A bad connection between DC-IN power jack on the system board and the system board is a very common problem with Toshiba Satellite M35X and Toshiba Satellite A70/A75 notebooks. If your laptop is out of warranty, then you can fix the problem by resoldering DC-IN jack on the system board. If it’s still under warranty, it would be fixed at no charge to you.
Problem symptoms:
- Laptop randomly shuts down without any warning.
- Power LED and battery charge LED start flickering when you wiggle the power cord or the AC adapter tip on the back or your laptop.
- The battery will not get charged.
- When you plug AC adapter, the laptop appears to be dead and there is no LED activity at all (DC-IN jack on the system board is broken).
To fix the problem, you have to take your laptop apart, remove the system board to resoleder or replace the DC-IN jack. Toshiba Satellite M35X and Toshiba Satellite A70/A75 disassembly guides will help you to remove the system board. Take a closer look at the power jack on the system board with a magnifying glass. In most cases you get the power problem because of a bad connection between the DC jack and the system board, you’ll see a crack between the DC jack connector and the system board.
Here is an example of Toshiba Satellite M35X power jack. The crack occurs between the DC jack pin and the system board.
In some cases the connection is good, but the DC jack is bad itself. You can find a new DC jack for Toshiba Satellite M35X and Toshiba Satellite A70/A75 laptops here. Search for DC jack M35X or DC jack A75.
How to resolder laptop power jack yourself.
UPDATE:
Sometimes, after you replace the jack, you can see that the system board doesn’t get power at all. The battery will not charge and the power LED will not light when you plug in the AC adapter. So, here’s a possible explanation.
When a connection between the positive pin and the motherboard breaks (cracks), the power jack gets loose. You can feel it when you plug in the adapter plug. A loose power jack can damage the trace inside the hole in the system board. Take a look at the picture.
As you see, the positive pin goes through the hole in the system board and you solder it on the top side. Right? What if the trace between the top side and the bottom side is broken somewhere inside the hole? I’ve seen it before a few times. In this case everything looks nice and clean on the top side. When you plug in the AC adapter, you get normal voltage readings between “+” and “-“ pins on the top side, but the power DOESN’T go to the motherboard at all, because there is no connection between the top and bottom sides. Test with a multimeter if there is a connection between the top and the bottom.
If the trace inside the hole is broken you still can fix it. You can run a wire to connect the top and the bottom sides. Be careful not to short something on the board.
Update:
Here’s another solution to fix the power jack problem, it shows how to relocate the power jack outside the laptop base. Check it out here: Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround.
When you repair a loose power jack, it’s a good idea to check the jack on both sides of the motherboard. When you remove the top cover from a Toshiba Satellite A70/A75 laptop you can see only points where the jack is soldered to the motherboard as it shown on the second picture in this post, but you cannot see the jack itself as it shown on the first picture.
Removing the motherboard from Satellite A70/A75 laptop is a good idea because the jack itself might has a broken “+” pin, as it shown on the picture below. If the “+” broke off the base, you’ll have to replace the jack.
UPDATE:
Today I received another well written and well documented guide about fixing Toshiba Satellite M35X power connector issue. This guide was submitted by Stephen Macuch. Thank you Stephen for great pictures and detailed instructions.
If you are tired of fixing your laptop and want to sell it for parts you can do it here:
Any Notebook Part – free classifieds. Only laptop stuff.
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October 25th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Douglas Lazarus,
Remove the battery and start the laptop with the AC adapter. Now wiggle the power plug inside the jack. Will it shut down when you wiggle the adapter plug? If yes, it’s either DC jack problem or you have a damaged wire inside the cord.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Ingrid,
Hmmm, he said the hard drive is not detected by the laptop and at the same time it gets to the Winodws screen? Really strange. When the hard drive is toast, you will not see Windows screen at all.
I cannot advice in this situation because I’m not really sure what’s going on with the laptop.
Yes, it’s possible.
Nope, with unlocked CPU the laptop will not start at all.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
rollie,
Check the memory module, maybe it’s not seated correctly. Try reconnecting the memory module.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I have a toshiba M35x. I resoldered the +pin and all the 3 leds turned on. I wiggled the plug , all the leds stayed on. While the laptop was booting, the screen went blank. I hit the on button to turn the computer back on but nothing happened. I resolder the pin and all the connections again but still the computer will not turn on. There is a fuse beside the power connector. I used my meter to test the voltage between the output side of the fuse and -voltage, I was reading 19+ volts dc. Any idea about what happened?
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:20 am
Thanks to your site, I was able to ID the charging problem with my Toshiba A70. However knowing I don’t solder well, I decided to take it to an authorized Toshiba repair shop. The last time I had the unit running, I performed an orderly shutdown before the battery ran too low to prevent a crash. The Tech is now calling to advise after repairing the DC Connector he’s getting a “Cannot detect Hard Drive” and my HD is toast. The unit booted and ran fine before he opened it up to repair the DC connector, but since we couldn’t power up the unit when I left it with them, he say’s he doesn’t believe me. Is it possible he either hasn’t reassembled correctly, or forgotten to return the the CPU to the locked position? He says it gets to the windows screen then he gets the error message. Thanks
October 18th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I have a Dell latitude 630. The battery power does nto last long. As it gets too low, I get a message that says Switch to Plug-in Power. But I only use the AC Adapter. It’s a fight between the battery going dead and getting recharged. If I take the battery out, I can use the computer on AC power, but it goes dead after a while. If I am using AC power and remove the adapter connection, it goes dead immediately andwon’t restart if I plug in the adapter without the “dead” battery installed.
At first I put in a brand new battery, but had the same problem of it going dead with the message to switch to plug-in power.
In Control Panel Power Options, I do not see a menu item that allows me to switch from battery to plug-n power.
Can you please advise? Thank you very much.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:21 am
the trace in the hole thru the board was bad so i soldered a jumper on to the wire coming out of the back of the plug and on to the hot side of the resistor feeding the trace that way
July 29th, 2009 at 12:24 am
My notebokk c 8223 MV,
If I press power button must be in charging, although batery 90 %. I need explanation..thank you very much
July 28th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I have a Toshiba A75 that will run on AC power until it has to think! I have loaded a new BIOS and Windows XP but the problem persists. It charges when it’s off and does not seem to have any “loose connection” issues. It will not boot up with the battery removed but once booted and dormant I can unplug and replug the AC adapter and it will begin to run on AC even if I remove the battery… until you run a program or in some way ask it to “think” then it reverts to the battery. Any ideas?
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
i have the satellite A215 with the same power jack problem. will the solution above fix this model as well?