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Bricked laptop

NEO|PhyteNEO|Phyte They follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered User regular
So my niece did a dumb. She was trying to plug something into a USB port on her laptop, it wasn't going in, so instead of flipping the plug three times until it works, she just jammed it in, mangling the port. Apparently this has had wider repercussions than simply rendering the port unusable, because now the thing doesn't turn on, and none of the indicator lights light up when it's plugged in. Battery does not seem to be mounted in an easily pop-outable manner, so we haven't tried reseating it because possible warranty voiding.

Our best guess without opening the thing's guts is that she managed to short out the 5V on the port and assumably fry some laptop components, and the questions I have are
1) Did she win the bad luck lottery, or is it common for a damaged port to share its woe in this manner?
2) Once we have determined the status of the laptop's existing warranty (if any), is it worth trying to work out what all is damaged, or just hope the drive survived and move on?

It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt

Posts

  • AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    edited April 2015
    NEO|Phyte wrote: »
    So my niece did a dumb. She was trying to plug something into a USB port on her laptop, it wasn't going in, so instead of flipping the plug three times until it works, she just jammed it in, mangling the port. Apparently this has had wider repercussions than simply rendering the port unusable, because now the thing doesn't turn on, and none of the indicator lights light up when it's plugged in. Battery does not seem to be mounted in an easily pop-outable manner, so we haven't tried reseating it because possible warranty voiding.

    Our best guess without opening the thing's guts is that she managed to short out the 5V on the port and assumably fry some laptop components, and the questions I have are
    1) Did she win the bad luck lottery, or is it common for a damaged port to share its woe in this manner?
    2) Once we have determined the status of the laptop's existing warranty (if any), is it worth trying to work out what all is damaged, or just hope the drive survived and move on?

    Get in there with a flashlight.

    Can you see the USB pins? Are they touching each other or the sides of the USB jack?

    If so, can you get in there with a pick and break the connection? That might be enough to revive it.

    Aioua on
    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
  • NEO|PhyteNEO|Phyte They follow the stars, bound together. Strands in a braid till the end.Registered User regular
    The pins had been contacting things, but were straightened out before I'd gotten a look at the thing.

    It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
    Warframe/Steam: NFyt
  • DraygoDraygo Registered User regular
    edited April 2015
    pull the battery, pull the power, hold the power button down for 60 seconds, plug back in, see if it turns on.

    Plan 2 is to take the laptop apart and remove the offending connection to the motherboard if the USB port is a separate board. Depending on what type of laptop you have, this may not be possible.

    I would say that most likely the drive will be just fine, they are most likely sata drives so you can remove it and get a cheap 2.5" sata enclosure to gain access to the drive again. If its a SSD it might not use a standard sata interface.

    Draygo on
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