Laptop immediately shut off without warning while charging and will not turn back on with or without charger.

[Steven Mal]

Today while using my laptop it turned off immediately without any warning while it was plugged in to charge. There wasn't any notice that the laptop was going to turn off or that I should plug in the laptop to avoid losing any unsaved data. It won't turn back on with or without the charger. When the charger is plugged into a socket the charger light comes on but it goes off when I plug the charger into the laptop and the laptop won't charge or turn on. I should also mention that the first time I tried to plug in the laptop with the battery still inside it sparked. I removed the battery, plugged in the charger to the laptop and it sounded like the plug/jack short circuited.

 

[darkbreeze]

The power jack probably needs to be replaced. Unfortunately this is extremely common. To be sure it's not related to the battery though, try removing the battery, plugging the AC charging cable in and see if it turns on with no battery installed.

 

[Steven Mal]

The power jack probably needs to be replaced. Unfortunately this is extremely common. To be sure it's not related to the battery though, try removing the battery, plugging the AC charging cable in and see if it turns on with no battery installed.

I tried that and it still won't turn on. How expensive and difficult is it to replace a laptop power jack?

 

[darkbreeze]

What is the full model number of your laptop. It should be printed on the back of the case or on the case beneath, but not on, the battery, in the battery compartment.

 

[Steven Mal]

What is the full model number of your laptop. It should be printed on the back of the case or on the case beneath, but not on, the battery, in the battery compartment.

It's an Alienware M18x from 2011.

 

[darkbreeze]

Yeah, good luck with that. I've never had any success finding replacement parts for older Alienware laptops. You'll need to contact Alienware to determine parts availability.

 

[entimaniac]

I fried my macbook pro with faulty power adapter. My girlfriend's mom is handy at fixing cables and I thoughtlessly tried out her "fixed" cable on my laptop and it shut it down immediately. I even smelled a little smoke. If you see a spark on a computer at all, that is a very bad thing. The smallest static discharge can seriously mess up your components--professionals will work on static free surfaces and wear straps that ground them to metal surfaces to discharge any static before it can damage a component. The best thing to hope for is that you have a bad battery, charger, or bad port. Otherwise, it sounds to me like you might need to do some other, more serious replacements. If I wasn't under warranty with my macbook at the time, It was going to be around $1000 for the logic board and other components. Good luck!