Laptop damaged by power surge: any chance of repair?

gterr

Hi there,

Last night during a thunderstorm there was a big explosion and fire in a high-voltage line near us. When the big flash happened outside a smaller flash happened inside at skirting board level, together with a crack like the noise when you pull a cracker! Our power has just been restored after 19 hours off.

As a result we have damage to two laptops which were connected by ethernet cables to a BT Home Hub router which was also damaged. The router is completely dead. The laptops (identical Dell Latitude D620s) will now not boot, and have three green lights flashing (the Num, Caps and Arrow lights on the left just below the screen.) I am wondering what the chances are of getting the laptops repaired. I realise I may be able to rescue the data by removing the hard drives and mounting in a caddy linked to another computer, but does anyone know the significance of the three flashing green lights? For instance, would there be any likelihood of getting the laptops going again if I replaced the batteries and/or chargers?

Just out of interest, anybody know if it's likely that the surge damage started at the router and spread to the laptops via the ethernet cables, or started in the laptop power supplies and went the other way?

Thanks for your time.

Myser

The surge most likely started on the telephone line and via the router jumped across to the Ethernet sockets.

Power supplies usually have some form of surge protection.

Good routers/telecoms equipment usually have lightening/surge protection built in.

It may be worth checking if there is a clause in your insurance policy which doesn't cover thunderstorms.

Mondez

Just something you can try on the laptops, take the battery and power cable out and hold down the power button for 15 seconds or so. Then reconnect the battery and see if it will start up. Doesn't always work, depends on if they really were damaged by the surge or just glitched.

sb2_2

Try a different battery if you have one as it may just be the battery thats fried.

Similar situation, accidentally changed the voltage of my PC once and put too much power and blew (loud bang) took it to a Pc repair shop, they changed the power pack and worked perfectly.

gterr

Many thanks, all. I'll try your suggestions.

Hammyman

New mainboard if they're fried. However you may find the screen has been killed as well as they're not particularly rugged circuit boards on the screens of the D620. As for data loss, data is stored magnetically so with a lightning strike, all bets are off.

FWIW, Dell D620's aren't fetching a lot on Ebay at the moment so you should be able to replace them both for around £300.

gterr

Thanks, Hammyman. Yes, I've already spotted a couple of D620s on eBay, and I think that's the way to go.

I've posted separately about a problem that happened when I transplanted the hard drive from the first fried laptop into a near-identical D620 to get the data off. If anyone can help I'd be grateful.

cit_k

The three lights on the keyboardare the diagnostic code to indicate a component failure on the system board.

You could be lucky, it could just be the ethernet part that blew, stopping it from booting, and that is a sub board on the d620.

But it could have blown all sorts if the surge got past that....

Try holding down the letter D when you power up the laptop, if the display is working, and the board has enough life in it to run the diagnostic test, it will show a test pattern on the display.

If it does not, it could be that the board is totally fried, or it could be the display itself also has gone.
If you get the test pattern, then at least you know the screen works.

centretap

gterr wrote: »

and have three green lights flashing (the Num, Caps and Arrow lights on the left just below the screen.)

All three flashing is Dell built in diags for motherboard error.