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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June 12th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
[...] am having a problem with my Toshiba M35x-s329 video and the DC plug I am having a problem with my Toshiba M35x-s329 video and the DC plug issue you discuss on here. My screen recently went blank during a shutdown without apparent cause.Here are all the things I have done to try to remedy this problem: 1) After reading about the loose DC plug issues on here. I decided to buy a NEW system board. The new board has a better DC connector – so obviously the manufacturer has addressed this issue. I was going to build a second laptop from the parts. [...]
June 12th, 2006 at 6:52 am
cj2600, Peter:
I’m in the same exact boat as Peter … I followed the directions posted here and have the same results.
cj2600 your idea about trying while disassembled is a good one because I seem to get better results that way. What I mean is that the laptop boots up good and I can login. However, after a couple of minutes the screen fades to black … It doesn’t appear to shut off it just fades out. The weird part is that I don’t get anything once I assemble the laptop … I press the power button and the blue light and fan comes on and after about 5 – 10 seconds the fan cuts off and nothing appears on the screen. The blue light stays on, but if i move the laptop the blue light goes off.
I tried attaching the assembled laptop to an external monitor and I still get the same results … My next solution is to just replace the DC-IN jack, however I don’t see how that will help anything now because it appears to be working fine because the battery is charging.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Peter,
I’m not sure what is going on. You can try one more thing. Remove the system board and try to boot the system outside the laptop case. That’s what I do when I have an unknown problem. I assemble the system on my bench: system board, CPU, cooling module and memory. Then connect the power button board and an external monitor. Boot the system and see if you still having the same problem. I do not have an answer what is wrong with your laptop. I’m not sure if I can help you without looking at the laptop.
June 8th, 2006 at 12:12 am
Okay, scratch my ‘problem occurs when I move the laptop around’. I took the laptop apart, and put everything back in place following the guide. It took me a few tries because the screen/system kept dying , but I logged into windows and left it there. It stayed for about 2 minutes, then the screen went black again.
June 8th, 2006 at 12:05 am
Okay. I checked all cables and they seem to be placed correctly. I think it’s something else rather then the display. When I got into windows, I played a movie to check if I could hear it when the screen turned black. It seems like the system is shutting off or something, but the LED lights are still on and everything. The screen/system shutoff occurs when I move my laptop around. What do you suggest I do? Everything is correctly placed and tight. Thank you.
June 7th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Peter,
I would check all connections first. It is possible that an improperly seated cable or a loose connection creates the problem. Check if all cables are seated properly, check the video cable connector.
June 7th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
Hi, and thank you for all your great help. I have the m35x-s149 model. The first problem was the common power/battery charge problem. I followed one of the guides and it turned out wonderful. But now my current problem is that my screen randomly goes black. Pitch black. All my 3 lights are on, I hear my hard drive booting up, and fan spinning. Most of the times it stays black when I turn on the laptop. Other times the bios, xp, etc. loads up fine, and then it goes black. The rest of the time I make it all the way through the log in and see my actual desktop, then it goes black. I’ve noticed that when the screen goes black, i’m no longer able to open my DVD drive, but yet the 3 lights are on. Do you have any suggestions what I should do? My laptop is no longer under warranty, and I’m really on a tight budget. Any tips/help would be much appreciated.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Jenni,
Check it out.
http://www.lorisklar.com/toshad.htm
http://www.classcounsel.com/news/toshiba.html
May 30th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Douglas,
Most of the time people cannot boot laptop after reassembly because something is not seated or connected properly. Check if the CPU is seated properly, check if flat cables are connected properly. The laptop should boot with memory stick installed in any slot. Are you sure that the power jack was the only problem in the laptop?
May 29th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
repaired dc connection problem for my niece. Now after re assembly i am getting post error one long three short beeps. Is there a particular side you have to install memory if you only have one stick or do i have a video problem. Screen is black and no boot up. thanks in advance.