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!
February 12th, 2007 at 2:55 am
i have a toshiba m30 laptop.. same thing happen to me, laptop wont recharge wont even turn on when its connected to an outlet.. do u think i shuold follow these steps?
February 11th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
UPDATE ON POST # 321 & # 322
cj2600- Sorry to say but you was wrong !
Yes, It is a ground inside the positive hole ! You can’t see and I spended several days with loope 10x.. and couldn’t belive my eyes what I saw . Motherboard made up of layers ..So it has traces on top and botom which is visible and all can see plus it has 2 ground layers inside of the circuit board not visible ( if you look on light it big darker area (one close to top and other to botom).
So when this DC Jack comes out and at he time was connected to AC Adapter it makes sometimes spark inside positive hole and burns the board so trace get pushed clouse to the ground layer ether top or botom or both. I had same ones happens on HP laptop which I replaced DC Jack also.. On this Toshiba’s this motherboards so difective ! Usualy positive hole inside trace is insulated from this ground layes ..Toshiba made this insulation so thin and when it get pushed or burn trace get connected and making short ( DC Adapter can get bad also)! Oh well to replace the Dc Jack is half the job another half to make sure it not making short inside the hole or had brocken traces! Ones on another unit I had all checked good no short on both ends (+,-), but when I did insert the new Jack inside the hole it made connection to the ground .. Or overheating of motherboard in time of replacing the DC Jack can burn the board insulation and make short to the ground. I hope this will help to make repair easy for all of you fix it yours selfs like me .. If you can get Toshiba fix it for you and free — way to go !!!
February 11th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Andy,
What kind of advice you want to hear?
You are not a handy man so cannot fix it yourself, right? Probably you have a post office in your town and you can ship it to Toshiba service center for repair. BTW, if you have one of the following models: Satellite M30X, M35X, A70, A75, you can get a free repair even though the laptop is not under warranty anymore. More information in this post.
February 8th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I am experiencing the problem with my dc-in. When i plug in my charger it wont charge unless some sort of pressure is applied. It is an annoyance and my warranty is expired. i am not a handy man and there isn’t a toshiba repair store within 250 miles of my hometown. Advice?
February 5th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Mark,
I don’t think so. There is no ground inside the hole, probably it’s shorted somewhere on the system board. Sorry, cannot give you a better advice. I do not work on the component level.
February 4th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I have Toshiba M35x-S149 wIith damaged DC Jack (it came off the motherboard as all of them ), so I did replaced with new one . I did replace many of them on HP and Compaq with no problems before . This my second Toshiba with bad DC Jack. Well after replacement of the jack on Toshiba M35x-S149 Jack has short between (+ ) and ( -) contacts .. I was thinking my new jack was defective , so I removed and mesured with multimeter between contacts with out jack and the short was still there.. Looks like short is at (+) to the ground.. I spend already several days for looking for bad shorted components with out luck!
It possible that positive pin trace inside the hole shorted to the ground ? Any comments on this ?
Laptop works great on battery but not charging from AC Adapter and power plug led on front not glowing.
February 3rd, 2007 at 3:53 pm
go to your battery advanced settings . Set the display to be bright on battery. If you resoldered it on one side only , it might not work!
The first time you plug it in practicly weakens it, the second time plugging it in breaks it! I know i used to pop some screws out and stick a hot knife off the stove in there right after!!. “I might even be a redneck” lol
February 3rd, 2007 at 10:02 am
I soldered the pin and this fixed my problem of the battery not charging. Now the computer also won’t work from AC. The plug light is not green and the display is not as bright as it is on AC power. How can I fix this?
February 3rd, 2007 at 5:41 am
I have a toshiba laptop, I am not sure of the brand details becoz I am in a cafe at the moment. My problem is that it wont boot – up. If you press the on button, the is a sound of the processor and the fan running for about 30 sec and then it goes quite, nothing happens. What suprises is if you press the on button again as if you want to boot it up again, it makes a beep like that one that happens when you switch it off. It will actually be on only that it does not boot up.
February 2nd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Answer to post #311
I had the same problem with my m35x laptop. Originally I thought it was the power adapter but after reading this thread I found out that it was the DC Jack. This is what I did instead…