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 26th, 2008 at 7:26 am
My dad just replaced a new power jack for me and now the computer works great.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Ok, I just bought soldering iron and stuff from The Source and will start working on this mission immpossible tonight.
P.S. DO NOT buy that cordless cold-heat soldering iron, it’s a peice of junk. I bought it and it does not work at all and I can’t return it as I was holding on to it for too long..Anways..it totally useless.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Hi,
On the A70, after reassembly, the mouse won’t work. I cannot figure out how to set the cable in the zif socket on the mouse. Is there a special toshiba secret on this?
never had this problem on all the dells, compaqs, acer and hp laptops I repair.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Kris,
Are you talking about black stuff around the power jack? I guess the power jack was repaired by Toshiba before and they glued the power jack to the motherboard with epoxy.
I doubt that you can melt it and keep all connections clean.
I had to replace a power jack like that before. I was able to remove the black stuff with a sharp knife and only after that I resoldered the jack.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:26 pm
David,
That’s because you have SATA hard drive and external enclosures you see in stores are designed for IDE (PATA) hard drive.
You should search for a SATA external enclosure for external 2.5″ hard drives, something like this.
Or you can connect your SATA hard drive directly to a desktop computer using same cables as for desktop hard drives. I assume the desktop has SATA connectors on the motherboard.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 am
I have had mine replaced 3 times and just now had to have the hard drive replaced. I think Toshiba needs to doa recal on this computer. With the board that is in the computer now it has a black coating over the connections, will this melt an cause a problem if I resoder the parts? Thanks
January 21st, 2008 at 4:00 pm
i truly feel like an idiot for not being able to figure this out. My Tosiba Satellite A105-S216 died in much this way. The LEDs come on but there ain’t no power home. Anyway, my extended circuit city warranty will cover fixing the DC problems… but they told me to retrieve my data, as they may have to reset the harddrive. The harddrive does not connect to any of the enclosures i find in stores. They all have “pin connectors” and the ends of my harddrive are more like little cartridges. How do i find something that will work??
January 19th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
MrBJ,
I would say replacing the power jack will cost somewhere from $90-$200. It depends where you fix it.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:02 am
I got it fixed at a local shop here in Manassas VA,
they charged 20 bucks for the jack and 150 for labor,
not cheap, but I got it done anyway……..also added RAM and a bigger hard drive. I’ll see how long it holds up, I payed mainly because I didn’t have the time/tools to take it apart.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:14 am
I have the same damn problem and it drives me nuts. Did somebody get this fixed from some professional? and how much did it cost?
I just dont want to open it, as for most things when I open, I can’t put the them together at the end.