Guru Question on Laptop SATA Power

This is all going to be theory as all parts have been returned.

I was tasked to repair a Dell Inspiron 15 5568 laptop with a dead short on motherboard. A replacement motherboard was sourced on eBay, Only one available.

Upon fitting it had the same characteristics as the original failed motherboard. No charge light indicator and would knock out the charger just like a dead short. The replacement motherboard has now been returned as faulty for refund.

I have since found that the SSD has a dead short. Enough to make the wires smoke when trying to connect it to a desktop machine of my own.

My question is... Would the replacement motherboard charging circuit still have operated and shown the charge LED indicator or would the SATA circuit have been checked upon connecting the mains adapter ?

My thinking may be oldschool but I would have thought that the SSD would not have been supplied with power until the power button was pressed.

Other notes - Old board was tested without SSD connected and still failed to show charge indicator and CPU became hot. The replacement motherboard was not tested without SSD connected, No parts of the board became hot.

Many Thanks

smoking hot wires, well such a bad SSD might have destroyed the old original board. The replacement board might still be ok, perhaps a different revision even makes it behave differently. Thing is the board should be able to shut down a shorting device to save itself. so may have had couple failures, both board and drive gone bad. Maybe the failing drive started drawing to much current and damaged boards ability to shut down.

Since the replacement board behaves normally by not overheating, it is likely ok. It shuts down power to the drive.

A PSU for a desktop is not going to shut down, mostly the wires can overheat or the PSU overheats and burn up. I have many destroyed PSU that I have experienced.

Thanks for your reply

I have asked the eBay supplier of the replacement board if he can test it. He replied that he could and will report back.

The SSD is a SanDisk X400 with Dell oem stickers. Remind me to disconnect the SSD next time I replace a laptop motherboard.

I will post the outcome.