laptop won't charge, odd smell coming from it when turned on

yuni said:

.... i can't exactly describe the smell...

Welcome to TenForums @yuni

You don't have to describe it, all of us who have ever worked in electronics know and fear that smell. I'm afraid that once you have let out the Magic Smoke there is no way to put it back again

The given device operates until the smoke is released from it, at which point the device ceases to operate. Ergo, the smoke is an essential part of the device's operation, through undetermined ('magical') means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_smoke

It may just be the charging circuitry. In some laptops that's on a separate board and can be replaced (by a repair shop, if you don't feel up to trying yourself). It may be the motherboard that's fried, that too may be replacable. The only way to tell would be to dismantle it. If you tell us the make and model we can find a service manual and give you some ideas of your available options.

The chances are good however that the hard drive is not damaged. This could be taken out and put into a usb drive enclosure so you can use another PC to recover your files and documents, should a repair be impossible/uneconomical.

yuni said:

last night, i plugged in my charger and noticed that it wasn't actually charging. i kept unplugging and replugging it, until suddenly my computer died on me despite being on 40%. there was also a small shock upon plugging it in. i waited a few minutes and tried plugging in and turning my pc on again and that was when I noticed an "odd" smell coming from my laptop. i can't exactly describe the smell, but it has kind of an electrical odor, with some burnt plastic to it. i'm not sure what it's coming from or how to fix it. any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Hi, Yuni, welcome to W10F.
Sorry to hear that happening. Do not try plugging it any more until you troubleshoot that problem.
1. It could be faulty charger, you need to check voltage on it's output side, it's supposed to be about 19vDC.
2. Battery most probably has thermal protection which is very basic and can burn out if overloaded, Does it start with battery only ?

Dare I ask.. is the charger one that came with the laptop originally, or one bought e.g. from ebay or Amazon, perhaps from China? I.e. is it genuine, and standards compliant?

You got a small shock from where exactly?
Where is the smell coming from exactly?

Both sources [shock, smell] are defective & unsafe.
- If the charger produces both the shock & the smell then replace it.
- If either source is the computer then get the computer & the charger checked by somebody who has the skills to diagnose the defective component.

It does not matter which country any of your equipment came from. What does make a difference, however, are the quality standards of its manufacture.
- Large computer companies with a valuable brand reputation to protect, such as Dell Lenovo & HP, enforce high standards.
- Unknown manufacturers selling through Amazon, Amazon marketplace, eBay, ... might only bother making things cheaply to sell directly to consumers without any regard for their function or their longevity.
- Since certificates alleging compliance with, for example, BS or EU Directives are easily produced or obtained without proper testing the only reliable quality assurance method that consumers can apply is to depend on the commercial self-interest of those large computer companies with a valuable brand reputation to protect , such as Dell Lenovo & HP.

Denis

I gave China as a well-known source of copied/fake products. We have a TV program here- Fake Britain- where officials regularly seize huge volumes of fake goods, usually from China. I bought a North Face outer jacket and fleece liner there for about £30. (Not expecting it to be really NF of course..). But it can also produce fantastic stuff.

Try3 said:

It does not matter which country any of your equipment came from... Large computer companies with a valuable brand reputation to protect, such as Dell Lenovo & HP, enforce high standards.

Out of interest, I've just looked at my genuine Dell, Toshiba and HP adapters. Two say made in China, the HP says made by Delta Electronics Jiang Su Ltd. (they're Chinese).

Bree,

Yes, it seems like just about everything sold here is made in China except digestive biscuits.

My two year old & my eight year old Dell Inspirons were both made in China. My thirteen year old one claims to have been made in Ireland but might well have merely been assembled in Ireland from components imported from the Far East.
- Whilst I have serious concerns about Dell's design & support, I have to decide to identify one trusted intermediary to enforce manufacturing quality standards because I cannot do that myself.
- Dell were my intermediary of choice for my last purchase because they were the only ones making a 17" touchscreen laptop & that was what I wanted to try out.
- Reducing my decisions to deciding which intermediaries to trust at least keeps the problem manageable even if I have to study them all to generate a shortlist for each major purchase.
- I cannot simply go by 'well-known' brand names of yore because many of them are now part of other companies with quite different reputations & many have leased out their name for items they regard as non-core activities. For example, Grundig used to be the last word in high quality signal processing equipment but they are now an Argos line whilst the "JCB power tools" name is leased to B&Q & has no connection with the high-quality JCB organisation at all.

Denis