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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September 12th, 2006 at 9:05 am
I also am a victim of Toshiba’s pieces of JUNK m35x-s 329 and m35x-s309 .. They are both just out of warranty and both have similar problem as discussed above. Neither will turn on unless you play with the dc jack .The m35x-s309 just refuses to charge the battery but will work if i insert a fully charged battery.
The m35x-329 would not start with either charged battery or it being plugged in. Sometimes the m35x-329 cpu fan starts going but it still doesn’t come on. I know its not a Display problem cause i scraped them both down and troubleshoot with one display to the other. Both displays and inverter tested good. The dc jack seems to be the problem. even if i get the M35x-349 to start it will work fine until i try to move it. I scraped it down and try ti see what was slack, turns out when i touch the dc jack the computer shuts down. I know what the problem is ; the Dc jack needs soldering as posted in the previous comments. I would also like to be informed about any class action suit against Toshiba or any recall concerining this matter for laptops that are out of warranty…jb
September 10th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Ramesh,
You were able to re-image the drive and the laptop didn’t hang, so I would assume it’s not the memory problem. With a bad memory module, you would get an error during re-imaging the drive. I think your problem could be related to a failing hard drive OR to a bad wireless card (sometimes a failed wireless card can cause weird problems). Try to remove the Wi-Fi card and see if it makes any changes. Test the hard drive with Hitachi drive fitness test and see if it passes it.
September 9th, 2006 at 7:08 am
Hi CJ,
Thanks for your reply, Here is my updates, My laptop hangs even on Battery also, One of my colleague advised me to run the Win XP recovery DVD which i got along with my Laptop from Toshiba, i did a recovery and re-installed Windows XP. It successfully re-installed without any system hanging and it is pretty fast now, only problem is everytime after booting 5 min it is hanging and the processor fan is blowing, no matter either it is on DC or AC power. Also my internet is not working. Pls. advise. Did my memory is making that mess, I remeber we just replaced the DC Jack with new one except that we didnt do anything on the board.
Thank you very much for your advise.
Ramesh
September 8th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
[...] have a Sony Vaio power jack replacement I am doing and have run into trouble I have a Sony Vaio power jack replacement I am doing and have run into trouble. According to your information posted on Laptop Repair Guy site, I may have the problem youdescribed there, specifically under the UPDATE. [...]
September 8th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Flavio,
I think it’s too early to look for a new motherboard. This black cable on the video harness doesn’t connect to anything and it’s not your problem. Put this black cable along with the video harness in the groove and forget about it.
Your laptop might not start up because of the following mistakes:
1. The memory module is not properly installed. Remove the memory module and install it back, try moving it to a different slot. Make sure that you plug it all the way down into the memory slot on the system board.
2. You forgot to lock the CPU in the socket. I don’t know if you removed the CPU from the socket during disassembly, but if you did, check if it’s locked. See comment 168.
September 8th, 2006 at 10:06 am
Ramesh,
If the laptop hangs only when it runs on AC power and works fine with the battery, then I would assume it’s not related to a bad memory, hard drive, wi-fi card or any other devices. I guess it might be somehow related to the AC adapter itself? Can you find a spare AC adapter to test the laptop?
Also Satellite M35X might lock up, freeze up and even reboot itself because of not properly grounded top cover assembly.
September 7th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
i had the same problem with my toshiba laptop m35x s149. My power jack totally broke off. WEll i followed the advice and actually soldered it back on on the board. So i put the laptop back together and powered it up. The fan turned on momentairly along with the power lights but then after like 5 seconds the fan turned off and u the computer did not boot. Could i have messed up the motherboard somehow? i was really careful. Did i not plug something in right? i need help guys. When i plugged in the LCD to the motherboard, i noticed a black cable that i did not know where to connect. Could that be my problem? any adivce would help! thanks guys. Or if anyone knows where i can get a replacement mobo? let me know!
September 7th, 2006 at 1:23 am
Hi CJ,
I am back again, I hope u remember me. With your valuable guidence i reassembled my Toshiba Satellite M35X-S329 Laptop just after replacing the DC Power Jack. This is second time i am doing the assembly, first time you remember i got booting problem then you asked me to unplug and plug in the Memory, then it booted. But the problem that time is laptop hangs after 10 min. Then you asked me to to reassemble the whole parts again after removing them. I did it second time and the same problem of hanging persists after 10min. Okay i found one thing after research. Here you go…. When i run my laptop on battery it is not hanging, once i plug the power cord to my laptop it is getting hanged. Other than hanging my laptop works perfect and once it hangs thats it, i have to switch off directly. I don’t know why it is hanging actually the power lights are perfect and recharging is fine. Also my internet is not working even with direct cable or wireless.
Thanks a bunch,
Ramesh
September 4th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Just fix my lap top cause over heating and unit shut down it self. .I had dis -assy. completed the unit remove the heat sink, fan clean and apply thermal to CPU put everything back the unit not power up nothing display . So i had to re-dis assy, again and find out i did not lock the CPU to lock position. After lock the CPU .put every things back the unit working ok now.
August 31st, 2006 at 11:27 pm
[...] My laptop screen has many white glitches blink all over the screen I am writing to you in hopes that you might have a solution to my laptop problem. I have had my laptop for a little over 2 years and in the past it had a problem with a “defective dc in jack” while under warranty. But of course more problems conveniently arose after the warranty expired [...]