AC Power cable causes crashes with laptop

[PotshotPolka]

Basically within 2-10 minutes of plugging in my AC cord into my laptop, my screen freezes, and either blacks out or flickers with a BSOD if I don't get bored and reboot. I realized it was the problem when it started working fine without being plugged in.

So I've done some reading online, and apparently most people find the issue to be a bad AC cable. I honestly think in my case it's something different, because it still charges just fine, the fans are also going apeshit, but I've checked both the CPU and GPU temps, they're normal.

Any helpful non-googled hints on this would be nice.

[Tweezy]

The only thing I can think of is a power surge, but that would be a once off. Maybe the plug socked your using is faulty? Could also be too much power going into the laptop, could say why your fans are spacking out, the power supply might not know what to do with the higher voltage.

But, if you were getting too power, your PSU would blow... I don't know really, just brain storming I suppose. Try getting a different charger kit? Could be faulty.

[PotshotPolka]

I've tried all the sockets, same results. I've lowered GPU clocks to a 1/3 and undervolted, no dice. My only idea now is that it's either the onboard PSU, or the AC cable or AC/DC converter, I'm hoping its the cable.

[Tweezy]

I've tried all the sockets, same results. I've lowered GPU clocks to a 1/3 and undervolted, no dice. My only idea now is that it's either the onboard PSU, or the AC cable or AC/DC converter, I'm hoping its the cable.


You could always try getting a new cable, one that connects from the power block to the laptop, just could be faulty, probably only thing possible is to go though everything one by one, to see if anything happens / resolves the issue.

Sorry I can't be any more help man.

Also, I can't see how it can be a clock frequency problem, you say your Laptop is fine when not using the charger?

EDIT:
On that note, onboard PSU can't be a problem surely? If so it would happen when the computer is using it's own source... I seem to come down to cable / convertor issue.

[Epsilon]

The only thing I can think of is a power surge, but that would be a once off. Maybe the plug socked your using is faulty? Could also be too much power going into the laptop, could say why your fans are spacking out, the power supply might not know what to do with the higher voltage.

But, if you were getting too power, your PSU would blow... I don't know really, just brain storming I suppose. Try getting a different charger kit? Could be faulty.

It sounds like it could be a case of too much power but as you said the PSU would be seriously messed up unless for some reason the BSOD is sort of a saving saving grace and isn't allowing the PSU to overheat/blow up (plausible but not necassarily the case)

Just brainstorming here as well

But I think tweezy beat me to it...I seriously think it is a bad adapter

[Daze]

Just because the cable may be faulty doesn't mean it will fully stop working. I had a HP server the other day that had all green lights on the front for all components yet the motherboard was dead.

[Epsilon]

Just because the cable may be faulty doesn't mean it will fully stop working. I had a HP server the other day that had all green lights on the front for all components yet the motherboard was dead.

Hmm I didn't even bother to consider it may be the mobo,
But that wouldn't explain that fact that it works fine unplugged
Would it?

[Dark Torcher]

How about this? Since you mention that your laptop charges fine while its off, but crashes if you try to charge the laptop while it's on, this could be a problem linked to a component that only runs while the laptop is on. Have you installed or removed any programs lately? This may have affected some software driver that interfaces with the charging mechanism and maybe could have lead to a polling issue which causes a crash within a few minutes.

But before reading all of that, I'd like to know whether or not your laptop works fine if you used another operating system, such as Ubuntu LiveCD. If your laptop works find with another OS, then we can reason it has to be a specific issue linked to the OS installed on your laptop.

[Shadowex3]

Aren't laptop's PSUs that giant brick on the AC cable? I think the two most likely hardware sources would be an issue with the PSU or an issue with something inside that regulates power from AC. That you charge fine when off and run fine on battery is a very good sign because it means the battery isn't going to... yknow... explode or something like Lions like to do. Try a new AC cable, if its not that you know it has to be something with the guts that's pretty serious.

[Epsilon]

Aren't laptop's PSUs that giant brick on the AC cable? I think the two most likely hardware sources would be an issue with the PSU or an issue with something inside that regulates power from AC. That you charge fine when off and run fine on battery is a very good sign because it means the battery isn't going to... yknow... explode or something like Lions like to do. Try a new AC cable, if its not that you know it has to be something with the guts that's pretty serious.

I thought the brick on the power adapter was a converter I might be wrong though

[Tweezy]

Aren't laptop's PSUs that giant brick on the AC cable? I think the two most likely hardware sources would be an issue with the PSU or an issue with something inside that regulates power from AC. That you charge fine when off and run fine on battery is a very good sign because it means the battery isn't going to... yknow... explode or something like Lions like to do. Try a new AC cable, if its not that you know it has to be something with the guts that's pretty serious.


From the battery it will still need some sort of converted/flow regulator thing. I don't really know anything about laptops but it makes sense.