Is this laptop dead?

A

antirush

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 1, 2004
Messages
344
My friend had the misfortune of plugging a power supply not meant for his Dell Inspiron 5100 into it and now seems to have a serious problem. The laptop will not post, it doesn't do much other than flash some lights now.

I'm afraid that he killed the motherboard or something equally fatal, however I thought I would ask here to see if perhaps dell has some sort of safeguard against this sort of thing. The bad power supply he used had an output of 5VAC 2000mA while the correct dell has an output of 20v ~~~ 4500mA.

So, is he screwed? If not what needs to be done (replaced) to fix it?
 
You ran 20V through a 5V circuit? Yeah, that's a pretty safe bet that it's shot. Motherboard, power circuitry, possibly battery. All probably dead by now.
 
Unless my basic electronics knowledge is completely failing me, you read that wrong. I think you have the voltages switched around.
 
Oh, whoops! It should still be fine, not enough volts or amps to do any damage.
 
Sounds like he killed it. Pull the battery and try to boot it off just the dell ac adapter.
 
Sounds like a motherboard to me. Unlike the 8000-8200 series Laptops, none of Dell's newer models have a DC power Daughtercard. Alot of times a no POST on those models can be fixed by buying a new DC Power Board ($25 off eBay.) Try booting it off the Proper AC Adapter without the battery, if it doesn't work the motherboard is toast.
 
He told me that he already tried that, and no luck. Would the motherboard be the first thing to go?
 
yep, putting the WRONG AC Adapter on the machine would fry the motherboard first thing, it might even take other components with it.
 
Yea the motherboard would be one of the first things to go as the ac adapter plugs directly into it as well as everything elce on the unit.
 
Obviously something went horribly awry here, but if the voltages/amperages of the two adapters are as your friend told you, I don't see how this could've fried anything. The wrong adapter puts out lower voltage at lower amps, right? If the thing was just underpowered, it wouldn't turn on....

Of course, I'm likely making a bad assumption here: You said the output of the non-Dell adapter was AC and I'm assuming it is really DC because I don't know what the heck would run off a step-down transformer that put out alternating current.

If the bad adapter really was AC, then, I think we have our answer. DC circuits like the dead notebook REALLY don't like alternating current. Neither did my finger the other day, but that's another story....
 
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