Power brick about to explode?

November 19, 2007 7:05 PM

Why is my dell power brick beeping and not transferring any power to the laptop?

It was fine all this time but when I got home this evening, it wouldn't work (worked at 10 am when I last used it). And now the power light doesn't come on and it emits this regular beep. Is it toast? It doesn't smell funny (like my last one did so nothing has obviously shorted).

Any ideas if I can fix it? Or should I get a new one?

Oh and why does this sort of thing happen right around the holidays?

posted by special-k to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Sorry to say, same thing happened to me. I was able to fix it temporarily but unplugging everything from everything for a couple of minutes and then reconnecting everything, but it eventually it completely stopped working and I had to get it replaced by Dell.

Sorry, crappy Dell products. But at least theyre pretty fast about fixing stuff.
posted by jourman2 at 7:11 PM on November 19, 2007

Something similar happened to me twice. Mine didn't beep, but the lights started flashing and I couldn't get any power. Turns out dell's like to have their power jack break. Usually the solders just break off the motherboard, but without the power jack, no power gets transferred from the plug to the computer. So before you assume it's the brick, find another to check, because it's likely that it's the jack, which if you are cool, you can solder yourself, otherwise you have to send it out to be fixed by someone. Warning though, mine died a second time about 6 months later, so you might want to just start looking for a new computer box.
posted by JonahBlack at 8:07 PM on November 19, 2007

Once my LED went out, mine was dead. unfortunately. I got a good deal for a new one on ebay -- waaaay cheaper than buying from dell, but actually appeared to be a Dell OEM charger. Not sure if it came off teh back of a truck or what, but it was like $30 instead of $80 so I was glad for it.
posted by misterbrandt at 8:27 PM on November 19, 2007

I've seen that just recently; it means the power supply has failed and must be replaced.
posted by Malor at 8:27 PM on November 19, 2007

The 5 Dell power bricks I have killed were all punctured by my cat's chewing on the cord, which resulted in a short in the wire portion from the brick to the computer, which made the brick detect the short and do exactly what you're describing.

The cords themselves have three layers of wire inside separated by shielding - if one touches the other somehow, it shorts, and you get the beep.

Occasionally I could get the thing to work by twisting the wire a lot and clearing the short, but eventually all I could do was replace the whole thing.
posted by bhance at 6:14 AM on November 20, 2007