weird electrical incident

[Draconas]

So I have an acer aspire 5315 old ass laptop from a ballpark of 2007 with a lot of interesting memories attached to it. Today after throwing ubuntu on it, I noticed that the wall power was cut off, I check the plug and it's still in, I reset it and it worked fine for 5 minutes, rinse and repeat about 3 times until the power brick never came back to life.

Here's the point of this thread, what (if anything) in a laptop power brick can break in such a way that when partially powered, can affect other electronics over the air? as when powered, a few USB devices on another machine on a completely different electrical circuit will just drop then come back, this behavior is repeatable but I imagine this isn't good for anything.

[Ricky]

You need to elaborate on this, I mean the USB devices and the other machine were not even described. You have a laptop with a bad supply or something, and a separate computer with USB devices that are doing what, when?

[Draconas]

When the busted laptop charger is given power, a totally different machine on a totally different electrical circuit will have all of it's USB devices "disconnect" randomly

[Ricky]

If they "disconnect randomly" I don't understand what you are looking for here. It wouldn't have a reason if it is "random". I highly doubt that is the case though, it's going to be for *some* reason if what you say, that it is reproducible, is indeed the case. Just take out variables, I'd first start with disconnecting the network from that PC and then one USB device at a time.

[Draconas]

is it reproducible? yes
as it at all on the same circuit with the other pc? no
is there physically ANYTHING the two are sharing? no
(above also implies networking not being a factor)
What im literally asking, can SOMETHING in a old ass laptop power brick do ANYTHING like this under these conditions while being isolated from one another.

[Ricky]

No clue. I don't know anything about the devices, and if what you say is true then they are obviously connected in some way.

I'm not going to pull reasons out of my ass, the correct way to answer your question is to troubleshoot the problem by eliminating variables. That is.. if you arr looking to fix it and not just for attention here.

[Draconas]

it was more curiosity than anything else really.

[Draconas]

On 7/10/2016 at 0:08 PM, 6tails said:

Yes. What's likely happening is that something like a filter cap in the power brick failed. Now when you plug it in, it spews EMF all over the fucking place. Some motherboards don't like this (especially those cheaper ones built on crappy 4-5 layer PCB) and will do stupid shit in response. This is similar to how older Nokia phones with the replaceable light-up everything (antenna, faceplate/number pad, battery) could be forced to light up simply by clicking a piezoelectric lighter within 30 feet of one that is equipped with all that light-up crap.

so more than likely it's a medium difficulty repair job if I really feel like it at the best