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So a friend plugged his laptop directly into the mains back in the day

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First post, by songoffall

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Well, a friend of mine has a Zenith Data Systems Z-180 laptop with 8088 7MHz. When he was a kid, he couldn't find the power brick so he plugged the computer directly into the mains. I don't know how exactly he managed to do that. Now it's sitting at his garage.

I haven't been able to find the schematics for that laptop but I know the brick was supposed to provide it with 18vdc.

Do you think it's worth taking the laptop from him and trying to repair it? Or do you think it's toast?

It would be quite the ordeal, taking a lot of stuff out of the garage to find it, so I'd say it's worth it only if there's reasonable chance to save the machine.

If it comes back to life, I'm calling it Lazarus.

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Reply 1 of 5, by Pierre32

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A lot of conscious effort has to go into a mistake like that. And your friend is still standing? Managed to get through life ok? 😁

I'd assume a good chance of terminal damage, but I'd also be keen to dig it out for a look.

Reply 2 of 5, by songoffall

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Pierre32 wrote on 2023-04-20, 21:53:

A lot of conscious effort has to go into a mistake like that. And your friend is still standing? Managed to get through life ok? 😁

I'd assume a good chance of terminal damage, but I'd also be keen to dig it out for a look.

Well, he recently took his kid to a homeopath, so I assume there was some brain damage involved.

To be serious, I think he just took a plug with two exposed wires and stuck them in the laptop. The laptop did not explode.

I too am interested about seeing what's going on inside that thing. It's just that I'm not very keen on seeing exploded caps. But then, I might get a video out of it.

P2 300MHz/Matrox Mystique/Sound Blaster AWE 32 Value
Pentium 3 733MHz/3dfx Voodoo 3 3000/Aureal Vortex 2 (Diamond Monster Sound)
Pentium 4 HT 3.0GHz/GeForce FX 5500/Creative Audigy 2
Core2 Quad Q9400/GeForce 8800GT/Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty

Reply 3 of 5, by Grzyb

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There's a slight chance that only a fuse got burned...

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Reply 4 of 5, by the3dfxdude

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My boy built a radio circuit, and got to the part where the instructions said to connect the antenna wire to earth ground. He decided to use the ground of an electrical receptacle. One time he accidentally slipped inserting the wire and went into the hot side of the plug and caused a massive spark followed by panic. Luckily the outlet he picked was gfci, and both he and the circuit came out fine...

So there is a chance he only tripped something by connecting to mains directly, but who knows!

Reply 5 of 5, by songoffall

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Well, I guess there's only one way to find out 😀)

P2 300MHz/Matrox Mystique/Sound Blaster AWE 32 Value
Pentium 3 733MHz/3dfx Voodoo 3 3000/Aureal Vortex 2 (Diamond Monster Sound)
Pentium 4 HT 3.0GHz/GeForce FX 5500/Creative Audigy 2
Core2 Quad Q9400/GeForce 8800GT/Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty

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