I have a Clevo p150hm based laptop (Kobalt), which accidentally got too much wattage it would seem, from a universal charger, that might've had too high settings. There was definitely smoke, and now the laptop won't start at all.
Is all hope lost, or would it be possible for me to identify the short circuit components and possibly replace them?
Too little information here to give a reliable answer. If you aren't a skilled computer technician, you'll have to be very careful--it's quite easy to destroy a laptop by opening and disassembling it, even if it starts in perfect condition.
Where was the smoke coming from, anyway? The motherboard? The battery? The power supply? If it's something you can swap easily (for instance, the hard drive), try removing that and see if it will start.
In fact, if I were asked to look at a laptop that smoked out, I would remove everything removable: the hard drive, any optical drive, the power supply, all expansion cards, the battery. Now replace the battery and see if it will start. If not, remove the battery and replace the power supply, and try again. Does it start up?
If that doesn't work you'd need to open the case and inspect visually for fried components. Also, replacing the whole system is probably easier and cheaper than replacing the internal components of a modern laptop, unless you enjoy tinkering.
I have done a few repairs to power receptacles of laptops and they aren't too tricky. If you "let the smoke out" it should be obvious where it came from... likely a component (capacitor or resistor) will have burnt out and there will be a stain on the board.
If it is a simple component that you fix, you can get that replaced then double and triple check everything before reconnecting the same power pack to the laptop. And do verify the polarity of the pin and shell of both the laptop and power pack before reconnecting. If you're not sure, people with soldering experience will probably be a great help.
