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Just fixed a weird laptop power issue with a trick I thought was total nonsense
This Tuesday, a guy brought in a three year old Dell laptop that would only run on battery. Plug it in, the charging light would flash once and die. I spent two hours checking the DC jack, the board, the charger itself. I was ready to call it a bad charging circuit. Then I remembered an old forum post I saw once. I told the customer to leave it with me, shut it down, and held the power button for a full 60 seconds with the battery and charger both out. Plugged it back in, and it started charging like nothing was wrong. I felt like an idiot for overthinking it. Has anyone else had a simple hardware reset fix what looked like a major power problem?
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olivia3982d ago
Ever wonder if those "dumb" resets work because the chip just gets stuck in a weird state?
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jamesf411d ago
My buddy Mark had a router that would drop signal every three days like clockwork. A quick power cycle fixed it every single time, so yeah, I'm sure it just gets stuck.
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I mean, it's wild how often that works. My old car's key fob would just stop unlocking the doors out of nowhere. The fix was to pull the fuse for the power locks for a minute and pop it back in. Basically the same idea, a full reset. Idk why it happens but it feels like the little computer in it just gets confused and needs a nap.
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