Topic: Help!! Dropped laptop now flickering lights...

[Lindsay]

Hiya!  
         About 6 weeks ago my Dell laptop fell off the couch, I can't remember if it was on at the time, I don't think so though. Actually, I think it might have hibernated itself because the battery was low.

        Anyway a couple of days after that, I tried to turn it on but it wouldn't. I plugged in the charger but the battery/charging light on the front didn't go on. I thought maybe the charger was broken, but it wasn't until today that I actually got round to testing this. I borrowed someone elses charger, which is also Dell. Again, the charging light didn't come on.

At this point I realised there must be something wrong with my laptop so after discovering I'd lost my instruction booklet I decided to have a look inside to see if anything was damaged. I uncrewed a little compartment on the underside but I dont know what it was that was inside, it looked like ram. That was it. Except for a tiny plastic slider, with a little arrow on it. On the outer casing it had a wee symbol where the slider was, which was like a circle inside a circle. Out of curiousity I tried to slide it but it didnt go far and pinged right back. I don't know what it was, probably not even relevent but I thought i'd mention it anyway!

I discovered the huge thing on the side of the laptop which I thought was some sort of expension bay turned out to be the battery as I figured out how to remove it. It looked fine, so I just slid it back in and it clicked into place.

I tried plugging in the charger again and both the power light and battery/charging light started flashing furiously. It did it for about 1 minute and then they both went out again, so I unplugged it and tried again. This time they flashed for about 10 seconds and went out. The next couple of times I tried, the flashing time got less and less and now when I plug in the charger it flashes for about 1 or 2 seconds and then goes out.

I've never seen either light flashing like this before and I'm really worried now! Is there something wrong with my battery?

My laptop is a Dell Latitude 100L, 256mb RAM, pentium 4 2.4 ghz (i think)

Please help me!! I hope this is fixable, and if it is, not too dear!
Thanks soo much.
Linz xx

[Sandra]

It may be the bit where your adaptor plugs into the laptop thats broken away from the motherboard, its a common fault especially when its been dropped.

If your friends laptop that you borrowed the charger from is the same model then try your battery in that laptop and see if it charges ok.
If it does and your laptop runs ok off that then its looking like what I said earlier.

If it doesnt charge then maybe its just a dead battery that needs replacing but in that case it should run direct from the mains adaptor.

[Lindsay]

Well I don't know anyone with the same model as me, but I know someone with a similar model, would it be ok to use their battery?

[Sandra]

Youd have to check them side by side I'm afraid.

The same with the charger/power supply, check the polarity and the voltage and amperage/wattage ratings.