Acer power problems - smoke from back

[jwm]

Hello,

I have an Acer Aspire 1300 laptop. It began to have power supply problems a couple of months ago. Jiggling the power cord where it connects to the laptop helped for a while, it got more temperamental and then I noticed the end of the power cord would get very hot. Now computer will only work on battery but battery will not charge and it does not work on AC. Last time I plugged it in, smoke came from the back so I turned it off immediately. One suggestion was new main board or try to do some soldering. Anyone have any experience soldering? I took it apart and couldn't really see anything obviously loose or unattached that I could solder. Any thoughts? Thank you very much.

John

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Sorry, I gave up smoking 8+ years ago...

Did you try another cable? If it works with the battery but not the power cord, it most likely is in the cord itself or your power supply.

Problem is, I don't know how much repairing can or is usually the norm for fixing notebooks. If it uses the usual power cord such as for pc's and monitors, look where it connects on the notebook at the pins inside the socket. Are they charred at all? Any evidence of arcing? Was the smoke coming out from the fan? Pinpointing the source or location may help.

[s0fus]

I know exactly what you mean.. from the powercable end getting hot, to the cable jiggling. I had the very same problem.

The component that you plug the cable into is loose. you do need to solder it. I will do so myself today, if I can get my hands on a soldergun.
It's got 3 little pins that you need to solder. however 1 of them is a bit difficult to get to, unless you remove the complete motherboard from the uhm, "chassis". but I suppose it'll do with just soldering the 2 pins.

Last week I tried a quickfix in lack of a soldergun: To superglue the component. it worked for a few hours, then back to square 1.

I'll let you know how it goes.

[jabarnutcase]

This is what bothers me:

Last time I plugged it in, smoke came from the back so I turned it off immediately

I assume "from the back" means the back or the Laptop and not the external transformer of the AC adapter. (If it has that type, rather than the Step down Transformer being integrated).

It's been my experience that smoke generally means something went very wrong on the board (In particular, the Power supply section), that a simple Soldering iron isn't going to fix.
it's good you can still run it off the battery, but hopes of charging it again may not be good at all. (Unless you have another separate Charger that charges the battery by itself).

You may get lucky, but Smoke usually means bad news.
It's pretty hard to see smoke unless something is burning.

[Sylvander]

"Jiggling the power cord where it connects to the laptop helped for a while"
You had a power socket connection failing to make good contact.

"it got more temperamental"
Getting worse.

"then I noticed the end of the power cord would get very hot"
Bad contact = high resistance = heat generated.

"Now computer will only work on battery but battery will not charge and it does not work on AC."
The contact is now so bad it doesn't connect effectively at all.

"Last time I plugged it in, smoke came from the back"
All it's doing is arcing and burning the conductors and giving off smoke.

"One suggestion was new main board"
Surely it's not the board that's the problem, it's either the [power] plug & socket or wiring to those. And since it's the input cable that gets hot, the source of heat [the point of arcing] must be in intimate enough contact with the cable to conduct heat to it.

"couldn't really see anything obviously loose or unattached"
You're looking in the wrong place.
There must be burning at the point of arcing; perhaps inside the plug [on the cable] that connects to the laptop.

[Donn]

It sounds like sOfus is someone you should get with about this, but I am really amazed that with heat, smoke, and non-performance that you are still using it and taking a chance on torching the entire device. Wouldn't it be easier to put it in the shop? I am assuming of course that it is beyond warranty etc.

Since you cannot immediately SEE any arc marks or melted cord, is it possible some piece of metal debris has gotten lodged near the connector, and it is jumping to that?

What is the plug looking like is it male on the cord end into a female connector, or the other way around. If male on the notebook end, is it possible on of the prongs is lose or broken?