My laptop shut off this MORNING and will not come back on. Last night it was sitting on a couch and was heating up a lot, but it operated fine and shut down normally. This morning my roomate was using it on another surface that causes it to heat up. Both it and the power cord were significantly hot. She tells me that it shut down spontaneously and will not turn on again. No lights, no response, nothing. She gave it nearly an hour to cool, to no avail. It is not taking a charge, its power lights won't come on when plugged in. My roomate TOLD me that it didn't appear to be taking a charge while it was STILL running today, but she's not sure if it died from a LOW battery or if it burned out. My computer has never really done something like this before. It overheated once before and came back an hour later, and it was able to charge while turned off.

Does this sound like a problem with the power cord and not the computer? I wasn't there when it shut down and I don't have the details. Does anyone know if there's a way to tell whether or not my power cord is broken and the computer is just on a dead battery?try a new batterybefore trying a new battery, i would use a voltmeter and test to see if you are getting the correct voltage OUTPUT on your charger. also, are you sure the receptacle that you plugged your charger into is working? by receptacle i mean the wall plug.I tried several outlets that are working for other appliances, so that's not the problem. It's completely unresponsive. I don't know what a voltmeter is or how I would use one. I don't want to go out and buy a new charger only to find out that the computer itself is broken.

The computer is about 5 years old, but has had its HD recently replaced. It has given me no real problems until now. Is it normal for a computer to completely die in an instant like this? Any help would be really greatly appreciated.Unfortunately sounds to me as if one of the boards (e.g. internal power converter board) has failed or gone bad in the computer. To resolve this issue you'd need to have the laptop serviced and fixed.

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Is it normal for a computer to completely die in an instant like this?