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I bought a faulty charger and it melted in my laptop :(

  • 27-03-2009 3:48am
    #1


    If this is in the wrong place and should be moved to consumer issues, feel free, I'm not sure where it belongs.




    The charger for my Sony Vaio went bust the other week, so I got around to buying a replacement last week. I went into the store (Whose name I'll keep to myself for now) and told him. He gave me a universal charger and said it would work fine. I handed over the €50. As I was walking out, I noticed it had HP, Panasonic, Dell yadda yadda, but no Sony. I went back to the counter and he told me he had fitted "Loads of Sony's with this". So happy out, I left it at that.

    I got the charger working fine at home and it was working fine all week. I went to work on Wednesday night (I work in a bar) and left my laptop plugged in. When I came home from my shift, I noticed a sulphur-like smell in my room. It was the charger. To be exact, the part that plugs into my laptop. It had melted inside my laptop. Which means even if I replace the charger, it won't fit into my laptop.

    The worst part is, I have an interview for college next week and the portfolio I was working on is on that laptop. I have it backed up to rapidshare (Thank God!) But I have to do a lot of work on it before Wednesday. And I have no laptop, no PC or anything!

    My concerns are:

    What should be the appropiate action I should ask (and expect to get) from the shop?

    If the laptop is irrepairable, is there any way to get the information from the drives?

    Has anyone heard about this before?


    I haven't gone back to the shop yet, as I was beyond hopping mad, and I want to approach this in a cool, calm, collected manner.

    The laptop is a way old model. 2002 if my memory serves me correctly.


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 8,800 ✭✭✭Senna


    The universal charger i have for my laptop has different power settings, 12-20v etc. Is it possible that you had it at the wrong setting. i.e. the charger would have worked fine if you had of set it to the correct power first.
    if this is the case then i doubt the shop is at fault.

    As for the melted power connection, it's very possible that a computer repair place can fix that, as long as it didn't damage anything else. I usually find the smaller and further off the main street the repair shop, the better it is.

    Best of luck, sorry cant be of more help.




  • Yeah it had the different power settings, my laptop is set to 19.5v so I set the laptop to fit that. :(

    I have a friend that repairs laptops, but I won't see him til next wek. I just want to know what onus is on the shop in this situation?


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 23,157 Mod ✭✭✭✭Alanstrainor


    Papa S wrote: »
    If this is in the wrong place and should be moved to consumer issues, feel free, I'm not sure where it belongs.




    Moved from laptops, as i think it's less of an issue with the laptop, but more of an issue with the salesman selling a charger not fit for the purpose intended. Best of luck with it. Feel free to create a new thread in Laptops if you want to figure out a way of getting the data off it etc.


  • Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    Firstly, you can get 2.5" Laptop HDD External Enclosures in Peats and Maplins for about €15. You can pop your laptops hard drive into that, and hook it up to any PC, etc.

    =-=

    Also, I don't think it has anything to do with the amount power going into the laptop, as opposed to the problem bing a sh|te quality charger that melted in your laptop. I think you should ring the laptop manufacture, get a rough estimate on how much it would cost to get it fixed, and bring this figure with you when you goto the shop where you bought the charger.

    =-=

    Finally, ensure you remove the HDD before you ship it to the the manufacture, so it doesn't get wiped (you'd be surprised how many times this happens).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,012 ✭✭✭✭thebman


    Yeah it was probably a crap charger. HDD enclosure idea above is very good short-term fix and probably your best option at the moment.

    You probably know someone who can lend you a laptop for a few days.

    You should definitely go back to the store and explain the situation calmly to them. They probably aren't aware this is happening and lord knows who else it has happened to with so it could be losing them business of return customers who won't be return customers if they have an experience like this.

    Most likely the charger melted because of the way the connection was made in the laptop since it didn't support that model. I'd like to believe/think that it doesn't do this in the laptop it is supposed to support.

    Personally I'd never get a universal charger just so I'd have come back with the manufacturer of the laptop (it was your charger in your laptop idea). You'll have to get it repaired now and get a new charger from the manufacturer and personally I'd try to get the store to pay for the repairs and a refund for their charger but not chance your arm on getting them to pay for another replacement charger from Sony or someone as if you ask for too much they will definitely put up a fight. They might over the repairs alone.

    Get quotes from Sony and see what they say about the damage. How exactly did your previous Sony charger break? Could the two things be related? If so you might get Sony to do the work. Google around and see if this is a common problem with this laptop and see if it is a product defect. Sony would probably be more obliging for repair work to their laptop if it s a product defect. Sony have had to do a couple of recalls on batteries in the past couple of years because of problems and your talking thousands of battery recalls (cost them a fortune) so they aren't beyond making mistakes.

    If you had gone to a Sony Centre they might have been able to sort you out with an official charger (I know you can get away with not using an official one cheaper but like I said, I don't trust them to be of quality for the exact reason this happened to you).


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,683 ✭✭✭Kensington


    Sounds a lot like a dodgy charger, or moreso a dodgy connection since the charger didn't state it supported Sony laptops. If the fitting going into the laptop was anyway loose in the socket of your laptop, it's possible it's been arcing, causing the connection inside to get hot and then melt as has happened you.

    Hard one to call though, Sony won't want to know since it's not an official charger and the shop are going to put up a fight since they will try and claim it's a laptop fault. You do have a leg to stand on though, in that the salesperson insisted the charger would support your laptop when it doesn't say on it that it does.


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