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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May 24th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Wesley,
Check if the cooling fan is plugged into the motherboard. Make sure the fan spins.
It’s possible that the laptop shuts down because you forgot to connect the fan and it overheats. Also, did you remove old thermal grease from the CPU? Did you apply a new layer of thermal grease?
May 24th, 2007 at 4:59 am
I’ve just fixed a broken dc power jack on my advent 7085 and everything appears to be fine all systems work ok the battery appears to be charging etc but after bout 20 mins the whole laptop just shut down like the battery is dead but this cant be so as it always responses to the adater going in and the power unit on the task bar changes? Im scratching my head here could it be something else to do twith the processor maybe…
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Com,
Check the AC adapter. Then minimize the laptop as much as you can. Remove battery, hard drive, DVD drive, wireless card (if you have any), try installing a known good memory stick. If you still experience the same problem, most likely you have a faulty motherboard.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Joe,
If the laptop works with the external screen then most likely there is nothing wrong with the motherboard and the problem is somewhere inside the display assembly. It might be just a loose connection between the video cable and the LCD screen. Try reconnecting the video cable on both sides. If you bought this laptop in the United States, call Toshiba and ask them about extended warranty for Satellite M35X laptops. Toshiba extended warranty for this model.
May 21st, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I have a dell latitude d600 that usually, when i turn the power button on, all i get is flickering lights for three seconds, then nothing. I have noticed that sometimes if you rub the keyboard as it does this it works again, but this is rare. Occasionally (about 1 in a hundred times) the computer will boot, but the fan never works.
May 20th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I have a Toshiba M35X and i have had for more than a year now. Couple of weeks ago the screen has gone black with little light on the back ground of the screen, but nothing shows. at first I thought the computer has crashed, but after some effort i found that the computer is OK, its ony the screen problem. I am using my Labtop now with connecting it to my a separate delll flat screen, but the screen of Labtop is still not working and i could not figure it out what the problem is it with screen.. Could you please advise me what to do. I have opened the computer couple of times, but still could not find the problem with the screen. Please advice..
May 20th, 2007 at 4:04 am
I have a HP Pavillion NX9110 that is acting very weird… when i plug the AC I can start the laptop but there are no lights (not even power lights or battery charging lights), but the fact is that the laptop can start, the LCD is black and I can eject the DVD drive… any advice about what is happening?? I was told it could be a DC problem but if I can start the laptop… how come its the ac?? I wonder if the DC was broken in any part, in case, would the laptop receive that power??
May 20th, 2007 at 4:00 am
HELLO YOU ALL, I BUY SECOND HAND LAPTOPS FROM THE US (I’M FROM SPAIN) AND NORMALLY ALL THE LAPTOPS I RECEIVE HAD BAD AC ISSUES… ALL I DO IS TO BUY DC REPLACEMENTS FROM EBAY, JUST WRITE YOUR LAPTOP MODEL BESIDE THE WORD “DC” AND YOU’RE DONE. GOOD LUCK!
May 16th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Mike Bailey,
If you installed any extra memory, remove it and try starting the laptop just with base memory. If it doesn’t help, remove battery, wireless card, DVD drive, hard drive and try again. If the laptop still will not start, most likely it’s a motherboard related issue. You’ll have to replace the motherboard.
May 14th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
I have a toshiba A75 S206. The other day while it was booting I plugged in the power adapter. A few seconds later everything on the screen was gone. Now if you press the power button or just plug in the AC adapter only you can hear the fan turn on, but no lights come on except the power light on the front (the one furthest to the left to say you on AC power). Thats it. If the motherboards was not getting power why would the fan come on (especially if I haven’t tried to turn the computer on at all)?