said the owner of it said she smelt burning and then the laptop stopped working. He mentioned a power surge. The details are a bit thin because i didnt really get to talk to the owner of said laptop. The only thing i found out was that it was bought from canada 3 years ago(Im in England).

The power supply is working fine, supplying a healthly 18.5volts as it says it should. No LEDs will light up when the power supply is plugged in, and the contacts are too hard to reach to test the battery. Ive also tried the supply in the laptop without the battery in.

The reason i am posting this is because it is in really good condition(no dead pixes, no scratches, no marks or spillages) and i would hate to chuck it simply because the problem isnt apparent at the moment. I myself own plenty of desktop machines but simply dont have the funds to get a modern Laptop so fixing this would make me more happy than anything :).

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Member Avatar for Bongo2k

EDIT: One thing i forgot to add, as a side effect of the power problem the hard disk has died, i've plugged it into a external 2.5" hdd caddy and windows detects the disk(the USB plug in sound plays) but the disk isnt accesable, it is also not acessible in the computer management section, the MMC just hangs.

Update1: Tested the power connecter, theres a steady 18v going through that too, very odd...

Ive managed to get the beast apart, there seems to be no visual burn marks or anything. The only thing that i can see/hear that is out of the ordinary is that somewhere near the power plug something is emitting a high pitched sound, ive encountered this before with my PDA...any ideas?

Member Avatar for jbennet

if it managed to do enough damage to render the hard disk inoperable then i think its beyond repair

Member Avatar for editorizer

(this isnt the problem, i just wanted to write a nice story. The problem will come later:))

Being a college student i dont often come home, i came home this weekend to find the aformentioned Laptop lying around. From what my old man said the owner of it said she smelt burning and then the laptop stopped working. He mentioned a power surge. The details are a bit thin because i didnt really get to talk to the owner of said laptop. The only thing i found out was that it was bought from canada 3 years ago(Im in England).

The power supply is working fine, supplying a healthly 18.5volts as it says it should. No LEDs will light up when the power supply is plugged in, and the contacts are too hard to reach to test the battery. Ive also tried the supply in the laptop without the battery in.

The reason i am posting this is because it is in really good condition(no dead pixes, no scratches, no marks or spillages) and i would hate to chuck it simply because the problem isnt apparent at the moment. I myself own plenty of desktop machines but simply dont have the funds to get a modern Laptop so fixing this would make me more happy than anything :).

I have an HP ZE4400 that has a burned chip -at PO15 that may be your problem too. I can't ID the chip - Can you please read the numbers of that chip off your motherboard. I will be greatly appreciative. The board is the same as the Compaq 2100.

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