Computer help forum: Power light changes color

What's wrong with the power supply? I've had this notebook for about 4 years.

Did you replace that along the way? The rated lifespan for most are a mere 300 cycles or 18 months. You are well past that time.
Bob

Only just started doing that.

An old battery can strain the motherboard and charger which can cause other costs to fix it.
Bob

Acer Aspire did not help me discern your true situation.

Besides, your very small and compacted PSU might be malfunctioning anyway. Battery in the unit or not.

You got lucky it lasted that long as Bob stated it. 2.67 times the 18 months it should have lasted.

Seems that, a run to the nearest electronics store is in order now.

But every so often, if I lift it off my heat pad it'll shut down. Is it just the battery that I need to replace or the whole thing?

You may want to perform your six month laptop vent cleaning cycle ahead of schedule.

You do do that?
Bob

Never even heard of that. Every so often I'll take a air duster and spray the vents clear, but I've never heard of anything official like a "vent cleaning cycle."

But we have to call it something. Good to read you do the usual but maybe this machine has reached the day we need to open it up for the deep cleaning.

Example? See this link:
http://icrontic.com/article/clean_laptop_heatsink

Love figure 5 since I've removed so many like that.
Bob

And, will cost you an arm and a leg to get the tools and training to do just that by that person's own time.

That person should just replace that Laptop with a way newer one. Besides, I think that the screws are not holding the trap in a tight and un-moving condition any more. Once lifted from the desk, it gets to jiggle and the illegal internal tampering security feature of Windows automatically gets it to make an emergency ShutDown of the current session. Fan(s) might have stopped(electrical faulty wiring) also. Then, the overheat did force Windows to urgently use its preventive auto-shutdown to safeguard the unit from melting inside parts of it.

As you can see, the extensive use of that unit, bare all kinds of problems not experienced in much newer units. Time went by and, the inevitable happened. Time to purchase a new one and do a data transfer in between HDD.

In today's computers, 1 human year is the equivalent of about 10 years for these IT units. 4 years = 40 years of age + extensive hours of use onto it, could send it all the way to a whopping 6 years equivalence in age(60 years).

Just thought of throwing extra experience like knowledge into the decision making of efagan8210's current situation. Laptop used for work? Then the need for that decision is for today or tomorrow at the latest. If not, well, whenever the time permits.

And explains why so many dead laptops are able to be brought back to life. This is not PRO WORK. It's basic stuff.
Bob