Junior's Advent laptop died last night and we're not sure what has happened. It won't switch on, either on battery power or mains power.

During checks, I found that the fuse in the power supply needed replaced.

With a new fuse in, the light on the power supply unit came on and a test meter shows power is reaching the plug that goes into the laptop, but as soon as I actually plug it in to the laptop the light in the power supply starts to flicker. Pull it out, and the light goes steady again.

He took it in to PC World today (I know, but the store was handy to where he was, and the local independent is closed for refurbishment)

They quoted £230 for a guaranteed repair and told him it was probably something to do with the mother board. Does this sound right, or would a power supply fault be more likely?

I'm guessing that could be expensive to fix as well, so he may be better just buying a new machine, but if I stick his hard drive into an external case what files would he copy to transfer his internet favourites and emails across to the new machine?

 

rip