Toshiba Satellite M35X and Satellite A75 power jack and battery charge problem
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.
Entry Filed under: Toshiba Laptop Problems
633 Responses to “Toshiba Satellite M35X and Satellite A75 power jack and battery charge problem”
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Pages: « 64 … 43 42 41 40 39 [38] 37 36 35 34 33 … 1 » Show All
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:18 am
I found that if you scrap away some of the green insulation off the trace on the bottom of the board where the pin comes thru and then solder the pin to this spot that it helps. I had the situation where the trace disconnected from top to the bottom of the board.
May 1st, 2007 at 6:08 am
Well my resolder job didnt last. I replaced the jack with a good cable and did a good pcb prep job. Very low resistance (0.2 ohms) from jack to board contact. Amazing - charge rate now very fast, with unit on. Looks silly, but the charge rate is better ( I believe) than it ever was. At this point my recommendation is to put in a cable if you can do it, rather than opening the T
May 1st, 2007 at 1:34 am
Jeff,
In order to split the laptop case it’s not enough just remove all screws from the bottom. You’ll have to remove the keyboard and then disconnect all cables and remove all screws under the keyboard. After that you should be able to split the case. Take a look at my Toshiba disassembly site at www.irisvista.com/tech/
Read through some disassembly guides and you’ll see how to remove the keyboard. All Toshiba laptop kind of similar.
April 30th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Hello there,
I just ran across your thread and I am amazed at the amount of info here. I have a quick question about my Toshiba Satellite 1135-S1553. I have unscrewed every visible screw from the laptop’s base however I cannot get the case to split apart - I get most of the front up although I cant figure out how to pry the rest off. I am hoping to crack this open in order to solder my DC jack myself without having to take it to my local PCLUB.
What else am I missing? Is there a trick to splting open the case on a Toshiba Satellite 1135?
Thanks in advance,
-Jeff
April 29th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I HAVE A FUJITZU THAT ALSO JUST SHUTDOWN WITH NO WARNING OR ANY SYMTOMS,I HOPE IF I CHECK THAT PIN IT WOULD BE THE ONLY PROBLEM! OR SEMILAR PROBLEM,! I HOPE I CAN FIX THIS! THEN ILL GET BACK TO YOU! I THANK U NOW EVEN THOUGH I HAVENT GOT IN TO IT,OR FIX IT THANKS NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED!!
DO U THINK ITS THESAME PROBLEM?, I HAVE THE BATTERY LIGHTS ON BUT THATS IT! WHEN I PRESS THE MAIN POWER BUTTON NOTHING HAPPEN! I ALSO PUT THE BATTERY SAME THING ONLY ONE BATTERY INDICATOR LED ON NO POWER!
BUT YOUR INFO HERE SEEMS TO BE VERY HELPFULL!
THANKS A LOT
April 26th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Oh, and by the way,
Thanks go out to Mark and Mike for the encouragement and help anyway…keep up the good work on this forum! It is a great resource for people like us who are actually in the end trying to save Toshiba money by fixing the problem(s) that we have as a direct result of their manufacturing/engineering ineptitude.
One more thing, incidently…if you do decide to take your laptop to a service center to get repaired and have done work on it yourself, don’t let them try and push you around by saying that the warranty is voided because you decided to do so. What I did was remind them that the DC-IN jack came completely off the mobo and that I had to take apart the PC in order to fish the jack out so that nothing would fry.
Additionally, when you go into the shop, they pull up your laptop by serial #, which contains the date of purchase, and therefore, the date that the original factory warranty expired. Evidently, there is nothing in the system to alert authorized repair agents that qualifying models of Toshiba laptops are covered under an extended manufacturer’s warranty due to the class action suit, so you may have to battle it out with them for a bit until they get things straightened out. In my case, I had to get the store manager involved, because the person handling repairs/warranty work was convinced that my warranty expired back in late 2005.
Just a friendly suggestion…bring a copy of the extended warranty statement and/or class action suit when you go in to mitigate any hassles that you might encounter.
Good luck and keep fighting the good fight!
April 26th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Hi all,
After several futile tries last week (even using epoxy!!!), my DC-IN jack would not stay put and finally expired. I gave up and took it in to my local Toshiba service center…where I almost had a rude awakening. Before going over there, I called first and explained the situation to a technician, also explaining that I was a computer consultant that knew what the problem was. He then asked the frightful question, “Have you attempted to solder the jack back onto the board yet?”. Innocuously, I replied, “no”, and he gruffly stated, “That’s good, because the first thing that they will do is put it under the UV light to make sure that it hasn’t been tampered with…if it has, they will just as quickly stamp the board ‘REJECTED’ and you will be SOL”.
Well, that caused my gonads to shrivel a bit, since I didn’t exactly relish the thought of paying hundreds of dollars for the repair of this frankly subpar machine…but I stood my ground and said that I’d bring it in later in the day to be looked at.
Long story short, I received three calls from the authorized repair center…one was less than an hour after dropping off the PC. I figured that the game was up and resigned myself to defeat as I returned the phone call. Much to my delighted surprise, they just wanted the username and password to get into XP. The second call came a few days later to inform me that the parts (motherboard, keyboard, plastic overlay) had come in and were installed, and the third call was to let me know that they were having issues with Windows booting properly and wanted to know what I would like to do about it.
So, in a nutshell, I got my PC back with a complete overhaul on Toshiba’s dime. Oh, and the whole “didja solder anything?” question ended up being moot as hell…as long as you take your PC that’s under warranty to an authorized Toshiba repair center and DO NOT send it in for depot service at Toshiba HQ. Apparently, THAT is where the CSI stuff comes into play.
If you want my opinion, after all that I’ve gone through trying to fix my PC with nothing to show but frustration and a wicked migraine…save yourself the trouble and take it in to the closest authorized Toshiba repair center. I promise you that you won’t regret it.
April 24th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Jim Bright,
I cannot replace the power jack for you but here’s how I usually do that.
1. Buy a new power jack. You can find it here, just search for “Satellite A65 power jack”.
2. Take apart the laptop and remove the motherboard.
3. Resolder the power jack.
Not sure? Do not open the case. This job requires some experience.
April 24th, 2007 at 9:29 am
I have a Tobisha A65 S126 and the pin in the power jack as broken. Can you help me?
Thanks
Jim Bright
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Scott,
Probably you’ll have to remove the laptop top cover and check inside for any kind of grounding issue. Unplug and remove the laptop display panel, remove the top cover and start the laptop with an external monitor. Check the opposite side of the top cover, make sure the metal pieces are not touching the motherboard when you assemble everything together.
As a last resort, assemble the laptop (motherboard, CPU and memory) outside the case and test it with an external monitor. If you still experience the same problem, check if the power jack is properly soldered to the motherboard.
BTW, if you purchased this laptop in the United States you can get a free repair from Toshiba, they extended warranty on Satellite A70, A75, M30X and M35X laptops. Call your local authorized Toshiba center for more details.