![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Don't get the connectors wet.
Nov. 30th, 2011 12:21 pmBeen using this laptop for three months, think it was about the night before last that I noticed that the light by the external power cord jack is red (or a bloody orange, really) if it's charging and white if it's not.
So last night that should have been a clue. Now that I think about it, I seem to remember that I put the cord in before going to sleep and the light was white, but should have been red. I shrugged....
Well, it didn't charge. Today there was all this oxidized crud on the cord plug. Teal like from copper on the end, some red steel rust inside, and a lot of dark grey smut on the outside. It looked burnt, I was pretty pessimistic.
So I'd gotten it wet, had a clue something was wrong, and was too stupid/ignorant to inspect why it was acting wrong. I suspect the plug had fallen in the tray under an indoor plant.
I cleaned out the copper oxide with a q-tip, and I think that's when I bent the internal pin so it wouldn't even go in. After I straightened that out, I was able to get the computer to recognize it was plugged in, but it wasn't charging. So then I scraped most of the grey crud off the outer part of the plug, & tried to clean the inside some with a tiny screwdriver.
And it works again. There's still some visible red rust internally, but I'm relieved I actually have more than 90 minutes of usability before I have to replace a part.
So last night that should have been a clue. Now that I think about it, I seem to remember that I put the cord in before going to sleep and the light was white, but should have been red. I shrugged....
Well, it didn't charge. Today there was all this oxidized crud on the cord plug. Teal like from copper on the end, some red steel rust inside, and a lot of dark grey smut on the outside. It looked burnt, I was pretty pessimistic.
So I'd gotten it wet, had a clue something was wrong, and was too stupid/ignorant to inspect why it was acting wrong. I suspect the plug had fallen in the tray under an indoor plant.
I cleaned out the copper oxide with a q-tip, and I think that's when I bent the internal pin so it wouldn't even go in. After I straightened that out, I was able to get the computer to recognize it was plugged in, but it wasn't charging. So then I scraped most of the grey crud off the outer part of the plug, & tried to clean the inside some with a tiny screwdriver.
And it works again. There's still some visible red rust internally, but I'm relieved I actually have more than 90 minutes of usability before I have to replace a part.
