Battery charger?

[SGirl]

The latest in the loooong saga of my laptop.

Essentially, the thing has a charging fault. It won't run off the mains at all any more, and it'll only charge when put in strange positions, like standing upright, or upside down, or at a westwards-facing slant of 63 degrees, or... Except this position changes from day to day, and I'm really struggling now to get it to charge cleanly. It'll usually charge intermittently, but it's getting harder to get a straight, non-interrupted charge.

I can't afford to buy a new laptop yet, and nobody on here seems to want to sell me a cheapie secondhander. It's not yet so urgent that I want to try a professional supplier that I don't know, although that'll be my last option. Or else I'll wait until I can afford a new one.

So. As a last-ditch attempt to keep my lappie alive - does anyone know where I can get a charger for a PP2210? If I can get a separate charger and a spare battery, all my problems will be solved. There's nothing wrong with the computer itself, it just keeping the thing powered up that's the issue!

Alternatively, anyone throwing out a perfectly serviceable laptop is welcome to send me an e-mail.

[arcturus]

Mmmmm....are you absolutely sure it is the charger. We get a few of these faults in our workshop each year and it nearly always turns out to be that the socket that you plug the charger into has come loose on the laptop motherboard through repeated plugging and unplugging. It's normally not detectable without stripping the laptop down unfortunately. The repair is a simple soldering job though.

Try and get the charger checked with a voltmeter. That should give a clue.

[arcturus]

Forgot to mention that if it is the charger, we can supply them for most laptops, but they aren't cheap - in the region of £40-£60 depending on the model.

[SGirl]

arcturus said:

Mmmmm....are you absolutely sure it is the charger. We get a few of these faults in our workshop each year and it nearly always turns out to be that the socket that you plug the charger into has come loose on the laptop motherboard through repeated plugging and unplugging. It's normally not detectable without stripping the laptop down unfortunately. The repair is a simple soldering job though.

No, it's definitely not the charger itself - I already bought a spare. I was actually after a charger which can charge a battery on its own, without it being in the laptop, so that I could have two batteries and rotate them without having to faff with the computer's own charger.

Dave, I don't suppose your workshop would be interested in some work, would they? Please mail me if you feel like a little light soldering...

[TheExcession]

arcturus said:

Mmmmm....are you absolutely sure it is the charger. We get a few of these faults in our workshop each year and it nearly always turns out to be that the socket that you plug the charger into has come loose on the laptop motherboard through repeated plugging and unplugging. It's normally not detectable without stripping the laptop down unfortunately. The repair is a simple soldering job though. Try and get the charger checked with a voltmeter. That should give a clue.

Indeed this woulfd be my suspicion, and it'sa common enough fault, however on my laptop it was actually the plug on the end of the crger lead that was at fault. I'd alreeady gone down the orute of stripping the laptop and solering the socket but the problem persisted.

Turns out I'd got some grit into the little socket on the end of the charging lead that meant the spring in there that makes contact with the centre pole on the laptop's plug was broken.

I ended up crimping the socket on the end of the charger lead with a pair of pliers and now it works ok.

I'd never seen a fault llike that before and I spent about a year living with having to spend 10 minutes wiggling the lead just to get it to charge before I finally tracked it down to the socket.