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My laptop no longer charges while turned on.

Lenovo Y50-Y70 UHD 59425943

While computer is off:

  • Plugged in (before reset trick): No LEDs or charge.
  • Plugged in (after reset trick): Computer charges fine, LED showing charging

While Computer is ON:

  • Plugged in (immediate): No charge, No LEDS
  • Plugged in (after about 3 mins): No Charging, LEDs all blinking in sync.

Things I've tried that didn't work:

  • New battery
  • Reseating the RAM
  • New A/C Adapter
  • Uninstalling the AC Adapter and Battery drivers in Windows, and reinstalling Lenovo's Power Management program.

Things I tried that helped:

  • I tried removing the battery and AC adapter and pressing the power button 10x at 1 second intervals then holding the power button for 30 seconds. (this resets the power in the capacitors and resets something in the BIOS I have heard). It used to never charge, even while turned off. Now it charges while turned off, but not while turned on.

Wondering what part of the computer must be broken? I know this has an advanced power management features, including a battery with it's own firmware, but everything seems to be set up correctly on those settings.

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  • If I understand correctly, your machine powers on, but the battery doesn't take a charge. The battery you've swapped out - is it a genuine replacement? If so, the next step would be to try a new charger, as a lot of manufacturers use intelligent chargers to decide whether to charge or not. There is circuitry in the machine to handle charging which could be at fault, but if possible eliminate the simpler option of the charger first.
    – Jonno
    Commented Dec 24, 2015 at 7:01
  • Yeah it was a manufacturer battery. I will try a new AC adapter. I updated the question saying I also tried the magic power trick code
    – Jonathan
    Commented Dec 24, 2015 at 7:12

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This board does not have a DC-DC power converter board. Power boards on laptops vary, but in this case, there is a DC jack that goes into a mini 5pin molex then straight into the motherboard.

When I took out the connector using a disassembly video on YouTube as a guide, it was very obvious what the problem was. A power surge had caused the plastic molex to melt completely. You can see the burn marks here. All these holes should be white, two are burned black. Burnt molex

Lenovo quoted me $350 to fix it, including everything. This part (DC Power Jack & Harness) is $5 on ebay, and about 2 hours of work to replace for a new guy. About 45 minutes for a pro. Just screws, no soldering. However, in these cases sometimes the capacitors can be damaged. Those are under a dollar each, but requires melting the solder on the reverse side of the board, and then re-soldering it.

The lesson here is ALWAYS USE A SURGE PROTECTOR (2,000 joules for computers)

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  • 1
    That's good news that you where able to repair your laptop. These boards can be multi-layer, and other components are sensitive heat, so if you start having to solder/resolder components, you need to be very careful.
    – David
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 23:13
  • It worked. Fixed it for $5 and a couple of hours
    – Jonathan
    Commented Jan 7, 2016 at 6:46
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It is most likely the DC-DC power converter board inside you laptop. You will need to take it to a laptop repair shop, but if it still under warranty, then contact Lenovo for warranty service. If it is still under warranty, just say it stopped working, not that you used it on an airplane or in any other weird or strange way.

The DC-DC power converter board sits between the Power input plug, battery, and mainboard.

I used to be a notebook technician 10 years ago.

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4
  • Lenovo confirmed this was the next thing to replace. Lenovo says their out of stock for that. I can't find it at Best Buy, eBay, Amazon, or New Egg either.
    – Jonathan
    Commented Dec 28, 2015 at 23:52
  • You will have to purchase this through a Lenovo service centre. The other thing you could try is taking your laptop to a non-Lenovo laptop service centre that does board level repairs. You mileage may vary.
    – David
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 0:10
  • Turns out the part doesn't exist. I just opened up the laptop. No power board on this one. So that explains why there were 'out of stock'. But I updated it with an answer -- it was the jack itself that was fried.
    – Jonathan
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 23:10
  • That's pretty lucky, but as you say, it could be other components, like capacitors and other things.
    – David
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 23:14

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