Help! I plugged in my laptop with reverse polarity! POP! Smoke! IBM Thinkpad 390E

Hello there, I have a IBM Thinkpad 390E, when i bought it, it came with an AC Adapter and a battery that was completely dead... So i bought a battery and loved it... Well i bought a car adapter for my laptop, and when i was reading all the diffrent voltage settings and such.. i wanted to make 100% sure that i had everything set up properly, so i wouldn't destroy my laptop....
Well i had the 16 V setting right... but when it came to my Polarity setting... there was the setting on the AC Adapter i could go by, or what was right above my power input to the laptop... Only thing was, is there was no indication of how it was sopose to be. - to + or + to -. depending on how you look at it.. Well in both a haste of wanting to test it and having to guess via the laptop .... I plug the thing in with reversed polarity..... !POP! *i unplug it within 1 second* and it begins to lightly smoke.... i almost crapped myself thinking that i just ruined my laptop.. But it turns out, i turned it on via battery power..... everything seemed to work perfect.... i plug it into the wall with my AC adapter, and it worked perfect....

But now my laptop will no longer charge my battery i spent all that money on...
I did a little reading around on the internet and from what i understand... the laptop has fuses and diods to prevent a complete fry of the entire computer in such a case as reversed polarity....

Now that you know the situation. my very serious question is..... Can this be fixed?
Do i have to replace and solder a diod or fuse?

Any information that i can get on this subject would be a great help to me..

Thank you for reading such a long post.

- Scott Harrington

If you want to get in touch with me directly, my email address is URL

I had something similar happen to a thinkpad from the i400 series (I forget the exact model). I eventually called IBM to see what they suggested. Since my laptop was out of warranty, they suggested I replace the mobo. Which is to say, I should ship them my laptop, let them fix it and send it back to me. I didn't really have the $800 I was quoted over the phone, so I called it a loss and started over. Thank god for backups, though!

That's just my 2 cents though. My best advice would be to call IBM and see what they recommend.

~JohnnyC

yes it can be fixed. but unless you have the necessary tools and experiance don't try it. working with the ultra minture solid state parts requires a lot of skill and the right heat settings, alos if something blows on a board it usually takes out other things, so unles you are a electronics person don't try to fix it your self. very few computer shops will actually do any electronics repair, your best bet is to send it to the manf and let them repair it. a very expensive lesson to learn.

just bring out the golf club and smash it!

Who else has a dead thinkpad? We should have a thinkpad smashing party.

I have a dead Thinkpad!

*smash smash smash*