Balls - Killed My D610

Well that was a fun day!

I received a used D610 last week, and have since thoroughly enjoyed using it to do course work (it's my first laptop).

However, yesterday I was browsing Youtube, and it just 'cut out'. I wiggled the power lead plug for a while (no battery at the moment), and after several attempts it started up fine. Today I wiggled the plug to see if it would repeat, and it did - again it cutout, but only afetr a minute or so of me fiddling with it.

At this point I concluded that the socket is a bit spaffed up, so I dismantled the poor laptop and took the mobo to work to inspect it.

After a look at the solder joints around the PSU socket and a re-flowing of the solder, I took it home and reassembled it. Now it's dead as a dodo.

I just bought a battery today, so I'll try that when it arrives (just incase I banjaxed the socket when I soldered it). I'm not particularly hopeful though.

Great.

sorry to hear that! let us know if you get it working again. ive had to do a few lappy repairs that are down to dodgy power connections.

Could also be the cable. Wiggling the cable causing the fault to reappear would suggest this to me. Could be the wires at the plug end have become fatigued due to bending and have finally gone open circuit.

ConnectionFX said:

sorry to hear that! let us know if you get it working again. ive had to do a few lappy repairs that are down to dodgy power connections.

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Yeah, I'm hoping it'll work fine with the battery which will at least confirm I've killed the socket.

Bubo said:

Could also be the cable. Wiggling the cable causing the fault to reappear would suggest this to me. Could be the wires at the plug end have become fatigued due to bending and have finally gone open circuit.

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I've tested the PSU with a multimeter - it outputs about 0.8v. I suspect it's this low as it isn't under load. I reckon it's probably fine.

danza said:

I've tested the PSU with a multimeter - it outputs about 0.8v. I suspect it's this low as it isn't under load. I reckon it's probably fine.

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lol nope that means it's dead , laptop adapters are unregulated so actually output a higher voltage when not loaded, normally 24-28v.

also if all you did with the dc jack is melt the existing solder it will probably not last long, assuming it is the ac adapter that it faulty as it is looking now, you should remove that dc socket and replace with a new one off of ebay as they are only a few quid

Hopefully it is just the power socket, because they are cheap to replace. Had to fix a HP where the cable kept falling out easily, new socket remedied the problem.

Well I received the battery today, which I have fitted.

I tried switching it on (also Fn + power on), but nothing happened again. The battery has charge.

However, the engineer in me got the better of the situation, and so I decided to give the keyboard 3 hefty whacks. At which point it woke up and went straight into diagnostic mode.

Now it happily switches on, and is running from the battery no problems. I haven't tried it on mains yet though.

Any ideas why it worked after me belting it? is there something that's likely to be unseated that I can investigate within the laptop?

Loose connection by the sound of it.

I didn't break it!

On a more serious note, sounds like a loose connection

balls said:

I didn't break it!

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I'm beginning to think it is a connection issue. I somehow missed the fact that the PSU's connector has 3 conductors - the outer 'shell', inner 'shell' and a centre pin. I was measuring volts through the outer and pin. I should've been measuring between the inner and the outer which gives me a reading of 19V.

So off I go to order a replacement socket for the laptop and hopefully fix the issue once and for all!

Cheers for all the comments guys, I'll let you know how I get on!

Oh well - what an utter damn waste of time, money and effort that all was.

Still dead with a new connector. It must've been something more terminally wrong with the motherboard, and disassembling it the first time aggravated it.

Onto the shelf it goes to be forgotten about. I'm not wasting any more time on it.

danza said:

However, the engineer in me got the better of the situation, and so I decided to give the keyboard 3 hefty whacks.

Click to expand...

when in doubt ...give it clout!

hope you get it sorted....dont give up!

Arent these notorious for the memory working loose in the slots underneath causing a non boot? Might explain it working with a thump. Try reseating the ram or there's a trick something about putting a piece of plastic between the memory access door and the ram to keep it tight in the slot.

Looked at the memory (although it worked fine from the battery anyway), and after a wiggle it made no difference.

I managed to happen upon used motherboard on eBay last night for £30 all in. If it works I'll be happy. If not, back up on the shelf it goes forever!

One thing to note - the D610 has been dropped at some point in its life resulting in the magnesium chassis cracking in one corner and the cpu fan breaking (although it still works and I've glued it back together now). Maybe there was some damage to the motherboard that arose from the drop? I couldn't see much wrong with it, but still their may have been some.

I think the motherboard I'm getting comes with a straight chassis aswell, which is a bonus.

I'll update when I've fitted it.

Up and running now.

The new mobo had an admin password on it and wireless was disabled, but after finding a guide online and shorting a couple of the BIOS chip pins, it's all okay now.