Thursday, April 26, 2018

Laptop Computer Problems

For a long time there was a problem with my Toshiba Satellite C655 laptop.

Once in a while the two screens would go black with a power loss.

Once, when it happened to me, I was watching streaming of the two-hour Wednesday night concert of Music City Roots from Nashville, TN. The computer shutdown during the jam at the end of the two hour show. This lead me to suspect that the computer was overheating. I purchased an external fan that I placed under the laptop. This didn't solve the problem.

Later, for some reason, I moved the power cord where it attached to the laptop on the right side. The screen went to black again. This lead me to think that there might be a break in the three or four inches of wire that was perpendicular to the laptop. I began to hope I might be able to fix the problem by replacing the part of the wire from the power supply to the computer.

I packed up the laptop and the power supply and cords and drove about 22 miles to Arundel Computers in Millersville, MD. Once at the store we started the computer using my power supply and cords. It didn't take more than a couple of minutes to make the computer screen go black. Next we tested with a "New" power supply and cords from the store. Once again moving the cord near where it was plugged into the side of the laptop caused the screen to go black.

At that point we knew that the short was inside of the computer, where the power cord plugged in.

The computer was in the shop for seven days. The repair was quite simple and quite expensive. Inside of the computer there was a short piece of wire. On one end was the socket where the power supply attached and on the other end was a four contact plug that I assume attaches to the motherboard. It was a very easy task to remove the cable from the computer and attach a new connection cable.

Cost for the part, $15.90. Cost for opening and closing the laptop and knowing how to remove and replace the piece of cable, $75.00.

Yesterday, 25 Apr 2018 I picked up the computer. I'm happy to report that this long-standing problem has been resolved and that the life of this computer has been extended.

Dick Henthorn
26 Apr 2018

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