Laptop Wont turn on

[deanamiles86]

Hiya

My wife was using my laptop (Aspire 6930) where she tried to put a USB stick in the wrong way and she pushed that hard the port snapped off. she carried on using the laptop then shut it down.

When i turn the laptop on now the fan runs for about two seconds but then nothing happens.

I have tried running from a socket without the battery and have changed some parts i.e. RAM, Harddrive and nothings worked.

Is it possible that the empty space where the usb port is distrupted the airflow and caused the laptop to overheat damaging the GPU? or do you think the motherboard is damaged?

[Stewart Ross]

Almost certainly damage to the motherboard or the components within. You'll need to get it checked over by a suitable repair facility, but if the motherboard is physically damaged the laptop, a model that is a few years old now, is likely to be a write-off.

-Stewart

[deanamiles86]

Thanks Stewart

But to settle my curiosity can a missing part I.E. USB port disrupt the airflow in a laptop, I know desktop machines this possible in just not sure about laptops?

[Stewart Ross]

Not really - in most laptops the main processor is cooled by the forced air from the small fan on the processor itself, taking the heat from the finned copper heatsink and directing the hot air out through the vent on the bottom of the case. Most overheating occurrences arise either when the fan itself fails, or when the vents are completely blocked with dust accumulated over time.

The heatsink and fan assembly are not really open to other parts nearby, so I doubt that the breakage of USB port could have disrupted the airflow unless somehow the broken parts jammed the fan and stopped it from turning. Even then, failure would not be immediate. The build up of heat would have been obvious, however, and the laptop would likely have stopped functioning if it got too hot.

The fact that you had a failure on switch-on suggests to me that something else may have occurred - it is not really indicative of overheating unless you were aware that the laptop was excessively hot before it was switched off.

In your case the USB port breakage may have had side-effects you were not aware of - such as metal or copper print shards being disturbed by movement, then falling into sensistive parts of the motherboard, damaging the machine on switch-on for instance.

This is just speculation on my part, but I know of one case where a dropped laptop worked perfectly well for weeks. The owner ignored a rattle coming from the laptop, until one day it failed to boot up. This was the day that the rattle bit back - it was really a very small metal spring that had broken loose from the DVD drive. It had moved around once too many times, and had finally shorted components in the motherboard. End of laptop.

-Stewart

[deanamiles86]

Thanks Stewart you've been really helpful

[Rabbit]

My friend had a similar problem to this where the damaged USB port was causing a short circuit. If the board looks undamaged and if the port has collapsed, try uncollapsing it a little to break the circuit.