Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laptop and power

BitLocker and the battery NomNoms

@homer — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:55:36 -0800

How much will BitLocker eat my battery? I've been using BitLocker on my laptop since Vista came out and continue to use it with the Windows 7 RC. In my experience the drive performance with and without BitLocker is about the same. What I don't know is if power usage is the same. I've read everything I can find about BitLocker and anything related to resource usage talks about disk reads and writes and system speed impact and how little impact there is. I can guess that since there is encryption and decryption that my battery life between charges is shortened. What I'd like to know is by how much. Are there any hard numbers from Microsoft or is there any way for me to calculate the extra load and figure out power usage from that?

Help me fix my wife's laptop

gene_machine — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:06:19 -0800

What has caused a sudden failure of my wife's laptop? I bought my wife a laptop on eBay for her birthday, and I now feel responsible for managing its failure.

It's a Toshiba Satellite Pro M10. It initially failed to boot, with an "IDE #0" error, so I figured that it was having trouble finding the hard drive. Booting into Ubuntu from CD worked fine, so I opened up the HDD cover, reseated it, and then...nothing. It now refuses even to power up, either from battery alone or from mains power. The orange power LED is now blinking, which leads me to believe that it's a power/mother-board problem.

My wife assures me that the laptop has not received any harsh treatment (ie. it hasn't been dropped or subject to spillage).

Has anyone experienced this before, and, if so, what was the recommended repair route? I'm happy with opening up desktops and fiddling around, but laptops are a whole different ballgame. If it's going to be sent off for repair, how much would a reasonable charge be (I am in the UK).

Using Old Laptop Charger?

bytemover — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 09:22:04 -0800

My old laptop blew the motherboard after 3 years of great use (Acer Aspire 5670). I just bought a new laptop (Acer Extensa 5630Z). Can I use the power charger/AC Adapter from my old on my new without doing damage? The new one is rated 19V 3.43A. The old one is 19V 4.4A. (plugs are the same). Long live the hive mind!

Is my new (aftermarket) power adapter safe for my laptop?

leticia — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:21:52 -0800

Can I damage my laptop by using a power adapter that has a slightly higher wattage than the original adapter? The original adapter was 65W, and the aftermarket one is 70W. The voltage is switchable. My original adapter had a voltage of 18.5V, this one says that if I need 18.5V, I should choose 18V. Any chance of damaging the computer by using this one? The computer is a few years old -- it's an HP Pavillion dv1040us model.

Also, one additional detail -- I bought it in the US but now am living in Europe. I've been using the US plug with an adapter end for the EU socket. This one I bought here will automatically have the EU plug. That doesn't make any difference right?

Thanks for any help/answers. I've tried to research online and I think I'm safe, but I really don't know anything about electrical things, so some expert confirmation would really be appreciated.

Computadoras baratas

ROU_Xenophobe — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:32:37 -0800

VERY CHEAP laptops with less easily busticated power ports? Our aging Acer laptop has a busted power port, so that it's very hard to get AC power in -- you have to set up the cord with some tension to pull at just the right angle. It's become too frustrating to live with, especially since this is a 3-paycheck month. I gather that this is a common problem. As well, the laptop is old and clunky enough that spending $150 to try and fix it seems pound-foolish.

So can other people recommend VERY CHEAP laptops that have, well, not high quality power ports, but less low quality?

Our price range is $500--600 for new or factory-refurb. This is a pretty hard limit; I'm trying not to be unreasonable but also trying to avoid feature creep. $750 or used is RIGHT OUT. I assume this rules out Macs.

We'll look at EeePCs, but I expect the small screen is a deal breaker. The machine can expect to only occasionally leave the house.

Bringing U.S. laptop to Buenos Aires

cookie googleman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:59:11 -0800

What king of laptop adapter/transformer do I need for Buenos Aires? I have a U.S. Apple MacBook Pro with a THREE-pronged grounded cable. As far as I'm aware, I will need both an adapter that will work with my 3-prong grounded U.S. cable and also a converter or transformer to adjust the voltage. Is this correct? Does anyone know where I could purchase these items? Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thank you

Laptop Brick Quick!

swngnmonk — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:46:18 -0800

Random shot-in-the-dark-question: A laptop brick for a 4-year old Thinkpad on short notice outside of Boston? I just checked into my hotel, realized I forgot my power brick, I have an hour of battery life - help! Thinkpad t41, a fast solution appreciated. Thank you!

Fried laptop?

yoyo_nyc — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:05:31 -0800

Did I fry my laptop? (I was really stupid) My power supplied somehow died in a way that made it difficult to fix. Hence I just bought another power supply with multiple voltages.
You guess, the switch moved while on the road and instead of 16 V, I turned it on with 15 V (1 V lower). Realizing this after a second or so, I immediately turned the switch to 16V while the power supply was still plugged (it states that you must not do this). Now my laptop seems dead but not funny smell or anything. Even the van does not turn on.
The power supply makes some low volume but hearable high frequency noise when it is plugged in position 15V or 16V (not not in the others that are available). Maybe a blown capacitor?
Since I don't have access to a Voltmeter before Tuesday:

Did I fry my new power supply, my laptop or both?

(My poor 10" subnote, has served me well many years. May have to bury it somewhere if it died).

What is, and what is the purpose of this part of a laptop power adapter?

jjbb — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:25:28 -0800

What is, and what is the purpose of this part of a laptop power adapter? I took it apart and there was just some sort of metal or ceramic material wrapped around the cord. I though it was a magnet at first, but it didn't stick to the fridge...

Link

solar powered laptop

sonicbloom — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:42:45 -0800

I would like to power my laptop with the sun. I'd like to work from home while on the road.....

I have an IBM X41 tablet and plan on keeping it for a few more years.

I just purchased a converted Econoline van that is perfect for kiteboarding, which I want to do lots of this summer.

It's also ideal for working, as long as I have a cellular connection for my wireless card and for my phone. My work depends on online access and phone access.

My van has an inverter and a second battery (marine deep cycle). They are both fed energy from the stock alternator. I'd like to use it as little as possible, as I have other energy needs.

My laptop uses a 16V DC input from its power adapter. It says it uses 3.5 A.

I'd like to camp out at kiteboard spots and work from there, however the bottleneck I experience is getting power to my laptop and possibly phone (though I have a long-range phone battery and can purchase another).

I'd like to find a way to power my laptop (actually its battery) while I'm working without draining my van's battery. The ideal solution would be one with a solar panel on the roof directly charging the laptop's battery. I searched the net and didn't find anything that seems suited for this purpose.

Another idea is to wire a voltage converter to the extra battery to step it up from 12V to 16V and bypass the inefficient inverter.

Does anyone have any experience with any of this?

Please save me from spending money on a new laptop.

merocet — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:50:31 -0800

I have a Dell 8600 laptop on which it seems that the power switch has slowly died. Is there any way to save him? My 3 yr old Dell 8600 laptop has slowly stopped responding to the power button and now won't turn on at all.

I think it got a little squashed in my overstuffed laptop bag (stupid airport One Bag rules). For a few days it was just cranky, working intermittently (if I held it at different angles etc.) and now it's stopped responding totally i.e. not even a power light coming on when I plug it into the mains.

If I wiggle the power connector at the back of the laptop I can get the power light to flash on but that's it.

On battery power only it's totally unresponsive.

I've tried;
1. a different power adapter
2. changing the batteries in the laptop
3. searching the internet for clues

Seems to me that if it ain't the charger or the batteries then it's the laptop itself. The opinions from the internet seem to suggest either a dead motherboard (bad, buy new laptop time) or that the power connector has come unsoldered at one of it's connections to the motherboard (easier to fix I assume).

I'm thinking possibly the latter as I guess that when motherboards die, they're not so intermittent when they go about it where as loose connections are.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what could be the problem or any similar experiences where their laptop came back to life after minor surgery?

Can you save everyone from the looming "what laptop should I buy?" question next week?

Differing laptop power leads

edbyford — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 03:16:52 -0800

I have a laptop with a completely discharged battery, but no power lead. I do have a power lead from my other laptop, but the outputs differ slightly... The laptop power lead I have says its output is 20 volts, 3.25 amps.

The laptop I want to plug it into says it needs 19 volts, and 3.16 amps.

Will it work? Is it worth it?

How interchangeable are laptop power supplies?

JeffL — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:04:59 -0800

How interchangeable are laptop power supplies? The power supply for my Toshiba Satellite laptop just got fried - there was a kink in the cord which finally caused a wire to fray, and now the thing is dead. I have an older power supply (also for a Toshiba laptop, albeit a much older one). Can I use the old power supply?

The dead power supply has an output labeled "15V - 5A", while the older one has an output labeled "15V - 3A". Will it work?

Will an iGo WallPower 120 adapter work with a Compaq Presario R3000?

thinman — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:54:37 -0800

Will an iGo WallPower 120 AC adapter work with a Compaq Presario R3000? A friend's laptop power adapter became unusable, and she has a deadline tomorrow. She bought an iGo WallPower 120 at RadioShack. The salesman said it would work with her machine, but she is worried because the old adapter says it is 18.5V, 6.5 amps, and the new one says it is 15-24V, 8 amps. There doesn't seem to be much information online about this model. The manual isn't helping her, apparently. She's freaking out... the deadline can't move, and she's running out of battery juice.

Does anyone know if this thing will work with her machine? If it doesn't work, but she learns that by plugging it in, what is the worst thing that could happen?

Where can I get a replacement Macbook Pro power cord fast?

bradbane — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:47:06 -0800

Where can I get a replacement Macbook Pro power cord fast? My girlfriend's dog chewed up her Macbook Pro's power cord, and we are having a hard time locating a replacement. Several stores have told us that Apple is completely out because they have recently redesigned it, but won't start shipping the new ones for a few weeks and I can't seem to find one on Ebay or anywhere else online.

Will a normal Macbook cord work? Is anyone aware of some secret cache of Pro power cords? We would rather not have her computer be a paperweight for the next couple of weeks.

USB 2.0 PCMCIA cards, Mac G4 Laptop

sdis — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 06:23:46 -0800

USB 2.0 PCMCIA cards on a Mac G4 Aluminum Laptop: Does the card brand matter? I'd like to run 2 scanners, an iPod Nano and a WD External harddrive (which currently doesn't get enough power to run from my built in USB 1 port [1Ghz G4 Aluminum Laptop])

Can I just buy a cheapie card? How well does OS X 10.4.10 handle random PCMCIA USB cards? (This is also complicated by the fact that I'm in Austria, so I can't just go to Newegg)

Also, what's my best option for powering this harddrive? (or phrased differently, what are the pros and cons of the following options?)
-I can get a €10 double USB cable, a €15-35 powered hub, or one of the external-power PCMCIA cards (I see a Belkin one for €35). Unpowered PCMCIA cards seem to range from €10-31. I am planning on moving back to the states in a couple of years, but I guess I'm also planning on getting a new laptop sometime around then, so I suppose 220V-only stuff isn't the end of the world.

Do I need a power adapter in Brazil (from US)?

jmd82 — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:55:06 -0800

Friend is going to Brazil for a month with a normal US laptop. Are there any power/ethernet issues we should be aware of? Special adapters we need to purchase so the laptop can charge and connect to the Internet?

zombie laptop screen

casarkos — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 14:03:17 -0800

Is my laptop experiencing organ transplant rejection? I have a HP Pavilion laptop (DV1310us, almost 2 years old, far past warranty) whose screen went very dim a couple weeks ago, though I can make out images if I shine a flashlight at the screen. Lots of research pointed at the problem being with the LCD inverter, so I ordered one. But the new inverter I got is slightly different from the old one - it seems HP used a few different LCD inverters throughout the dv1000 series, and I received the other model. I replaced the old inverter anyway, and now this is what happens:

- if I boot up the laptop on battery power only, the screen is bright for a second on startup and then goes dim again. Closing and reopening the lid has the same effect.

- if I boot up the laptop with the AC cable plugged in, everything works, even if I remove the plug later, and the screen remains bright. Yay!

Is it possible that the new inverter is working perfectly, and there's some other issue with the battery instead?
(for reference - old inverter: AS023172018, new inverter: AS023172140)

Will a laptop power connector kill you if you put the end in your mouth?

Caviar — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 10:04:13 -0800

How dangerous is the business end of a Macbook MagSafe laptop power cable to a small child? Do laptop power cables have any sort of circuitry to prevent them from shocking you? The Macbook mag cables are pretty easy to pull out, and about the right size for a small child to decide that this should go in their mouth. Obviously, these should not just be left lying around where babies are playing, but when using a computer near a baby, there's always a danger that they'll reach out and grab something before you can stop them. The MagSafe connectors seem like a bit more risk because of the relatively little effort it takes to disconnect them.

How bad would this be? A mild shock? Fatal? I've never heard of a single case like this.

I already called Apple tech support. They couldn't answer the question and referred me to my local Apple authorized support dealer, who I don't really consider an authority on child safety. As you might expect, I'm somewhat reluctant to experiment.

My laptop is busted

punishinglemur — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 21:19:26 -0800

My laptop's backlight is acting up. And so is the power button. A few hours ago, I was using my laptop (Acer TravelMate 4402WLMi) when the backlight turned off. Through the creative use of lighting I found that it was still displaying an image, so it's just the backlight that wasn't working. I tried to force a restart by holding the power button, but nothing happened. So, I hit the keystrokes to get into the start menu and restart, and the backlight was once again working.

After another hour of computing, and a clean virus scan, the backlight went off again. Forced restart failed again. I hit the function key combo to do a standby, which makes the PC speaker beep. For the duration of the beep, the backlight turned itself back on. I hit the spacebar to come back out of standby, and through use of the touchpad enable/disable function, which activates the PC speaker, I determined that yes, the backlight was responding to the PC speaker. Bizarre.

Since restarting fixed the backlight, at least temporarily, the last time, I hit the keys to get into the start menu and restart. Unfortunately, I accidentally ended up shutting down instead. And, as you may have guessed from my failed forced-restart attempts, the power button is unresponsive.

The laptop is out of warranty. The data on the hard drive, which is not backed up anywhere (I know...), is important enough that I will absolutely not ship the laptop to Acer for repairs (I don't trust them nearly enough for that).

What could possibly be causing this problem? What are my options here? My number one priority is saving what's on the hard drive.

Laptop Power State Filter: Why does my Hard Drive keep waking up?

SamFrancisco — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 23:36:06 -0800

How can I discover how to keep my laptop's hard drive powered down? Hibernating or standby states are unreliable or very slow to wake up from. [Windows 2000, updated, virus and malware scanned, Thinkpad 600X P3 500 MHz, D-Link PC card wireless stopped and removed, so no internet connection] It takes a long time to come out of hibernation, sometimes forever, so I am happy just to turn off the screen and power down the hard drive after 3 minutes. But the HD keeps waking up, for a short time, at irregular intervals of roughly 20-40 minutes. The display LCD stays dark. How can I find out what is doing this, and how to correct it if possible?

Ever seen a computer that needs to warm up?

knave — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 10:18:02 -0800

Laptop hardware question: My laptop takes a couple minutes to "warm up" before it will boot... details inside. My out-of-warranty HP dv4000 has this problem: Turn it on, and the blue power LED lights up, but the screen does not turn on, and the machine does not boot (no hdd activity). It will stay in this state forever if you leave it. If you turn it off and on again, same deal. However, if you leave it on in this state for 2 or 3 minutes, then turn it off and on again, it boots up normally. If you use it for a while, turn it off, and a few minutes later turn it back on, again it boots normally. This problem only shows up when the laptop is "cold." Note there are no beeps to indicate that it's failing some kind of POST, but who knows.

I dual boot Linux and Windows on this computer and both work fine after this "warm up period" which makes me think it's a hardware problem, not a software one. Also, you never even see the BIOS screen for the first power-ons, but you do see it when the machine decides to start working.

My question(s) are... has anyone seen anything like this before? Is there a chance that I could open it up and fix whatever it is? It's not a big enough problem (to me) to merit paying hundreds to have someone fix it.

Power adapter, battery, wall socket?

tiamat — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:28:08 -0800

Help me understand/explain anomalous laptop power adapter and/or battery behaviour. Why would it be dead, then fine? Why would the system crash when it should hibernate? Today when I came home from work my acer laptop had a dead battery (would not even boot to bios) and the light on the power adapter would not come on when it was plugged into the wall.

I took it out of the wall socket it was in and tried a fan in the socket, the fan worked fine. I took the adapter to another room and it still failed to come on. This happened once before when the power adapter overheated, so I ignored it for a few hours leaving it unplugged.

Now the adapter is lighting up and the laptop is therefore coming on and charging the battery (shows 5%).

My question is this, why would the power adapter crap out completely for a few hours and then be operating normally? Also, why wouldn't my laptop successfully hibernate as its supposed to (and normally does) if I leave it alone and the battery starts to die? Should I be worried that I need to replace my power adapter and/or battery?

Why oh why won't my laptop behave?

JonahBlack — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:57:28 -0800

My laptop isn't getting along with it's power supply. I thought it was the power supply, but apparently not. Help please! Over the weekend my Dell 5150 Inspirion laptop stopped being charged or running off the power supply. The cord was a bit screwed up so I though the power supply had died. I ordered a new one and it got here today. I plugged it in and it seemed to work... for about 5 min. Then it stopped charging the battery and went back onto battery power. The light on the power supply itself is on, suggesting it is getting power from the outlet, but it isn't transferring it to the computer. I even took out the battery and tried to run it just off the power supply. No dice. Now my laptop has about 10 min left of power on it and I have no way of giving it more power. What on earth is wrong with it?

Alas, poor Laptop!

vernondalhart — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:15:24 -0800

My laptop has suddenly run into problems... That is, it seems to like turning itself off with no warning whatsoever. I have a Toshiba laptop (running Windows XP), about a year old (and thus past the warranty, for sure) and beginning yesterday it seems to want to just... shut off some times.

For the most part, my laptop is a desktop computer, but I brought it to school yesterday and after about 20 minutes or so, it spontaneously shut off. I turned it back on, it booted up, then the same thing.

It seems that if I leave it for a while it'll run... and I had it going for several hours later on where it was fine... but then late last night, the same problem cropped up. It's been plugged in most of the time, but I've tried it on battery (in case it was simply a power surge of some kind) and that didn't seem to help.

I can't really think of any common thread between any of the times that it's shut off (it didn't seem like it was overheating, no one was slapping it, there wasn't any particular processor intensive thing going on), and so I'm concerned that there's maybe something quite serious here. When it shuts off it makes the sound of a monitor shutting off (which is presumably the screen, I guess), and the whole thing just goes at once, no warning.

Any ideas? Is my laptop toast?