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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January 21st, 2007 at 8:07 pm
[...] Will it make any difference if you boot the laptop into safe mode? May be Windows power management software is screwed up. Here’s another test. You can boot the laptop from a live Linux CD. I usually use Knoppix CD. If you start the laptop from this CD, it will boot into a Windows-like environment. It loads Linux OS directly from the CD bypassing the hard drive. It’s a good test to find out if you have a software related problem. If the laptop still switches to the battery with the AC adapter plugged, then it’s not software related problem. You can also reinstall the operating system form the recovery DVD, it will eliminate any software related issues too. Make sure you the laptop has the latest version of BIOS. Upgrade the BIOS if needed. The problem also could be related to the power jack. You’ll find more information about the power jack issues here. [...]
January 18th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Brandon,
For some jacks it’s normal, the pin inside of the jack might be a little bit loose. Take a look at the last picture in this post and check your jack again. If your jack is not broken as it shown on the picture, then most likely there is nothing wrong with the jack itself.
Resolder the jack and it should take care of your problem.
January 18th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Jesse,
Yep, you still have to take the whole thing apart and remove the motherboard if you plan replacing the power jack. I haven’t heard about any lawsuit against Toshiba regarding this particular notebook model.
Now about a thin vertical blue line on the LCD screen. If the line looks like a line in the example 2 here, then probably it’s a screen problem. There is no quick fix for it, you’ll have to replace the screen.
January 17th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Rev.A.R.Smith,
Probably water wend down to the system board and shorted something. It’s impossible to troubleshoot a laptop with water damage over the Internet. It’s necessary to open it up and take a looks at the system board.
January 17th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Rika,
If you are not confident enough, do not open the case. You can make it worse. If you follow the pictures, it’s pretty easy but still some technical skills are required.
You don’t have to reinstall software after laptop disassembly/assembly. In order to replace the power jack, you’ll have to remove the motherboard. Some soldering skills also required.
January 17th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Good news! I found a way to repair my windows, at least enough to copy the files I need. You need a separate copy of Windows (XP is what I used). Change the boot sequence to go to CD first. “Press any key to boot from cd…” Yes. BUT DO NOT SELECT “R” on the first round, select install or setup. On the next screen you will get to select repair. You should be able to go from there.
January 17th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Ernie,
The power jack on a Toshiba Satellite P35 notebook also located on the motherboard, so you can use these instructions too. You’ll find a disassembly guide for Satellite P35 here.
January 17th, 2007 at 10:51 am
HELP!!
I had the DC-in jack repaired, no cost-the class-action warranty applied. But now it will not boot in any mode. The tech said I have to reinstall windows. I have the Toshiba CDs, but the only option I am given will reformat the drive, so all my info will be lost. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the beast to power-up before the repair so I do not have my files backed up. I have seen some references to ways of working around the restore, is it possible?
January 17th, 2007 at 8:31 am
This question involves the AC jack. You have to plug the adapter in and press down to get the connection to work. I have taken the laptop apart and pulled the board out. It appears that the silver ‘male part’ on the inside of the jack is a tad bit loose. The adapter itself seems pretty secure to the board. Do I still need to solder the piece according to your picture up top? Or does this concern the jack itself?
Thanks
January 17th, 2007 at 7:44 am
[...] In case you didn’t read my old post about fixing this, here’s links for how to dismantle a Toshiba Satellite A70 (and tons of other laptops) and the common Toshiba power jack problems. [...]