Sunday, December 1, 2013

How Do I Know If My Laptop Charger Is Faulty?

A large number of people are confused about whether their laptop chargers need to be replaced or not. When your laptop battery starts draining out too soon, it may be a sign that you need to inspect or replace your charger. Instead of paying a professional to do the needful for you, you can do so on your own since troubleshooting issues related to laptop chargers is not exactly rocket science. Read on to get acquainted with a simple step-by-step process to know if your laptop charger is faulty:1. Make sure your charger is plugged correctly into an outlet. You can also check whether the outlet is functioning as expected by plugging in another charger or appliance. The troubleshooting process will only work if your charger is receiving power from this outlet.2. Try to run your laptop directly from your charger. This is one of the best ways to check if your laptop power supply is working or not. If your laptop does not run directly on the charger, it is likely to have some problem. In addition, laptop chargers can power a laptop without charging the battery. This is also an indication of a fault. Remember to wait for a few minutes to see any result after connecting your laptop to the charger.3. If your charger passed the previous troubleshooting step, try to charge it after turning off the laptop power. Many faulty laptop chargers can successfully charge a laptop, which is turned off, but fail to do the same when the laptop is turned on. The inability of a laptop charger to power a device while charging the battery is a sign that there is a snag.4. Take your laptop battery out and check it carefully. Closely inspect all parts of the battery and battery-case in your laptop. A corrosion or leakage of any kind in and around the battery-case or on the surface of the battery may indicate a laptop charge fault. Get your laptop power supply, charger, and battery tested by a professional as soon as possible in such a scenario.5. Testing laptop chargers with the help of a voltmeter is the easiest way to check their effectiveness and functionality. If you have got an Alternating Current (AC) charger, you will need to adjust the voltmeter reading to 25 VAC. All AC chargers are generally tested at this value. Bring the probes in touch with the contacts and study the reading on the voltmeter. If the voltmeter does not indicate any reading at all, your laptop charger is nearly 'dead.'6. If you own a Direct Current (DC) charger, you will need to adjust your voltmeter to 25 VDC. Bring the probes in touch with the contacts (as above) and check again. No matter what the reading on the charger is, it should read at least one volt more when you perform the test. If it does not show a reading higher by a margin of at least one volt, simply switch both the probes and perform the test again. All laptop chargers must be clean before they are tested with a voltmeter. You can remove dust and corrosion with the help of a cotton swab.



Article written by Paul Mitty from Which Laptop, one of the UK's leading suppler of Laptop Chargers

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