Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Alert

Help I think I may have shorted out a laptop..

Aug 7, 2016 7:37PM PDT

Hello Cnet!

So we have a couple of broken laptop chargers and months ago I fixed my gf's laptop charger by stipping the wires and just tying them together (the wire between the converter and cord that plugs into the laptop).

I purchased a sodering iron today to do a different project and figured I would refix this laptop charger that has since broke last time I tied up the wires.

I restripped the wires and tied them up and this time I sodered them together. Success I was getting a gree power light on the a converter. Thinking I had fixed the charger I plugged it into the laptop and the laptop immediately shut off along with the green light on the charger. Now the laptop won't turn back on. The green light is off when the charger is plugged in, but its not on when plugged into the laptop.

I'm at a loss here. I'm thinking i may have fried out the battery or something, hopefully nothing is broke but I'm not sure. If there's a way to upload pictures here I can do that.

Thanks CNET

~Josh

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Risk, reward not worth it.
Aug 7, 2016 7:54PM PDT

Common chargers run 20 bucks on Amazon now. The possible damage done is the motherboard which is far more than the charger. I ran repair shops and we never bothered to repair such a cheap part. The reward is too low, the risk too high.

- Collapse -
you're probably right
Aug 11, 2016 6:12PM PDT

So the laptop turned on the next day. Everything seemed to be fine but the motherboards time was off and it wouldn't connect to google because of it. I simply changed the time and everything was fine.

The next day the time messed up again with the correct time set. I was puzzled because the time was correct, but it still wouldn't connect because the time was off. So what I did was just update the the windows time server manually and it worked.

So far I've had no other problems with the laptop and I was able to properly rehab the charger, turns out there were a couple wires I didn't include in the sodering process.

I plan on eventually doing a BIOS update as well as a fresh windows install on my gf's laptop and hopefully that gets rid of the timing issue.

Thanks for your comment.!

- Collapse -
If you use WiFi, the time must be correct.
Aug 11, 2016 6:20PM PDT

Why is on the web. But something to remember as you'll see this happen on Smart TVs and more.

- Collapse -
To post pics, use dropbox or similar.
Aug 11, 2016 6:21PM PDT

Dafydd.