A21m mains power problem

[SpooForBrains]

My wife's A21M started acting up a couple of weeks ago. It runs fine from battery. The problems occur when attempting to run it from the mains or charge the battery.

With the AC adapter plugged in, the battery light flashes. If I remove the battery and press the power button, you hear the little pop from the speakers that indicates the machine intends to power on, and then nothing. If you hold the power button in, you hear the pop over and over. It would appear it's power cycling - resetting over and over again.

I've removed all the extraneous stuff I can - PCMCIA cards, modem card, CMOS battery, RAM. Still no joy.

Does anyone have ANY idea what this problem could be?

[vlyne]

I have an A21m awaiting surgery so I'm intimately familiar with the innards of this model...yet... It sounds like a hardware problem. Things I would check:

1) Voltage output from A/C (should be 16+ Volts) and voltage at the battery terminals - be very careful and don't short the terminals.
2) Is the DC plug firmly seated in the machine?
3) Open up and check power components for any obvious signs of burning/overheating - especially power capacitors.
4) Check major fuses - should be obvious ceramic fuses marked 10A - along with other fuses. Check fuses and components around DC plug and battery terminals.

Good Luck!

Edit: Oops, that should be "I'm not intimately familiar with..."

[SpooForBrains]

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to bite the bullet and take the thing apart, I suppose ...

[vlyne]

Yes, I think so. Definitely a hardware component problem but hopefully not too hard to find.
Cheers