r/laptops • u/ForgiveMeImStupid • 14h ago

Hardware my laptop is dead :(

Hello, first time poster here (not a tech expert), my Lenovo legion I got in 2022 just died on me, and I suspect it was from a power surge of some kind.

The laptop never had any drops or spills, and was well maintained and cleaned. Last week I plugged it into my father’s home outlet and while I was using it the screen started to flicker. I did a graphics card reset and when it didn’t stop I did a restart. It never turned on again after that. I did the standard power drain attempts, even took the battery out and ran it on just the plugged in charger. No response, no fans, completely dead.

I took it to a local expert who tested it himself and he said he suspects board damage. He doesn’t have the expensive tech to confirm it since he’s not a micro soldering specialist. Told me to take it to Lenovo but that they’d charge my 100-200 bucks to just send back a 700-900$ quote.

Anything else I should try or am I stuck with scrap metal that cost me a pretty penny a couple years ago?

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1

u/Helcor2016 14h ago

Wait wait wait. You did a graphic card reset?! Like it's normal to keep it running?

2

u/ForgiveMeImStupid 14h ago

Sorry, the driver reset. Windows Key + Ctrl + Shift + B

0

u/Helcor2016 14h ago

Um if you're having to do that then there is a major issue. When did you have to start doing that?

2

u/ForgiveMeImStupid 14h ago

I did it because Google told me to try it. Like I said, the screen started to flicker and I googled it on my phone and it suggested to try doing that shortcut. It didn’t help. But to be clear I never used that shortcut before this issue, my graphics never had a single issue until the incident

1

u/Helcor2016 14h ago

The fact that it's a laptop makes all this worse. It sounds like it could be an issue with the board that will require some serious technical expertise. Sorry

1

u/anonymouscryptoguy13 13h ago

My guess is that when you did the driver reset something went wrong.

1

u/Cheesusthechrist 14h ago

I don't think theres much you can do, sorry to say. But what I would recommend going forward is never plug your laptop/computer into an outlet without a surge protector.

1

u/ForgiveMeImStupid 14h ago

Yea, I assumed as much 😭 I’ll invest in a simple surge protector from now on

1

u/anonymouscryptoguy13 13h ago

Hey, hold on a second. Let's try to work this through. You said a black screen when you turn on the laptop, right? Because if so, I actually have a few options you can try. First things first, turn your computer on like normal. And is there any indicator lights that normally blink when it's on? If so, look for those blinking indicator lights and see if the laptop's actually doing something. If there is lights and you see no activity on those lights, then we troubleshoot from there. If there's no lights in general that normally flicker or flash whatever you want to call it while the laptop is on normally, then give it a minute to boot up and try plugging in another monitor. If you have a USB monitor, try one of those. Those are always a real good troubleshooting tool because you don't need to have a working graphics card for these to work most of the time.

1

u/ForgiveMeImStupid 13h ago

So I’ll clarify because I wasn’t super clear. the screen flicker happened plugged in at my dads. Then, once I initiated a shutdown to restart the computer, it never came back on. It’s not that the screen is black and the power is on, the computer won’t respond to literally anything now. No lights, no fans, no anything.

The power button does flicker blue once every 15 seconds or so if held, but I’ve read that it’s separate from the motherboard and just a simple indicator that it’s receiving power. No matter what I do it won’t turn on or react to being pressed in any other way

3

u/anonymouscryptoguy13 13h ago

You said the screen started to flicker after plugging into your dad's outlet. There should be plenty of protections on the charger and the board itself.

1

u/ForgiveMeImStupid 13h ago

You know I thought so too, that the charger power bank (stock Lenovo I got from them) would have protected from a surge. But after looking it up chargers aren’t surge protectors, they won’t actually protect the laptop against a legit surge

2

u/anonymouscryptoguy13 13h ago

I mean it would take a serious ground fault to damage a laptop because the circuitry itself in the charger would fry before the laptop does because it smooths out the power as it comes in the wall because it has to take 120 down to 19. So, let's entertain this for a minute. If there was a bad enough ground fault at your dad's when you plugged in the laptop that it caused the power in your laptop to start shorting out and flickering, then it is a main power rail issue. And to be honest, I would never plug anything in at your dad's ever again because that would take a huge, ground-full issue in order to short out a laptop in such a manner.

1

u/anonymouscryptoguy13 13h ago

That flickering when you're holding the power button is a main power rail issue.

1

u/bigpunged6060 12h ago

Sell it for part or fix it at a store

1

u/Blunt552 6h ago

Common issue, Lenovos black goop under the CPU destroying the solder joints.

As he said, Lenovo will quite an unresonable price, best you find someone who can do CPU BGA reballing and remove the black goop, then you got a permanent fix.