HP laptop keeps shutting down randomly

Greetings.
I picked up this used laptop recently, and honestly, it’s been shutting down on me almost immediately since day one. I reached out to the guy who sold it to me, and he took a look to see what the deal was. He claimed the thing was just choked with dust and gave it a deep clean, then insisted the charger was the culprit. Apparently, some components near the power port had practically fried from the heat, so he went ahead and resoldered them, along with the input jack on the motherboard itself. Since the charger was intermittently cutting out, my question is this: What kind of connection does a faulty charger have to the system crashing if the battery is still somewhat functional? I mean, it holds a charge for maybe 20 minutes, tops—maybe half an hour if I'm lucky. And of course, after just two days, it died on me again, almost as if the computer is suddenly being starved of power mid-use.
I've switched it over to a universal power adapter for now, but I have a strong suspicion that the charger isn't actually the reason the machine keeps dying.

It’s most likely an issue with the power jack soldered right onto the motherboard... 🤷 Honestly, if someone sells you a broken laptop, they should either give you your money back or swap it out for a working one.

Look, man, he told me everything was fine and there wouldn't be any issues—he’d just swap it out later—but honestly, the whole thing is just ridiculous to me. If you ask me, something went haywire with the chipset near the power delivery system. It’s been running on a generic universal charger since last night, then suddenly this morning it dies three times in a row and won't even budge. But the second I plug in his original charger? It fires right up on the first try. And the kicker? Right at that exact moment, the charger itself shorted out, yet the device just kept humming along on battery power.
So, it's basically like jump-starting a car with cables and then just pulling them away while the engine's still turning.

Sorry, I have to ask: were you actually aware of this issue before you pulled the trigger on the purchase?
Is there any way to actually get a refund?

It was working perfectly fine for an entire day, and then, right on schedule, everything just went south starting the second day.
He mentioned he has the funds available, but he said the only thing he can actually get me is a replacement laptop in about ten days or so.

Thomas Wells5 said:It was working perfectly fine for the entire first day, but then everything just went south starting on the second day.
And he mentioned he has the cash, but said the only thing he can actually do is give me another laptop in about ten days or so.

If you ask me, it sounds like someone sold you a lemon. If he’s already claiming the fan was dirty—which, let's be real, isn't happening in just one day unless you're living in a literal dust storm—and he knows exactly what's wrong (you even mentioned he was messing around with some soldering!?), it means he knew there was an issue all along...

No, I don't think you quite caught my drift. He basically buys these units up, refurbishes them, and flips them. I showed up with cash right as he’d just finished installing Windows on this one, so I snapped it up immediately. When the issue first cropped up, I took it back to him; he claimed it had been heavily abused previously, so it shouldn't be an issue, but the exact same thing kept happening. I brought it back again and told him I'd just wait until he had another unit in stock, but apparently, he’d "fixed" it in the meantime. He even showed me the charred remains of the old charger and how he’d had to resolder the charging port on the motherboard. I took it home, it worked fine for two days, and then—boom—same problem. So now I've handed it back and told him forget selling me this lemon; just get me a different one once he has it, and if it’s a better machine, I won't mind paying the difference. I've known the guy for years since we work in the same industry, so I'm not losing sleep over it... it's just that I find it bizarre how a faulty charger could cause a laptop to die like this if the battery itself is still holding a charge perfectly fine.

From what I understand, if the charger is plugged in, it’s pulling power directly from the wall rather than draining the battery. Once you unplug it, the system switches over to the battery... but man, if that charger itself is faulty, things can get pretty unpredictable.

Seriously, how on earth am I not the one taking him back, but someone else is instead?

Thomas Wells5 said:Wait, I’m not even the one taking him back, someone else is dealing with that part.

That's a smart way to look at it. 🙂

Jumping back into this thread—I’m dealing with an IBM laptop where the battery is shot; it won't hold a charge once you unplug the AC adapter. On top of that, I’m getting those annoying "CMOS settings wrong" and "CMOS Date/Time not set" errors every time I boot up, which pretty clearly points to a dead CMOS battery. The real headache, though, is the random shutdowns after it's been running for a bit. I'm assuming overheating isn't the culprit here—would swapping out the CMOS battery actually fix the boot errors and the stability issues?

Jumping back into this thread—my IBM laptop has a dead battery. It won't stay powered once I unplug the cord, and I'm getting those "CMOS settings wrong" and "CMOS Date/Time not set" errors during bootup, which pretty much confirms the CMOS battery is shot too. The real headache, though, is the system just shutting down randomly after a bit of use. I'm assuming overheating isn't the culprit here. If I swap in a fresh main battery and a new CMOS, will that actually fix the shutdown issue?