Laptop charger... Not charging!

ironman1

Hope this is in the right forum!

We've had a Toshiba Satelite laptop for just over a year. Bought from Comet.

Recently the charger has been burning up, well the big 'brick' type part of it anyway. Also a few days ago the gf's nephew tripped over the lead, pulling it out of the socket on the laptop.

I'm sure it worked fine after he done this but cant say for certain. But the last couple of days the only way we've been able to charge it is if we move the charger lead about, which takes forever and then if we move it again it stops working.

I contacted Comet who said we were two weeks out of warranty, which is true. They gave us the number to Toshiba.

Toshiba were helpful and said we'd made the warranty by two days?! I wasn't gonna argue.

They reckon the problem is probably due to the laptop and not the charger. They are sending out for it and we are giving the laptop back so they can check it out.

The bloke reckons if it turns out we caused this issue we will have two options-

.Pay for the damage, anything up to £300
.Dont get it sorted and pay £40 to get the unfixed laptop back!

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm buying a new charger later and hoping that its that that's broken and not the laptop. If not it could cost a fortune.

Does anyone know how and if they can prove we caused the problem? We've had it a year but it's in good nick, not even a scratch on the screen. Also does contents insurance cover this?

Sorry for the long and boring post, i'm hoping a new charger will sort it out but just wanted to see if anyone knew a way of getting this covered on the warranty etc?

The laptop cost £400 12 months ago, don't wanna have to pay for a new one or up to the same price for repairs!

Cheers all.

ironman1

Also i'd look on other sites but it's hard posting/looking from a mobile wap! Hope someone can help, you usually do...

JasX

you've quite possible broken the power socket/laptop motherboard connection just inside the back, its a well established weakpoint on a laptop and easily damaged if the power cord is subject to abuse (eg nephew impacts).

Repair is generally successful but labour intensive (usual charge £100 if you get a reasonable deal) as the entire laptop needs to be stripped down to replace/resolder the <£1 component (which can be bought on ebay).

unless you can convincingly argue its a weakpoint/design flaw you'll end up in the user caused damage category (which it kinda is). Dunno how much your particular repair place would charge for a job like this?

possible to do yourself but only for the very technically confident as its an entire strip down and needs delicate soldering.

Side points:

Laptop chargers do commonly get quite warm so noithing too unusual there. Testing with a volt meter should eliminate it as cause but the fiddling you describe at the laptop socket kinda eliminates it anyway.

you could also make a Sale Of Goods Act 'durability' argument with comet directly (warranties aside).

ironman1

Thanks for the reply. The lead has been pulled out a couple of times due to the 'nephew impact'! Toshiba are sending the delivery people to pick the Laptop up later this week, i'd rather go through them as they have said we are JUST in our warranty period.

Thing is, although you and they have said it is probably the laptop rather than the charger, it's always wiggling the lead from the charger that makes it 'work'. Nothing to do with pushing the end into the laptop socket.

I'd imagine quite a few people have tripped over these leads before so it's disappointing the warranty doesn't cover it but there you go. £100 isn't the end of the world but not the best time of year to be paying out for things like this.

Also I reckon Toshiba will charge more. I really hope a new charger will make it work but my luck isn't usually that good!

AdamMerry

You might be in luck with Toshiba, my job includes booking in faulty laptops with the manufacturers and what you explained with your laptop was a common fault with some of the toshiba's, we were getting a lot of Toshiba's back with the power socket totally broken from the mainboard and Toshiba were doing all this work under warranty so you might just get away without paying as i think it was a manufacturer fault although they never admitted it.

JasX

hmm ok, not sure exactly where the wiggling takes place, what often happens it the 'socket' is a tiny plastic socket component soldered onto a printed circuit board thats not too well supported and the solder connection cracks.

This often hapens at the laptop socket but if its the socket on the power lead 'brick' thats playing up i suppose it could have suffered some similar damage to a solder connection.... in which case new power supply would fix things (cheaper than £100) and minimal labour is involved testing it so should be closer to half that price.

If so you might have been lucky but just watch you take care of the power lead in future as the laptop socket is not that robust will break eventually it keeps getting yanked

ironman1

I'm not saying we are blame free but if it's under warranty and the actual socket on both laptop and lead seem fine to look at. Nothing bent or anything.

Done a bit of research and it seems the Satellite series have suffered these problems. I will try and use this against them.

JasX

You won't be able to see anything, took my sisters laptop apart when she broke hers a few years after warranty this way -there was just a tiny piece of metal at the back of the socket which had cracked across and broken the connection at the top of its solder 'dot'.

was pretty appalled as there was nothing physically supporting the socket other than the 5 dots of solder holding it to the motherboard.

gl with the return, was just trying to stress to take care of it in future as they can replace the part but might not necessarily do anything to strengthen it against the same thing happening again.

AdamMerry

I think they will do the work for you for free, it's a firm called Teleplan who do 90% of the Toshiba repairs and they are good, it was the Satellite L series that had this problem and a bonus is they will do a full check on the laptop while they have it and if they find anything else that is faulty or on it's way out they will fix it as well while they have it

ironman1

I will definitely take care of it. To be honest we do now. it's in great condition expect the charger part.

Is there any point in even buying a replacement charger as it seems 90% chance the problem lies within the actual laptop?

Also how do I go about it if they do say its due to wear and tear? Just pay up? Cheers all I cant believe the help this site has given us since we logged on for the first time!

ironman1

By the way if I buy/borrow another charger to test it later and it turns out to be a fault with my charger do you think I should buy a new one or still send it in for repair while warranty covers it?

Usually I would without thought but will be risking a min £40-300 repair bill if they decide it's my fault. Plus we wont have a laptop for a couple of weeks or so.

Reason I ask is because a new charger may work, then break down within a few weeks , just as we are out of warranty... From what you've all told me it's more likely a laptop fault rather than charger but you never know!