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 find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
July 6th, 2006 at 7:01 am
Re: #123: cj2600, I broke the prong so that one side catches but the other side doesn’t lock. It apparently needs the clip (FFC connector lock) to keep it in place – jamming doesn’t work. My quest is just starting so I’m not sure how easily this lock will be to find. Since it’s on the motherboard, I’m not too confident. I’d guess it’s specific to that connector manufacturer.
Perhaps I can “fatten” the cable by gluing something to the end and jamming it, but I’m afraid it will work itself loose.
July 5th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
Jeff,
Did you break the moving part of the connector? I think that you still can place the ribbon cable inside the connector and lock it. You should be able to jam the ribbon cable inside the connector.
July 5th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
Hey Larry,
A few months ago I had to repair a Satellite M35X with symptoms of a bad power jack. I was able to start laptop only after I applied some pressure on the power plug. After I disassembled the laptop I found that the power jack wasn’t damaged at all. Actually it was necessary to apply some pressure on the motherboard itself to start the computer. In my case I had to replace the motherboard.
Check if you put all screws correctly. Is it possible that you put let’s say 8mm screw instead of 6mm? A longer screw can touch the system board and short something. Try to assemble the laptop outside the laptop base. Connect the system board, CPU (with cooling module) and memory and try to start it with an external monitor. If the system starts fine outside the base, then start assembling it back and pay attention to each screw.
July 5th, 2006 at 11:18 am
I was able to complete this repair (not sure if it worked or not yet), however during reassembly I broke the clip that holds the ribbon cable from the power switch and LEDs to (I think) the motherboard. It’s about 1/2 inch long with two prongs on it with catches, one of the catches broke.
I’m even sure where to start to find one of these. I would guess it’s more of motherboard part than anything. Any ideas what I should be looking for or where to buy?
Thanks!
July 5th, 2006 at 5:38 am
follow up to my previous post. seems that if I flex the lower right corner of the base up and hit power button, unit boots fine. seems like a bad connection somewhere on the board. this rules out memory, cpu, hdd and lcd. I wonder if dis-assembly to repair dc jack could have damaged motherboard?.
thoughts, comments?
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:55 am
regarding post 111, I got a m35x with the power jack problem. I dismantled system and repaired the power jack connection.
I now can charge the battery and occasionaly boot the system.
Most times, it just does a blink of the hdd light while the fans spin for about 5 seconds. The power lamp stays on blue, screen never gets to the toshiba splash and stays black. system is basically dead at this point. cannot open cd drive. it will turn off
after holding down the power button for about 5-7 seconds.
I tried removing memory with out any change, I will try other ram tonight. I am suspecting the hard drive which I will also remove tonight. Anyone out there have similar experiences and possibly solutions?
June 30th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Patrick, I also do not have $400 for the MB.
Many people told me it is not worth the money to replace MB.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Hey everybody,
Here is an update to my comment # 111
I took my laptop to an authorized repair shop and they replace the mother board under “warranty extension”. Please note that I DO NOT have extended warranty on this laptop and the 1yr original warranty has expired in december 2005. They told me that Toshiba extended original 1 yr. warranty on some defects that apparently were happening too often, and the repair fixed my defect under this extension, so I did not have to pay anything. They also told me that the power jack problem that I had last year (see comment 111) is covered by this warranty extension.
To comment 112:
Hi, Patrick, my laptop is M35X-S149, and the problem was MB, but they repleced it under warranty extension. I did not put in hibernation mode, because for some reason hibernation stopped working properly some time ago. Toshiba customer service told me that it can be a software prob., and warrnsty doesn’t cover it, but they are not sure, so they suggested me to reinstall the system and see what happens. I did not reinstall the system (I’d have to kill a whole working day on it) but simply turned the hibernation off.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Kiet,
If you don’t know how to solder, then I wouldn’t recommend doing it yourself. I can damage the system board and it would cost a lot of money to replace it. Take it to a repair shop.
June 28th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Hi cj2600,
But how do u re-solder the jack though? I have a satellite A75 and the power jack is having problem. i can of course buy a new jack from ebay, but i just dont know how to do it…
Thanks.