[jonjacobik]

I've had two identical service calls today and could not help either laptop user.

In both cases, power was good on the external power supply (on the power cord) but neither indicated AC power and both had batteries to dead to start the computer.

Both users complained they just stopped working.

Is there anything I could do to wake them up.

Failure #1, 15 month old Dell Inspiron 4100

Failure #2, 6 month old Compact Pavillion CM2130

 

[johnwill]

Well, I'd send the 6mo old Compaq back to them for a warranty repair!

On the Dell, I'd start with a call to Dell, perhaps they can give you pointers how to get it running. Does the battery charge if it's left connected? If not, it may have failed. Some laptops won't run without a battery connected, even on AC power.

 

[jonjacobik]

Warrenty repair from Comppaq wasn't the concern, the computer's value is in the data stored on it and my customer needed accedss to his data today and was willing to pay for it.

The Dell appears to have a short on the sytem board. The Green power light on the ps fails when it is connected to the computer - even when the battery, hard drive, pcmcia cards are removed.

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

well im not surprised

this stuff is after all built by asians and japanese and koreans and taiwanese children working for 8 cents an hour, LOL

so i am never surprised when a peice of electronic equiptment burns out like that.

they built it for the lowest cost they could, remember that...
that includes cutting costs on things like solder, and diodes, and resistors, and ic chips. and when you cut costs on things like that, you build JUNK.

i have had to use the cheap solder....
it barely works at all.

you wouldnt expect there to be a difference in the quality of solder?

did you know that there are 2000 generic brands and 200 name brands of ciggarettes? all made by four major companies, and they are all different...

every company makes some junk, but some do it all the time...

~BoB~

 

[Volt-Schwibe]

oh yeah

the whole point of that post was to mention that rechargable devices sometimes will be murdered by a voltage spike on the ac branch you are plugged into. if your machine had recevied a voltage spike over 10% i think it is, your boards charge area would have not been able to tolerate it, and components would have died. in most cases it is a limiter diode or a resistor that is put there for the purpose of giving it's life to save the rest of the machine....

so, you may be able to take it to someone like me and they could test the power area of your board and possibly replace the burned out 50 cent peice.....

or you could take it back, and throw it through their front window, like that old lady did with her tire on that old commercial...

~BoB~

 

[johnwill]

Warrenty repair from Comppaq wasn't the concern, the computer's value is in the data stored on it and my customer needed accedss to his data today and was willing to pay for it.

In a situation like this, I'd just remove the disk, use a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter, and connect the drive to a desktop PC.

 

[Nova]

Can you boot w/ ac power? If so, is the battery charging at all?
Do you have a spare battery to test these units?
Nasty batteries cause a lot of these symptoms as do the power saving features set incorrectly. Users don't do that, do they?
Also have had bad ac units(adapter).

Can you do advanced diags on the Dell? Requires a Dell disk. Some have built in diags but you may be only able to do
ctrl+alt+D at boot which only tests the HDD. See if the user has the disks that came w/ the unit, there will be a resource cd that you can use to run diags.

Myself, I would really like a spare battery to try, even if you replace the sys bd and dont have a good battery, your nowhere.

I have a few of the laptop hdd converters, they work if both drives are of the same FAT. Better if they r same fat And OS.
Otherwise I couldnt get it to work.
Try here http://premiersupport.dell.com/docs/systems/ins4100/solving.htm#1106857

Nova.

 

[jonjacobik]

Follow up . . .

The Dell was repaired with a new system board . . a $700 repair . . The Compaq went back to HP for repair under waranty. The compaq was normally kept charged charged on a cigarette lighter adapter. . . I suspect the problem was created there.

Thanks for you input.

Jon

 

[Nova]

Good deal, wasn't the Dell a warranty unit? No, 15 months unless they got the 3 yr deal.
Ive not done a lot of compaqs, but about 4 zillion Dells n IBM's. THe Dell system bds are a joy to change compared to some of the others.

Later, Nova.