Strange charging issue

FiCtioN75 · 14 Feb 2014 at 07:10

Hi guys. I've a dell laptop, which whilst using last night was running low on battery so it asked me to plug the charger in. I did so, then the blue light on the charger went out and the laptop ran out of steam.
Now when I have the charger plugged into the socket but not into the laptop the blue LED on the charger is on, yet as soon as I plug it into the laptop the light goes off and I can't start my laptop.

Any help would be appreciated,

Many thanks.

beermonster · 14 Feb 2014 at 19:04

Some kind of short, possibly with the dc socket or motherboard.

firewallblocked · 14 Feb 2014 at 23:37

Quite possibly a faulty charger. Had this with my Acer laptop and seen it on other laptops where the light is on when charger is switched on but no power going from charger to laptop.

If the cloverleaf power lead is not pushed fully into the Laptop Adapter it can short out the adapter, I have seen one before spark when it was loose for just a min or so. :eek:

clover leaf power lead is the lead plugged into the wall, this will most likely be fine.

laptop adapter plugs into laptop power jack this is more likely to be faulty.

Genuine power adapters can be bought for not too much cash. £10 or so, if you can buy one that is genuine and looks the same as your current charger not forgetting you must have the same voltage and amps charger. It will say something like

output: 19v 4.62A

As I don't know which Dell laptop you have you can find this info as it's printed on the laptop adapter. Don't presume one Dell laptop charger will be the same as yours.

Your problem of course may not be this but for around £10-£20 (Dell price a lot more!

) or phone a friend :rolleyes:

who has the same charger as you to see if it will charger your laptop.

FiCtioN75 · 17 Feb 2014 at 08:02

Thanks for the replies. It's not the charger in afraid, it charged a different laptop whilst the charger from said laptop still wouldn't boot mine. If it were a short somewhere, how should I go about finding/fixing it? Cheers.

FiCtioN75 · 29 Apr 2014 at 10:42

So the motherboard is shorting somewhere. Rang Dell and they want £300 to fix it. So after paying £500 2 years ago for a new laptop to last me im back to square one with a fairly expensive paper weight. Pretty dissapointed with Dell to be honest. Certainly wont be buying another one.