Wierd computer issue.

[Professor S]

It sounds like you got a power surge when the power went off or on again, and it blew some stuff up. I'm not familiar with how laptops handle power, but hopefully only your battery got fried a little. If this were a desktop we were talking about, your whole system might have gotten crisped up a nice golden brown.

In any case, in the future, even with a laptop, I'd advise investing in a voltage regulator for charging the battery. You don;t really need to regulate voltage with an on board battery, but they make the best surge protectors, IMO, with the added bonus of a secondary power source if power goes out for a LONG time.