T42 won't acknowledge power adapter

[wonderdogger]

Is there any way I can test to see whether the power adapter is working or not? I want to make sure the problem is not internal to the laptop before buying a new adapter.

The laptop appeared to go dead at one stage. I thought it might have been related to the well-known GPU issue which I had temporarily fixed with paper under the keyboard. However when I got it going again it wouldnt acknowledge the power cord and only ran on internal battery. At that point I noticed that the leg of the chair I was sitting on was firmly planted on part of the cord and I thought that I might have killed the adapter as a result.

[rkawakami]

General way to check that would be to use a voltmeter (sometimes called a volt-ohmmeter or multimeter) and measure the voltage at the end of the yellow plug. The inside "hole" should be connected to the positive terminal of the meter and the outside metal shell around the end of the plug is connected to the negative side of the meter.

It should read about 16.5 volts DC. With the meter still connected to the end of the jack, wiggle the cable around and see if the reading on the meter changes. If it does, that would indicate an intermittent connection inside the cable and thus requires replacement.