Gateway P-6831 no longer powers on

My mom has a Gateway P-6831, and the hard drive had started failing a while ago. We had problems for a while with the AC adapter working, and the laptop powering on at all. Sometimes it would turn on, and shut down automatically. It ran Windows Vista and would never boot and bluescreened. It would sit at the boot screen for hours, doing a disk check, and that said the HDD was failing. Now, the laptop doesn't boot at all. One day, I was using it (booting from a live USB, as Windows would never boot) and it had been doing what it usually did (turning on, automatically shutting down, and if I got it to boot, it would shut down 5 minutes to 1-2 hours later). I had set it down on a table to go to something, and when I got back, smoke was coming out of the ethernet port (right next to charging port) and the laptop itself smelled really weird. I left it alone for a few hours, and whenever I plugged it in, it started to smell weird and the AC adapter would start blinking, but when i unplugged the AC adapter, it stopped blinking, and the smell started to go away. The laptop won't turn on at all now, and I can't try to boot from battery power, since the battery has been done for a while now. Is there any way to fix this? And also, I had the original AC adapter and battery that the laptop came with.

UPDATE: I figured out the problem. The hard drive never died, it has been the motherboard the entire time. I asked my mom if she spilt anything on it, and apparently iced tea was spilt on it at one point. No wonder I've been having all of these problems with it.

 

Hard drive reported to be failing, Having problems with the AC Adaptor, automatically shutting down, then later... Smoke - Nasty Smells...

ZoeJaye... you should have stopped at Hard drive reported to be failing...
Got a new Hard drive (they are only about £30 online)... and transferred all your personal and saved Data onto that...

Having problems with the AC adaptor... MOST times AC Adaptor problems are MOTHERBOARD (MoBo) problems... the connector on the MoBo can pull away from its' solder tabs and short out somewhere else... resulting in...
Smoke - Nasty Smells... and even FIRES.

Should you ever again experience dodgy AC Adaptors, PLEASE take it to an Expert or your favorite Uncle who is your Computer expert in the family and get them/him to check out the MoBo Power input connector... My local Computer repair shop only charges £25 for that service and even cleans out the CPU Fan removing years of accumulated Dust and Fluff -

NOT for me - but having found out that I am the Local 'expert' - my neighbors keep trying to get me to fix their computers - after being left to dispose of too many - WAY beyond repair - Laptops and Desktops... I now re-direct them THERE... (My wife also complained that I only asked for a pack of cigarettes after spending maybe two days fixing someones laptop... This way I don't get to feel guilty about charging them and I also managed to stop smoking)...

In the meanwhile, i suggest that you start researching what/which Laptop you want to replace your possibly WAY beyond repair Laptop...

Instead of spending between £300 and £500 on a new laptop...
there are SUPER opportunities to get a cheap but GOOD (Ex-Company) Refurbished Laptop very cheap... like this one...

DELL LATITUDE LAPTOP CORE 2 DUO 3.6GHZ 160GB 3GB WIFI WINDOWS 7 (SUPPLIED WITH RECOVERY DISC)
SAVE £150 ✔ WINDOWS 7 ✔ CORE 2 DUO ✔ 1 YR WARRANTY
RRP £285 OUR OFFER £129.95
With an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running upto 3.6Ghz, A huge 3GB of Memory and a massive 160G hard drive fully loaded with Windows 7. Comes with 6 months warranty and FREE DELIVERY with this item..
Don't forget our no quibble 14 day money back guarantee.

Where?
The Laptop Centre - Refurbished Computers (portableit.com) an Ebay Company

NO relation to me...

Brian