"Quaoar" wrote in message
...
news.rcn.com wrote:
Does anyone know how to replace a power supply in an HP Pavilion ZT3380
laptop please?

The power plug seems to be exceptionally loose and if the computer shuts
down, you can occasionally get it turned on again by turning the plug
around in the socket 180 degrees so that something makes contact with
something again. But I don't think this is the whole story.

The computer does work as a desktop but once it did shut down overnight
for no apparent reason and once during use while I was trying to
soak-test it for this very problem. When it shut down overnight, by the
morning, when I turned it on, the orange charge light having presumably
been on all night, it showed 0% charge. Suspicious.

More importantly it shuts down completely if you accidentally jiggle the
plug, not going to battery power at all. In addition, when you start it
with a largely dead battery and then try to plug it in to charge the
battery, the battery doesn't charge at all. It CAN also show an orange
charge light overnight when off and by the morning, show no increase in
charge: This doesn't just seem to be a loose plug!

I upgraded the BIOS and this seemed to improve things for a very short
while, with the new BIOS having a battery calibration utility which
worked once. However, now it wont even charge the System Battery except
excruciatingly slowly. Isn't the system battery something like a
rechargeable CR2025? Which should discharge/charge in a few minutes.
When the battery utility did discharge/recharge the main battery, it did
do it in around a half an hour.

We HAVE tried changing the AC adapter in case the problem was with the
internal wiring of the plug itself and isolated that as not being the
issue.

Someone once referred me to a service manual for my Pavilion 5415 which
had a similar problem but I cant now find the reference to it (and
replacing the power supply for the 5415 involved a completely
uneconomical taking apart of the whole computer down virtually to the
last screw!). These internal power supplies do occasionally come up on
ebay and sell for a few bucks. possibly for this reason?

Hopefully the situation wont be the same for the 3880? Though an
alarming number of them seem to come up very cheaply at places like
Fry's, - reconditioned .

(Incidentally it refers to itself on its screen panel as a ZT3000, on its
underside as a ZT3300 and on it serial number plate as a ZT3380US)


The power jack on the notebook has separated from the mainboard.
This is pretty much exactly the symptom I am noticing: I just posted here to
see if it was a common problem others had faced with this notebook; and if
possible how others have dealt with it.
This
is not unusual for HP notebooks.
Sine ci Posted, a friend has told me that he has exactly the same problem
with a few HP notebooks he has!!
The jack simply cannot withstand the
forces of insertion and removal of the AC power plug.
Arent they all made in the same Quanta factory in Taiwan?

If you are skilled with a soldering iron, there is a good chance that you
can figure out a way to either re-solder the power jack to the mainboard,
or solder a pigtail to the mainboard input power traces to move the AC
adapter jack outside of the case.
Sorry to repeat myself or sound naive but how do you get to the mobo?

Otherwise, it is a mainboard (or sub-board for the jack) replacement, and
good luck working with HP on that!
I had already spoken to them and they gave me a load of fluff lasting about
20 minnutes prior to telling me that the power supply is on the motherboard
and replacement will cost four hundred bucks because they have put too weak
a jack connector on their laptop. Is this why there are so many refurbished
ones coming onto the market? Does Consumer Reports know about this problem
and how HP both cant re-solder one connector to the motherboard and/or power
supply AND treats their already-sold computers like mini-profit centres?

Q