T42 Power Adapter Unresponsive

[captbringdown]

Today, when I try to connect my power adapter to my T42 it doesn't work. The laptop can't run off AC power and the battery doesn't charge. I probably need a replacement adapter, but could it be something else?

The DC jack appears to be undamaged and the adapter connection is secure and not loose. I've never had a problem where movement at the power connection caused it to shut down. Could the DC jack still be a potential issue?

Could a blown fuse in the motherboard cause the power adapter to not function properly?

I have less than 10 minutes of battery life left, so I can boot in BIOS if necessary to check something...


Thank you in advance!

[goofyGAguy]

Check the adapter with a voltmeter to see if it's putting out 16 volts.

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

Without having a second Thinkpad system to verify the AC adapter or using a voltmeter to measure the output of the supply, it's a toss-up between these things:

- a bad adapter
- a damaged DC jack
- a blown fuse on the motherboard
- some other power problem on the motherboard; i.e., not easily fixable

My suggestion would be to borrow a multimeter and see if there is 16VDC at the plug. Fairly cheap meters can also be had for around $20 at Radio Shack or most hardware stores. That will tell you if it's just the supply. If the supply is good, then you can use the ohmmeter setting to verify that the fuses on the motherboard are still good (takes a little work to strip the system down but we'll cross that bridge if it gets that far).

[Mike Blake]

This happened recently to my trusty T42. Searching this board I found it can be a bad device attached to the pc, and the advice was to remove everything and try the old hold down the power button repeatedly trick.

(Having another TP that could use the same AC adapter, I found that was working OK.) I removed the battery, RAM accessible via the bottom slot, the optical drive in the Ultrabay, the hard drive and of course disconnected the AC adapter. You can see I was being lazy and only did the ones reachable without opening it up.

The power button trick actually worked! Or reseating the devices above did it. Thought this was worth passing on. If it reoccurs I might bite the bullet and take out the modem and wireless cards.

[captbringdown]

Thanks for all the responses everybody. I just got a replacement adapter and everything works fine now. I'm glad I didn't need to tear it apart to fix the issue!