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[LouisCorney]

My Toshiba Satellite A40 keeps blowing fuses and I can't understand why.

It happened on the old charger about 3 or 4 times, and then the charger broke, so I just assumed it was the charger, bought another, and it was fine.

Until now, when it's just blown another fuse, and I don't have a clue?

TIA for any help

Louis

[Gaffers]

Check that the socket you are using is not on a light 3amp curcuit if it is get the electrics checked in your house cause thats super dangerous.

youll prob find though that the charger is fubar (coil isolation melted, solder misformed due to heat, etc)

The question youll need to do diagnose yourself is why you keep eating chargers? (wrong one, high voltage, cheap pattern chargers instead of manufacturers, etc)

Come back if thais is goobledegook for ya  

[kris9128]

this happened to me last year. turned out that the little pin in the laptop that slots into the centre of the charger thingy had snapped off. causing a short that kept blowing fuses.

[Taxi_Driver]

Which fuse is blowing?

Fuse in the plug? Fuse in the house fuseboard?

[LouisCorney]

Thanks guys.

It's the fuse in the plug. Tried different amp fuses, didn't make a difference. The first was the original Toshiba charger that came with it, and the new one is a cheap pattern one.

Pins and connectors are all ok. Could it be inside the laptop somewhere that's shorting?

How would I check about the plug socket? Think it's happened in different plug sockets though...  :-?

[TheBoy]

Most likely PSU faulty.

[Ken T]

A laptop fault shouldn't cause the psu to die; they are normally overload protected, and just limit the amount of currrent they give out. There are a lot exceptionally C*RP PSU's coming over from the land of the bent chopstick at present. One claims to be 120W, and a customer claimed his laptop was faulty because he had 4 that died within a very short time. I fitted a second hand Liteon 75W psu and left it on 24/7 and it was fine after a week. Stick to a brand name, not these "universal" chargers that all seem to universally blow up.

Ken

[Ken T]

Thee is also a good way of telling which will be good and which will be bad. How much does it weigh ?. If a 120W feels as heavy as a couple of decent spuds, then its prob OK, if it feels as light as a bag of crisps, avoid. There is a case where some enterprising manufacturer was making crap dell PSU copies, and he was putting bits of steel inside to increase the weight.   http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/acadapter.html

Ken

[Kevin Wood]

http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/acadapter.html

That guy's insane  

I might have to build myself a destruct-o-tron though.  

Kevin

[Ken T]

There's a very narrow gap between insanity and genius. Trouble is deciding on which side of the line you are !  

Ken

[Leomas]

One other possibility is that there may be an issue with the battery. Do you use it away from the mains much? It is not unknown for the battery to die completely and not be noticed until you next try to run from it. Always worth running from the battery for a couple of hours (if it lasts that long) just to force it into a deep discharge/recharge situation.
You could also try running the laptop from the mains without the battery in place. If the fuses still go the suspicion rests entirely on the PSU

[LouisCorney]

One other possibility is that there may be an issue with the battery. Do you use it away from the mains much? It is not unknown for the battery to die completely and not be noticed until you next try to run from it. Always worth running from the battery for a couple of hours (if it lasts that long) just to force it into a deep discharge/recharge situation.
You could also try running the laptop from the mains without the battery in place. If the fuses still go the suspicion rests entirely on the PSU

Yes, come to think of it I do. Thanks for the advice