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Dead and Dying computers
jwhouk:
With that many power issues, have you checked your outlets or power strips to see if they're grounded correctly?
Redball:
Safe to assume none are Mac laptops? I've had pretty good success with repair/replacement of parts on Macs.
pwhodges:
Have you tried powering them up with no battery in place? Sometimes a dead battery can prevent them from running even with mains power; though sometimes they won't start up without a battery in place - I've met both scenarios. Either way, a battery that's given out is a pretty likely cause of sudden death.
Carl-E:
--- Quote from: jwhouk on 23 Aug 2012, 18:01 ---With that many power issues, have you checked your outlets or power strips to see if they're grounded correctly?
--- End quote ---
Most of the chargers are two-pronged. Doesn't mean grounding isn't an issue, though... all the grounded outlets in the house were installed myself, and the rest are case-grounded (romex).
--- Quote from: Redball on 23 Aug 2012, 18:21 ---Safe to assume none are Mac laptops? I've had pretty good success with repair/replacement of parts on Macs.
--- End quote ---
Nope, we're talking a Dell, an HP and an old Lenovo. Never really liked Macs, myself. Would love a Linux box (I worked with some NeXT computers in grad school), but never had the patience for it.
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 24 Aug 2012, 00:02 ---Have you tried powering them up with no battery in place? Sometimes a dead battery can prevent them from running even with mains power; though sometimes they won't start up without a battery in place - I've met both scenarios. Either way, a battery that's given out is a pretty likely cause of sudden death.
--- End quote ---
I did with my wife's, and it was pretty clearly the charred remains of the jack that were the problem (a 19 volt charger!). I'll have to check my daughter's again (it's been a while since I looked at it, it's the Dell), and I didn't even think of that on mine (the Lenovo). I'm just a little distressed as to what kind of soldering mistake I've made on my wife's HP. I used a low-wattage iron, but I'm afraid I may have damaged some of the board where it attaches. I really don't have the proper equipment to check continuity, either.
Well, back to it - soon.
jwhouk:
All right, I'm pretty much acclimatized to this new Gateway. By the way: even though Acer bought the company years ago, this is my third product from cow country; my first was a 300S, which was replaced by the GT4010 that just died.
Now, one of the things I'd planned on doing was lifting the old hard drive from the GT's chassis, for possible use as an external drive with my new computer. On the surface, this looked doable, as the hard drive is in its own bay and wasn't fused down to the chassis or anything. However, I noticed a major issue almost immediately: the one screw securing the drive to the bay at the bottom of the chassis is right next to the bottom edge of the motherboard. To get any sort of torque to get the screw/nut out so I could remove the drive from the bay, I'd basically have to remove the mobo.
I think I'm going to be taking the thing into the local computer shop to see if they can get the thing out. And, maybe, see if it's salvageable.
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