Dead Dell laptop - thoughts on cause?

[antonyf]

Hi all. I was given a Dell laptop which worked momentarily and is now dead. So I wondered if you had any thoughts on cause, if I am to attempt a repair.

It's a Dell E7450. I plugged it in, and it powered up fine. I started to install Windows. I came by later and it was just 'off'.

- The device won't power on, no lights at all.
- The battery works when placed into another laptop fine
- I have tried just on mains without battery, no joy.
- If I plug in a power adaptor the light goes off on the power supplies (tried two power supplies, both do the same thing).
- I did notice from the power port a strong smell... that 'electrical' smell (not sure how to describe it, almost sulphur rather than a burning smell).

I did think initially about changing the power port, but would it not run on battery if that were the issue? Or could it perhaps be faulty and not letting the laptop start? Or is it more a serious issue like motherboard?

I'm basically weighing up if it's worth replacing things like the power port, or if you think it's a lost cause or more involved than that.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[smorizio]

ou unit may have had a bad battery it on the recall. and durning charging it shorted out and burnt out the system board on your laptop. i would contact dell if the batery recall was not done see if there do a one time repair on the unit.

 

[delaro]

Sounds like the charging circuit is dead from a short. There is an IC "(PD5)" that controls and switches how it powers and chargers, most of the time that gets blown from a damaged charging port. This is fixable and costs in the range of $50-$90 which is also what a used motherboard off eBay runs.

 

[Prostar Computer]

Agreeing with delaro here: It sounds like a board suffered an electrical burn. You're probably looking at a repair or replacement here.

 

[antonyf]

Thank you everyone for your responses. smorizio mentioning a recall did make think I hadn't typed in the tag yet on Dell's website. I wasn't expecting this, but it's still in warranty! Runs out in about 3 weeks. So that's a result. I have raised a request with them, and hopefully they can fix it under warranty. Just a few weeks later and it'd be a different story.

Thanks all once again.