Laptop will not charge !!!

mama smurf

Hi all, never used forums before...so please excuse any errors!!
I have a Compaq pressario 700 laptop I need some advive on....

I plugged in my charger on Friday and everything seemed fine, however after about 2 mins the screen went black, as if it had a drained battery. I unplugged the charger and tried again. But the light that comes on at the charger jack did not come on and neither did the laptop. It is as if there is no power going into the laptop.
I went to Powercity and bought a universal charger and tried it...to no avail .
I then took the laptop to PC World and without even opening the laptop, the guy there told me I had fried the motherboard and it would cost approx €300 to repair :eek:

Can anyone help me with advice on what I can do at this point ?
Is there anyone or anywhere that can offer advice on why the laptop will not charge or switch on with or without the battery.

I am in the Dublin west area. Many thanks in advance.

dr.bollocko

I see you've already found the laptops forum. Hope you get an answer there!

strangel00p

agree with sugarman, universal power supplies can be really bad news for laptops. it could be one of the following:
dc jack
faulty psu
battery
pcb
memory
cpu

pm sent if your near mulhuddart

mama smurf

Yes, thank you so much. A bit of a technophobe, but am finding my way around...slowly.

mama smurf

Thanks to all of you who replied.

Yes I took out the battery and there was no power going in to the laptop via the ac power on its own either.

The universal charger said on the box that it was suitable for my make and model of laptop and has a voltage output viewer on it which adjusts to individual devices.

I think it may be one of the mentioned....faulty psu or dc jack as everything else was booting and loading fine til I plugged in the charger when the battery drained.

If it is just a faulty dc jack or power supply unit, can the part be replaced??
As Mr Tech in PC World told me that as it's an intergrated motherboard, once a part goes, the whole motherboard has to be replaced.

mama smurf

Hi all, just `to say thank you to you all for your input.

I managed to find someone who had a look at the laptop and the findings were not good

The motherboard had gone in two places, the main problem was caused due to the fan malfuntioning due to the age of the machine and never having been cleaned.
The second part gone was where the ac jack connects to the motherboard....he said this was just due to wear and tear.

So, the lesson to be learned is to clean the fan at least once a year and insure a build up of dust does not occur.

It's a new laptop for a new year for me :rolleyes:
But thanks again to all for your help.

Ponster

I never realised that you were supposed to open laptops to clean them.