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.
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June 28th, 2006 at 11:27 am
Paul,
I haven’t created a complete disassembly guide for this model yet, but I think you can handle it yourself. You’re almost there.
Now you have to do next:
- remove the keyboard securing strip (take a look at other guides)
- remove 2 keyboard screws, lift up the keyboard and disconnect from the system board
- disconnect the video cable, pull the wireless antenna cables
- remove covers from both hinges and remove screws from the hinges
- remove the display assembly
- now you have to remove the top cover assembly. Remove 4 screws located on the metal plate and 1 screw that was hidden by the display assembly (you’ll see what I’m talking about)
- disconnect all cables
- remove the top cover
Now you have an access to the motherboard and you have to remove it in order to fix the jack. It should be straight forward. Read through other disassembly guide to get an idea. The power jack is a part of the system board, so you’ll have to find a new one and re-solder it.
June 27th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
I believe I’m having the power jack issue with my Toshiba Satellite A35-S159. Does anyone have a link to the Maintenance Manual for this laptop. I haven’t been able to find any links on how to break this one down completely. I figured out how to break it down part of the way. I was able to remove the battery, the DVD player, and the hard drive. I also removed all screws on the bottom of the laptop, the two P8 screws on the rear near the hinges, the two screws underneath the DVD player, and the two screws underneath the battery. Do I need to remove the screen and unconnect that as well? If so, anyone have any instructions to get to the power jack. I’m sure it’s busted as wiggling causes the power light to go in and out. I’m also having problems charging. I bought a new battery to rule that out, but I’m still having the same charging problems.
Thanks
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Mine’s doing this, too … but it’s an Acer Travelmate 2700. Apparently this is a very common problem in my model, which sucks a great deal. I get random shut-downs, and what’s even weirder is sometimes when i’m using it, if the AC plug comes unattached for whatever reason, it switches to battery, like normal. When I re-plugin the adapter, it stays on battery without switching back, until I shut down the laptop. The moment it shuts down, the AC adapter starts charging the battery again. Bloody frustrating!
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Hi,
Now I have disassembled my A75 laptop. And i think that the power jack is indeed cracked. So I am gonna get a new jack. but can u provide the instructions (plus pictures would be great) on how to take the old jack out and put the new one in??? Thanks a lot.
June 21st, 2006 at 4:55 am
Hi Polina just yesterday i turned my computer on and the same thing that your computer is going through mine is going through too. Do you have a m35x-s109 model? Did you put into hibernation mode the last time you used your laptop? As of right now im still investigating but i have three possible solutions one is the cmos, the other is the dc jack ,and the last is the motherboard. I hope that the last isnt the problem because i dont have $400 for a motherboard
June 17th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Hi, I have similar problem to Peter’s (with the same model), namely, I first had the problem with power supply when my laptop was 6 month old. The battery would not charge, and if you wiggle the plug in the socket then it would, so I had to prop it up. Then they replaced the motherboard under warranty and the upper cover which was manufacturer’s recall. Yesterday here’s what happened: I turned it on and the fan went on and the blue light, but… the screen is dark and the hard drive makes no sound whatsoever, which is unusual. Usually you can hear it turning as windows load. My CD-ROM does not open either unless I poke with a pencil into the small hole, that is provided specifically for this purpose to open it if it can’t be opened normally. My laptop is out of warranty now and the repair shop said it’s going to cost 300-400$ to replace the MB, but I think it may crash again soon. Does anyone know if there were any recalls on this model because of this problem?
Thank you
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.