Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

[Denmo]

I wish bad things would happen to me, and not her.

The outlet for her power cable broke. A tiny piece of plastic got chipped off from the inside, and now the cable won't plug in correctly to supply power to her laptop. Her battery life is terribly short as it is, like 30 minutes. Unless she can get it glued back in place by a professional, she's got a $2000 brick on her hands, and will have to buy a new one before school's out. All of her vital school work is on that hard drive.

Her warranty ran out in 2007.

This cancels all the plans we made for Spring Break. I'm considering selling a few things just to help her out...

This sucks.

[peachy]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

power cable breaks
obvious moon logic is to buy a new laptop.

power cable breaks
obvious earth logic is to get a new power cable.

[Denmo]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

Read what I said again.

[JPS]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

What kind of laptop is it?

[DK]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

That sucks. However the good news is you could probably open the thing up and get to that piece easily enough without even having to come close to any real important components.

[Valkysas]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

can't you just hold it in place and then secure it with electrical tape?

[peachy]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

moon logic

tbh i would find it a tad absurd if getting the power supply fixed on a laptop was bank breaking.

[Denmo]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

can't you just hold it in place and then secure it with electrical tape?

We tried holding it up to it, jiggling it around to a correct position, and everything. It doesn't register as being plugged in at all.

However the good news is you could probably open the thing up and get to that piece easily enough without even having to come close to any real important components.

It's hard to describe the problem. The piece that broke is inside the socket that the cable plugs into. Since it broke, the socket won't keep the cable in place and in contact with metal that supplies power to the laptop. It's a really ****ty outlet design, if you ask me.

Usually on laptops, the only way to replace a small part like that is to replace the whole motherboard. Kirin doesn't want to spend $700 to replace the motherboard on an already 3 year old comp.

We're taking it to a technician tomorrow in the slim hopes he can fix it.

[The_Real_Crunk]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

It sounds easy to fix to me. Id have to see it though. Any way to take some up close pictures?

[JLaCroix]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

All my local computer stores advertise that they will fix ANY laptop power cord outlet for $60. It CAN be done, you just have to find the right place.

As far as the power outlet being on the motherboard I find that very hard to believe, although nothing is impossible.

[thetruecoolness]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

Well it could be on the motherboard if the Laptop doesn't have a separate power supply module. However if you find a good technician they should be able to just resolder a new slot that fits the cable (though those may be hard to come by). Certainly not going to be an easy problem to fix. If you have a laptop/other computer I would suggest popping out the HD and finding someway to transfer her data before attempting to fix it. A cheap way to do this would be to get an external enclosure that fits her HD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...lue=538%3A7125
Before you buy figure out what interface your laptop hard drive uses, and read through the reviews to make sure you get the right one. It's a fairly cheap way to backup Laptop data without the laptop.

[Stormy]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

If they turned it to an external drive, wouldn't they also have to change it to a slave drive? I can't really remember the name of the little plastic connectors, but its easy to do. There is a diagram right next to the connectors

Whatever you have to do, I hope it works out okay.

[Kirin]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I'm using Den's computer until I get mine back (maybe I'll accidentally post under his name like he does on my computer all the time). You guys were right, the post that connects power cord to the laptop only costs about $65.

....but because I'm not handy with a soldering iron, I get a $150 penalty. Couple that with having to have my car fixed, and I'm going to be eating peanut butter sandwiches for the rest of the semester. I can't help but pay it--I don't have any hardware-repair savvy friends, and I have several projects due next week for my college classes that I need my computer to complete. I dun wanna be no adult no more--needing monies sucks.

[Valkysas]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

soldering irons are cheap (mine was $15), and you pretty much just push a button, and touch it against the surface you're working with.

if you can work a pen, you can work a soldering iron.

[highwind]

Re: Kirin's laptop has practically bricked.

mail your laptop to one of these nerdballs and have them fix it!