laptop power issues-sparks come out

[LeHaM]

hi all,
i have a hp 550 laptop and my charger broke, and the battery was flat for 3 weeks or so.. i got a universal charger off eebay, it ran the laptop but didnt charge, i fixed my broken charger and every time i plug it into the laptop it has sparks coming out of the dc power connector on the laptop, also it does the same thing with a new replacement hp charger i got.

thanks in advance

 

[clifford_cooley]

The sparks could be from the battery being low of power or damaged.
A failing battery could have also damaged the first charger.

Have you had a chance to charge the battery completely?

 

[Mychael]

When you say you fixed it are you sure you did not somehow swap the polarity around. Sparks are never good.
Sounds to me a bit beyond "Hardware" forum questions and more a job for a technician.

 

[davehc]

My first susdpicion is that, originally, it was not the charger that broke, but you have an inner short circuit on the DC in socket. This may have caused the charger to break, even thought they are well protected. There is a bit of circuitery between that socket and the battery, and in the battery case itself, so I doubt a failing battery would have caused the problem. At least, I have never heard of any experience of such a thing (Bit expensive on users, if that could happen!!)

But a good test, if you have not already tried it, would be to remove the battery and run on the charger(s) alone, and see if you still have the sparks.
Quite honestly, if your laptop is able to run from the charger, I would say you have a damaged socket, probably the contact tension is worn. But to continue to run the laptop, with the sparking, could be expensive!

 

[Digerati]

But to continue to run the laptop, with the sparking, could be expensive!

I agree. I might suggest you pull the hard drive, install it into an enclosure or into a second computer as a secondary drive (not boot drive) and copy off any critical data you don't want to lose. If there is a short or some abnormal voltages or current in the charging/regulating circuits inside the notebook, you don't want further dinking with the power to destroy your hard drive and data too.

 

[LeHaM]

i dont think it sparks whith the battery out but ill double check (halfway through a download atm) when i connect the power to the laptop the light goes orange: Charging, Blue: Charged then white: which suggests no-battery/error.. when i bought the laptop for $1600 i was assured it was new but when i first started using it i found a folder in my docs for frostwire which suggests it wasnt new and the charger got abnormally hot and after about 6weeks the left click broke, but i didnt think much of it but now i thinks i got ripped off... a simmalar thing happened to my brother where he bought a "brand new" 3g internet stick for 120$ which had a prepaid sim, went to go activate it and it had been activated in someone elses name for 6 months..

 

[Nibiru2012]

Where are y'all buying this stuff at? If it's eBay, then you can go through PayPal and get satisfaction. If it's the "homeboy shopping network" then you're SOL.