Please help, I kinda screwed up....

[swankitydankity]

Hi, I'm a new user here so I apologize if this is the wrong place to put a post like this.

I was putting screws back into my laptop (Dell Inspiron 7577 if that's at all relevant) when i accidentally dropped one into some corner (pics below), and being the fool that I am, I hadn't unplugged the battery.

Having not already been stupid enough, I tried to get it out by trying to use the magnetic tip of my screwdriver to pull it out, but when I put it near the screw there were some sparks and a bit of smoke, as well as a bad smell.

I only then realised the stupidity of what I had done and later managed to get it out with a nintendo ds stylus.... lol.

I was worried when I saw there was something metallic looking that seemed to have been burnt or mangled.

The computer still booted fine, I tried first on battery power, then I took the battery out and used the charger, both of which (for now) seem to work fine.
I'm just worried that I may have damaged something, and that I just haven't given it the chance to explode yet. Am I in danger of something happening?
 

[RAM555789]

Something is defiantly damaged, but its hard to say to what extent and if it could lead to future issues.

[Fasauceome]

It's basically always bad to continue using something that sparked and smoked. What part of the laptop is pictured?

[swankitydankity]

14 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

It's basically always bad to continue using something that sparked and smoked. What part of the laptop is pictured?

It was just beside where the cable connecting to the battery was.

[Fasauceome]

2 minutes ago, swankitydankity said:

It was just beside where the cable connecting to the battery was.

 

Oof, that means you damaged power delivery probably. Not great, see if there's even more burning there after you've used it, or if something happens there when you turn it on.

[mariushm]

Need better pictures.

If they're capacitors ( if there's small text that starts with C near them) , then chances are that everything will still work but behave erratically randomly depending where the parts are used (what circuit, what purpose for the circuit etc)

 

[swankitydankity]

15 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Need better pictures.

If they're capacitors ( if there's small text that starts with C near them) , then chances are that everything will still work but behave erratically randomly depending where the parts are used (what circuit, what purpose for the circuit etc)

what kind of pictures exactly?

i tried taking a few more but if there’s something specific I need to capture then let me know.

[swankitydankity]

20 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Oof, that means you damaged power delivery probably. Not great, see if there's even more burning there after you've used it, or if something happens there when you turn it on.

As far as I can tell nothing looks more damaged than before after having used it for about 20 minutes off of my adapter (without the battery plugged in), and it still seems to boot up fine 

[mariushm]

It would be best if you take the laptop to a service place  (even one that repairs phones or smaller things) to desolder those damaged parts at the very least.

There's a high probability the damaged parts are identical to the ones on the right in the picture, and in parallel ... if they're capacitors, having more in parallel increases capacitance.  A phone repair place won't have such big capacitors, but at least if you remove the parts you won't risk them causing further damage (if the capacitor is broken in half, vibrations, shock could move the parts in such a way that eventually they'll connect again which could show up as a short circuit and trip the power supply or the battery)

[Falkentyne]

If you're lucky, it could have just been something on the ground plane.  If no actual traces were severed or any caps or resistors or mosfets bridged, then there may not have been damage except for that.  If it was actually power delivery, you would know about it very quickly.

 

Remember next time you service any laptop (or desktop), always unplug ALL sources of power (except the CMOS battery), including any internal battery connections (even if the battery isn't "removable", there should be a DC connector for it.

[swankitydankity]

10 minutes ago, Falkentyne said:

If you're lucky, it could have just been something on the ground plane.  If no actual traces were severed or any caps or resistors or mosfets bridged, then there may not have been damage except for that.  If it was actually power delivery, you would know about it very quickly.

 

Remember next time you service any laptop (or desktop), always unplug ALL sources of power (except the CMOS battery), including any internal battery connections (even if the battery isn't "removable", there should be a DC connector for it.

Hopefully that’s what happened here lol. 

And yeah, it only takes this to happen once for me to remember the lesson forever.

[Falkentyne]

9 minutes ago, swankitydankity said:

Hopefully that’s what happened here lol. 

And yeah, it only takes this to happen once for me to remember the lesson forever.

Don't feel embarrassed.  I *Destroyed* a MSI GT60 whitebook (4 years in use) by opening the chassis to troubleshoot a HDD DMA issue (turned out the HDD was fine...it was windows 10 upgrade to a newer version causing the problem!), because I left the AC adapter plugged in and my amulet on my neck touched the MOSFETS......TWICE.

 

Umm...

 

Cost me $2500 to buy a brand new GT73VR when I wasn't ready to spend that money.  Yeah.  There's embarrassment.

 

Oh and you think I'm done?
I had do a frankenstein screw mod several months ago on my GT73VR because I overtightened a screw and the bottom bit tore and got stuck in the hole.  Managed to make an extra tiny spring to give more downwards pressure to a replacement screw (had a spare heatsink so I had extra screws for it), as the new screw wouldn't screw all the way down since the old bit was blocking it.  On one of my attempts, the tiny aluminum spring fell out when the screw slipped when trying to screw down, hit a tiny silver "square" not a cap or resistor, almost like a pad on the mainboard, a small spark appeared.  

 

I had forgotten to unplug the battery connector.  (YES the AC was unplugged).  

I thought I destroyed a $2500 laptop.

In panic I redid everything QUICKLY and turned it on.

 

Laptop came on like nothing happened and is still working perfectly with absolutely no problems.

 

Apparently that pad must have been some sort of grounding strip or plane or something. There was a tiny burn mark next to it but nothing more.

 

Yeah.

Mistakes were made.

 

[swankitydankity]

44 minutes ago, Falkentyne said:

Don't feel embarrassed.  I *Destroyed* a MSI GT60 whitebook (4 years in use) by opening the chassis to troubleshoot a HDD DMA issue (turned out the HDD was fine...it was windows 10 upgrade to a newer version causing the problem!), because I left the AC adapter plugged in and my amulet on my neck touched the MOSFETS......TWICE.

 

Umm...

 

Cost me $2500 to buy a brand new GT73VR when I wasn't ready to spend that money.  Yeah.  There's embarrassment.

 

Oh and you think I'm done?
I had do a frankenstein screw mod several months ago on my GT73VR because I overtightened a screw and the bottom bit tore and got stuck in the hole.  Managed to make an extra tiny spring to give more downwards pressure to a replacement screw (had a spare heatsink so I had extra screws for it), as the new screw wouldn't screw all the way down since the old bit was blocking it.  On one of my attempts, the tiny aluminum spring fell out when the screw slipped when trying to screw down, hit a tiny silver "square" not a cap or resistor, almost like a pad on the mainboard, a small spark appeared.  

 

I had forgotten to unplug the battery connector.  (YES the AC was unplugged).  

I thought I destroyed a $2500 laptop.

In panic I redid everything QUICKLY and turned it on.

 

Laptop came on like nothing happened and is still working perfectly with absolutely no problems.

 

Apparently that pad must have been some sort of grounding strip or plane or something. There was a tiny burn mark next to it but nothing more.

 

Yeah.

Mistakes were made.

 

Yikes,

and here I am losing my mind after one tiny incident on a €700 computer...lol 

It appears (for now) that I’ve been fortunate so hopefully I won’t be experiencing cases like yours.

and thanks for the responses too