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Compaq Armada 7370DMT

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by richard_barsby

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Hi teh following is happening with internal battery there is no life, when external psu fiited with or without battery the power & battery charge leds flash without preesing any switches ie on/off

12 replies

by csmith

This could be a bent contact in the laptop, but most likely it is a blown/shorted diode in the external psu.
This requires a voltmeter, and someone who knows how to use/interpret it, to test the PSU.
Regards, Chris

by csmith

Glad to hear you eliminated the second cause.
This means that you are back to the first cause.
The laptop has a short somewhere in the main power circuit.
The most obvious place to start is the contacts in the laptop where the PSU plugs in.
The other common place for broken wires is the harness going to the screen.
The usual symptoms when this happens, are that something doesn't work on the screen, but battery life is usually not affected.
Glad to hear that you know how to use your voltmeter. It sounds like you should be able to find this problem.
One disadvantage of working with these low voltage systems, is that shorts don't make themselves immediately obvious.
In the old tube televisions, a short in the 400V B+ always resulted in a pop, and a blown or burned component. Easy to find, you only had to look.
Regards, Chris

by csmith

Did you take a fully charged battery out of one of the other laptops, and place it in this unit for a few minuites, and then put it back in the good laptop, and read the remaining battery life?
You can read remaining battery charge on these models as I remember.
This will give you the rate of battery drain, and thus some idea of the magnitude of the short.
I assume you have checked the internal laptop contacts to the battery for a short. That would be too obvious.
These laptops can also runon, only the PSU. Correct?
That would eliminate the battery as a possibility.
Regards, Chris

by donmars

I strongly believe you have a open internal battery. In other words the internal battery is shot, no good, dead, cannot be recharged. when you remove the internal battery the indication you get from the leds flashing is because the unit will not runon ac without the internal battery installed. The charging circuitry senses the PSU charge current but no path through the missing battery and indicates this error. With the battery installed the circuit still senses no path because (1)The battery has an internal open condition (2) One or more contacts in the battery housing is not making contact with Battery terminals etc., you get the idea. Ensure good contact between the battery and the spring contancts in the laptop or Try a new battery!

by donmars

Oh, one other possibility. The internal DC to DC power supply may be protected by a fuse which may be blown and cause the same symptom.

by donmars

OK, as I think about this problem I have a more likely scenario that does not involve the power supply. The unit may actually be in hibernate mode or suspend mode? Which means it was never turned of but needs some key combination to return to life, such as Fn key combo with some other key.

by csmith

Lovely,
I just realize that I misread your question.
When you said "there is no life", I thought that the up time was 5 minuits. Wrong. Now I think you meant "no sign of life".
That means the problem is the opposite. Something has lost contact inthe main power circuit.
I am afraid that this is a difficult problem, because I don't know if COMPAQ makes the schematics and diagrams available on its web site, in sufficient detail, so that you are not at the stage of troubleshooting by module replacement. (Board Swapping.)
Regards, Chris

by richard_barsby

Hi sorry so long for reply, the problem has not been resolved. I do not have any of these boards to swop out with therefore I'll put this one down to not enough knowledge on this model. Thanks for your time

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