ello, my laptop psu is dying! its a HP Pavillion ZV5000 that i bought in the US.

So i have my laptop plugged into the wall and the power icon switches to the battery icon like the cable is unplugged and then the lappy drains pretty quickly and powers off. if i unplug and plug the cord back in it works from anywhere from 20s - 20 minutes to a couple of days.

its very annoying. anyone know where i might be able to find another power brick for the laptop? are those kinds of thing pretty generic?

This might work

im gonna go get one bbl!
edit: scratch that, they arn't f***ing open.

jaycar sell generic ones, if you have an old dell power supply laying around it will work too

Make sure the power socket in the laptop isn't loose or dirty, otherwise buying a replacement powersupply will be a waste.
You can usually pick up a powersupply that fits for around 30$ or so from the sunday computer markets, just make sure you know the amperage needed, voltage and pin interior/exterior dimensions so you can pick up a compatible part. Otherwise, check ebay.com.au, you can get replacement generic PSUs from china or HK :p

One more thing to consider, depending on how the laptop is set up internally, you could have a faulty battery on your hands, though I think you're probably on the right track with the psu.

last edited by icewyrm at 20:43:17 13/Jan/08

i ended up taking my psu out to dick smith, they couldn't help becuae the part i need has to be 120w... a difficult part to source apparently. where are the sunday computer markets held?

you know, most laptops dont really need all the power that their PSU's supply
I have a HP 8710w and a Dell D620, one uses 120w and the other uses 60w, I can swap PSU's to either and they both work fine

Dates and locations

TBH I haven't been to the markets in quite a while, so I dunno what vendors are there and what they sell now, it tends to change pretty often.

You could just go for an official replacement but they can be pretty expensive (IIRC for an official sony PSU for some models you can be looking at $200 or more. Though I'm sure that's probably an extreme case, I doubt HP is quite that bad).

Teq, since lappy PSUs are often sold for particular ranges, you'll often get a powersupply that has more capacity then it needs (since it needs to cope with more powerful models in the same range). I wouldn't recommend using a lower amperage one than comes with the lappy though, can cause some problems with the battery/performance and profiles etc if it's too low. Especially when the unit is under heavy load.

last edited by icewyrm at 01:23:18 14/Jan/08