[Zombie]

ok, please try to stay with me on this. Laptop #1, Acer Aspire 3000. Laptop #2 Toshiba Satellite.

The acer will not charge and or power on. I am led to believe that the DC jack is bad. I have the MB removed from the laptop. Now, I have taken a GT-11 Voltage Detector and have run it along the power cord from the wall up to the converter box. I have power up until it enters the converter box then nothing from the converter box out. Don't know much about electric but I found this to be odd. The acer cord is a three prong plug by the way.

So I then decided to take my Toshiba power cord and do the same thing. However on this cord I have power from the wall, through the converter box and out the other side. 100% different than the acer. So I started to think that I just need a new power cord for my acer. However I asked someone and he told me that I should not get power from the converter box to the laptop. I said well then explain to me why my Toshiba does and it powers on AND charges lol. He doesn't have a clue why.

If I had to guess here, which I am. I would say I do not have power from the converter box to the laptop on my acer because I have a three prong plug as where my toshiba only has a two prong plug.

The sad part is I have a Digital Multimeter and have no clue as to how to use it lol.

So what do you guys think?

Thanks

[ice49man]

You're supposed to have power from the converter box to the laptop otherwise the power chord is useless. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't you have to have the Motherboard in the laptop in order for it to power on in the first place?

[LiveBrianD]

If you want to test the power adapter with a multimeter:
Put the + lead of the multimeter into the center of the power connector.
Hold the - lead of the multimeter along the side of the power connector.

Make sure the multimeter is set to DC voltage - if it's set to AC it probably won't detect anything.
The voltage the multimeter detects should be around the same as the rated output for the power adapter.
note: If you plug the connectors in the opposite order, the voltage will appear as negative what it should be (ex. -11.95 instead of 11.95).

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 19 March 2011 - 12:40 PM

[Zombie]

ice49man, on 19 March 2011 - 10:41 AM, said:

You're supposed to have power from the converter box to the laptop otherwise the power chord is useless. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't you have to have the Motherboard in the laptop in order for it to power on in the first place?

Ahh yeah you do need the MB in the laptop. I took it out because I was told that the converter box was good which left the dc adapter being bad. So I took the MB out. Now that I have gained a little experience with using a multimeter I see that I get 0.02V when I test the jack that would go into the dc jack on the mb as compared to my Toshiba which read 19.xx.

At least I know now how to get a mb out of a laptop lol

This is what I set the meter on, pay no attention to the actual reading it's not mine


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This post has been edited by Zombie: 19 March 2011 - 12:46 PM

[Zombie]

Zombie, on 19 March 2011 - 12:39 PM, said:

ice49man, on 19 March 2011 - 10:41 AM, said:

You're supposed to have power from the converter box to the laptop otherwise the power chord is useless. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't you have to have the Motherboard in the laptop in order for it to power on in the first place?

Ahh yeah you do need the MB in the laptop. I took it out because I was told that the converter box was good which left the dc adapter being bad. So I took the MB out. Now that I have gained a little experience with using a multimeter I see that I get 0.02V when I test the jack that would go into the dc jack on the mb as compared to my Toshiba which read 19.xx.

At least I know now how to get a mb out of a laptop lol

This is what I set the meter on, pay no attention to the actual reading it's not mine


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Problem solved, thank you

[LiveBrianD]

Yeah that's the right setting. I have occasionally found that it won't show up with the correct voltage (but negative) when plugged in backwards, and I don't know why. In theory, it should be exactly the same but just negative.