Help? My charger killed two laptops!

[Naio]

This is the laptop charger. I have two laptops that use the same charger.

I watched a movie on one laptop on battery, then plugged it in and went to sleep. Got up in the morning and the laptop wouldn't boot. It never ocurred to me that the charger was the problem -- the laptop is old and has been dropped a few times :). I pulled out the backup laptop, used it, set it on the charger and went out for the day. Returned home, and second laptop is dead.

Pulled out my spare charger. The backup laptop will run on the spare charger, but its battery will not charge. The primary computer still will not boot.

Do you folks have any idea what is going on here? Is there anything I can do to fix the battery on the backup computer, or do I just need to order a new one?

Any ideas about how I might be able to save the primary computer, the one that won't boot at all? Its running lights come on but the screen does not, and I do not hear the hard drive spin up. The screen and the wiring that goes to it are relatively new, replaced 6 months ago, so I doubt that is the problem.

(The backup computer frankly sucks. It is terribly underpowered and not upgradeable. Not a daily driver.)

[westend]

This has worked for me for non-functioning laptops: Check charging brick for correct output (should be around 19VDC). Remove battery from laptop. There are a row of contacts on both the battery and the laptop. Apply Caig Deoxit D5 to both sets of pins and allow to work for 30 minutes. Wipe up excess fluid and reinsert battery a few times into the laptop. The last will insure that any oxidation or dirt is scrubbed off the contacts. Plug in the charging brick.

[wa8yxm]

Laptops today usually are two computers in one package.. ONE computer is in the battery pack,, It is a very small single purpose type of computer but it is still a computer..It monitors the state of charge on the battery and reports it to the laptop.it also controls battery charging.

IF one cell goes bad.. The battery computer may make strange things happen.

As for the one that will not boot... I have something you can try.

Remove power cord..Remove battery..SIT on the power button (hold it down for like 3 minutes)

Now restore battery and power cord Try again..

May or may not work.. IF it does Remember the process.. If it does not..Your FREE is hearby cheerfully refunded.

(All my advice comes with a 100% money back guarantee.. Since it is FREE I will cheerfully refund you FREE,, Even if it works)

[Gene_Ginny]

FWIW: The ASUS 1015PEM17U uses a 19 volt charger which is in tha ballpark with most laptops, that I know of. My HP laptop charger is 18.5 volts and a higher current rating than the 10.1 inch ASUS netbook needs. Nothing unusual about the charger.

Seems like the first steps would be to measure the charger output and measure the battery voltage to see if it is close to what it should be. The 6 cell battery should be about 10.8 volts when charged.

The comment by Charlie D about the external drive is worth noting.

[Charlie_D_]

Got a portable hard drive plugged into a USB? One of my lap top suddenly went blank and would not boot. Tried a hard start, removed battery and charger and then held the on/off button down, F8, etc.. Nothing worked until I removed the portable hard drive. It then, and has continued to boot normally.

What ever you find. Please keep us posted.

[MNtundraRet]

Did the battery LED on each laptop glow orange when each laptop was charged? I hope you powered the laptop off before charging (not just put in sleep mode by closing top.

I do not understand why you did not use the correct adapter that came with each laptop. The basic problem is while the adapter may seem to work the first time you tried it, over time the components on the circuit boards would degrade and prematurely fail. The same problem can come from the wrong type of inverter being used.

When dry-camping I run the laptop on it's battery, and only recharge when running the MH's generator and having the adapter plugged into 120v,ac, with the computer turned off and allowed to fully recharge.

The old Kindle Fire, and new Kindle Fire 9.5HD are charged in the same fashion.

[Naio]

This is shore power at my S & B. And I was running it through a surge protector. Other computers were plugged in and they are all fine.

[MrWizard]

Personally I would suspect high voltage on shore power to have been the problem
My laptop and tv etc...are always use inverter power, even when shore power is available
Shore charges batteries, inverter powers electronics

[Naio]

Both incidents were when plugged into shore power.

I did run the suspected-killer charger on MSW inverter once, about a month ago. The inverter did not like it. That charger has been in daily use on shore power since, and fine until yesterday.

@YC1: Both chargers have a little 'click' when the plug goes in, so they stay plugged in pretty well, I am very careful not to put stress on the plugs, having had a problem once with a previous laptop.

The other laptop is an Asus 1025C.

[YC_1]

Two bad batteries and probably bad chargers too. The connectors on the ends of the charger get beaten. I wrap some Velcro around my cord a couple of inches from where it plugs in and then the other piece of Velcro on the laptop. This keeps the strain off the plug.

Things like this creep up on you. Intermittent connections allow old batteries to die and then your charger is just not up to running the laptop stand alone.

There are some great battery and charger buys online.

If you are a bit techy measure the voltage on the end of the charger plug. This won't give you a true picture because of a no load situation.

[MNtundraRet]

The adapter that plugs into the 120v,ac, outlet only converts the voltage form 120v, ac, to the correct dc voltage required for each laptop.

Not all laptops use the same voltage!

The battery-charger is built into the laptop. You most likely fried the charger and shorted the battery in one of the laptops.

The "Battery" LED on the front of the panel would be "unlit" if not plugged in. The LED would be "reddish-orange" if plugged in and charging taking place. The LED would change to "green" when the battery reaches at least 95%soc. On newer larger Asus laptops the "Battery" LED will flash "orange/green" if the battery capacity has dropped considerably from new.

I have the Asus i7 17.5 inch gamming computer.

You never explained how you were able to recharge the laptops.

Plugged into shore-power? Plugged into a generator? Plugged into an inverter connected to RV battery-bank? What type of inverter?

Safest way to recharge a laptop is to have the unit turned off while charging from any source other than a correctly wired shore-power. This way the computer circuitry is out of the loop when charging. Only the charging circuit and battery are exposed the possible under or over-voltage from bad current of voltage.

[VintageRacer]

Is the power adaptor plugged into an inverter for it's power? MSW inverters are known to damage chargers.

Brian

[strollin]

If the power adapter has been working for both netbooks for as long as you say, it's very doubtful that it suddenly killed both of them.

[Naio]

Escargot wrote:
Try booting the laptop, plugged in, with the battery removed.

Sadly, this did not work either.

strollin wrote:
Are you sure the power adapter is the right one for both laptops?

Pretty darn sure. The specs have worn off the chargers, but when they were new I checked carefully, and since then (several years) both computers have shared chargers contentedly.

Gene&Ginny wrote:
Laptop model numbers would help as well as the model numbers of the chargers. Are they both 18 volts DC?

They are ASUS netbooks. The primary is 1015PEM17U. I will see if I can get a model number off the other one in daylight. This stuff wears off.

SteveB wrote:
Did you check the output of the charger?

I can try. I will also try to see if it is stable, or varying. I don't know if it will HAVE any output if it is not plugged into a computer.

It could be coincidence that they both stopped at relatively the same time.

Could be. But my friend Bill Occam says he doesn't think so :).

Does the first computer show a boot screen or is it always blank? If black it could be the motherboard. If there is any indication of life it could be a bad HDD.

No boot screen, just some blinky lights on the case. No HDD or fan sound.

In that case you could try to boot with a Linux live cd. The tough part is getting one if you dont have a third computer.

I do have a third computer, but I have not used its CD drive in many years :). And the netbook would need an external CD drive -- which I have, and AFAIK it works too, but it's another variable. Do you think it's worth a try with no boot screen?

[strollin]

Are you sure the power adapter is the right one for both laptops? The critical specification is the voltage, the voltage that the power adapter provides should match the required voltage of the laptop exactly. The amperage of the power adapter should be the same or greater than that required by the laptop.

If the voltage of the power adapter is too high, it is possible to damage the laptop.