Power surge and a dead computer for a while.

[fishtaco]

I am just curious as to what happened or if it is some kind of miracle.
 
I was on my laptop and instead of putting it in it's regular location with a surge protector I was lazy and just left it plugged in where it was at. As I was getting ready to go to sleep we had a power surge/loss/surge thingy happen and the next morning when I got up my computer was dead, would not turn on at all and seemed to be getting no power. I was pretty well disgusted and was planning on using my wife's laptop to sign-off this site and leave my final manifesto on the political forum I visit.
 
Last night my wife who does computer software for a living came home and also took a look at it and pronounced it dead and suggested I take it in to the local computer place and see if it could be maybe be saved.
 
So about an hour later my computer comes back to life all by itself and as of this morning seems to be working normally.
Any ideas what or how this happened?
 
Fishtaco

 

[reefraff]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fishtaco http:///forum/thread/380352/power-surge-and-a-dead-computer-for-a-while#post_3310224
I am just curious as to what happened or if it is some kind of miracle.
 
I was on my laptop and instead of putting it in it's regular location with a surge protector I was lazy and just left it plugged in where it was at. As I was getting ready to go to sleep we had a power surge/loss/surge thingy happen and the next morning when I got up my computer was dead, would not turn on at all and seemed to be getting no power. I was pretty well disgusted and was planning on using my wife's laptop to sign-off this site and leave my final manifesto on the political forum I visit.
 
Last night my wife who does computer software for a living came home and also took a look at it and pronounced it dead and suggested I take it in to the local computer place and see if it could be maybe be saved.
 
So about an hour later my computer comes back to life all by itself and as of this morning seems to be working normally.
Any ideas what or how this happened?
 
Fishtaco
When your wife looked at it did she by chance unplug it? Sometimes cutting the power off for a while will allow it to reset. Just because the switch isn't pushed doesn't mean things like the power supply isn't energized. Could also be the adaptor is what took the hit which is another line of defense for a laptop. Might have just needed to have a capacitor de energize or something.

 

[fishtaco]

Yeah, I plugged it in and unplugged it several times myself through the course of the day and pulled the batteries out. The capaciter needing to bleed off energy seems like a pretty reasonable explanation. I am pretty happy because there was honestly no way I was going to shell out money on a new computer again after only a year.
 
Fishtaco

 

[stdreb27]

you're breaker got tripped?

 

[scsinet]

Laptops have a two stage power supply system.
 
PCs need several different voltages to operate... +12, +5, +3.3, and sometimes -12 and -5.
 
Normal PC power supplies produce these voltages natively and simultaneously.
 
Laptops on the other hand don't work that way. Batteries only put out one voltage, and if the "brick" power supply produced all those various voltages, the connector to the laptop would be huge and unpleasant to work with.
 
So, the power supply usually produces a single voltage. Inside the laptop there is a DC-DC converter board (sometimes separate, but often right on the motherboard) that takes that voltage and handles battery charging, the automatic changeover from power supply to battery power, and uses a switching circuit to produce the different voltages the machine needs. The brick is stage one and the power circuitry in the laptop is stage two. 2 stage... so to speak.
 
When a power glitch occurs, it can "confuse" the switching circuit in the laptop and cause the oscillator in the main power board to stop working. As long as the circuit remains powered, it won't clear. Lots of people get confused why they can't unplug it and plug it back in, but the battery continuously supplies power so the fault never clears up. Removing the power supply from the wall AND the battery, basically "cold booting" the DC-DC converter usually solves the problem. Lenovo/IBM laptops are notorious for this problem, I imagine others are too. Luckily it's a simple fix and the laptop rarely suffers any lasting negative effects, but regardless, removing both the battery and power supply for a short time is key, as you found out.

 

[ladyreefseeker]

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[fishtaco]

Quote:
Originally Posted by SCSInet http:///forum/thread/380352/power-surge-and-a-dead-computer-for-a-while#post_3310331
Laptops have a two stage power supply system.
 
PCs need several different voltages to operate... +12, +5, +3.3, and sometimes -12 and -5.
 
Normal PC power supplies produce these voltages natively and simultaneously.
 
Laptops on the other hand don't work that way. Batteries only put out one voltage, and if the "brick" power supply produced all those various voltages, the connector to the laptop would be huge and unpleasant to work with.
 
So, the power supply usually produces a single voltage. Inside the laptop there is a DC-DC converter board (sometimes separate, but often right on the motherboard) that takes that voltage and handles battery charging, the automatic changeover from power supply to battery power, and uses a switching circuit to produce the different voltages the machine needs. The brick is stage one and the power circuitry in the laptop is stage two. 2 stage... so to speak.
 
When a power glitch occurs, it can "confuse" the switching circuit in the laptop and cause the oscillator in the main power board to stop working. As long as the circuit remains powered, it won't clear. Lots of people get confused why they can't unplug it and plug it back in, but the battery continuously supplies power so the fault never clears up. Removing the power supply from the wall AND the battery, basically "cold booting" the DC-DC converter usually solves the problem. Lenovo/IBM laptops are notorious for this problem, I imagine others are too. Luckily it's a simple fix and the laptop rarely suffers any lasting negative effects, but regardless, removing both the battery and power supply for a short time is key, as you found out.
Thank you very much for taking time out to explain how that works.
 
Fishtaco