Solved: Presario Laptop PowerCord Question

Does anyone know of a way to test a power cord? Or, do I need to?

Laptop with questionable power source is a compaq presario 700 series CM2130 running xp home. All laptops I have handy are 3 pronged, not 2 pronged so I cannot test using another power cord.

It was brought to me with the user believing the display was gone because the power light is green but the hard drive light does not come on.

To diagnose, I unplugged the power cord to test using just the battery. It booted up with the battery beeping (2 beeps, delay, 2 beeps..) and then it promptly shut down. This leads me to believe the battery is dead since the light is orange and not green. If I remove the battery and try to boot via the A/C power cord-it does not even turn on so I'm assuming its the power cord. If I try to boot with battery & AC connected it does not even turn on.

This power cord has 2 sections. One is AC Pack and another piece (2 pronged) but it does not appear to me that the 2 pronged piece plugs in all the way and could possibly be the wrong plug. This would make sense because the battery needs to charge when it is plugged into AC and it has not because the AC is incorrect voltage perhaps?

Does anyone dispute my diagnosis or know of anything else I can try to narrow the problem down?

 

I finally got on the phone to user and somehow they did get the prong for the copy machine instead of laptop so my earlier assessment was correct. Makes sense since the battery was not charged...and needs powersource for charging purposes.

 

Found out later that this particular laptop with the mobo mfr'd in taiwan has a known circuit problem so beware all.