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by Yetanfou 2684 days ago
Apart from the main battery and any backup batteries that laptop would probably work if it were left in storage for a few decades. The power supply is another story, that probably would need to have its electrolytic capacitors replaced before it would work reliably (or at all). Laptops don't contain that much hardware which deteriorates in time, especially not when left un-powered to avoid electromigration becoming an issue. Switch-mode power supplies don't hold up well and their failure mode is often catastrophic, this in contrast to linear power supplies which start suffering from ever-larger ripple current as the buffer capacitors lose electrolyte over time. The main reason for this is that switch-mode power supplies have large electrolytic buffer capacitors on the high-voltage side while linear power supplies only have them on the low-voltage end. I've repaired many a 'boat-anchor' (large transformer-equipped linear) power supply by simply swapping out the buffer capacitors. Blown switch-mode power supplies usually don't come back to life by swapping capacitors, these often need to have some active components replaced before anything interesting (other than the rapid release of magic smoke) happens.