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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September 14th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
i took it apart today and the center post loks like it had flux applied but it looks like it was never soldered. I works now.
thanks for maintaining this site. i found it invaluable in taking the laptop apart. i got a white sheet of paper and taped the screws to it with a with a step number next to them. it orked great.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I have the same problem as post 607Kokuho. I have not tried to resolder yet .
1) It turns ON for 5 seconds and then turns OFF automatically.
2) The AC Adapter LED is always lit. There is no loose connection. I have wiggled the chord but the LED is always lit.
3) 1st led (power) shows lit, second led is not on, third led is orange showing battery discharging.
if I wrigle the connection sometines the second led goes green.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:15 am
GREAT SITE! Toshiba Satellite M35X-S161. Had exactly the symptoms of bad pwr jack. Attempted repair. Now have all LEDs, battery charges, boots 1 out of about 5 pwr up attempts. When it boots gets as far as user window and then I get the black screen of death. When it starts w/o booting I get about 5-10 sec. fan w/no HD LED.
Have I FRIED/BURNT the MB or is there still hope?
Thanks and have a great American day!
September 11th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
My Laptop runs perfectly with battery.
With just the AC adapter:-
1) It turns ON for 5 seconds and then turns OFF automatically.
2) The AC Adapter LED is always lit. There is no loose connection. I have wiggled the chord but the LED is always lit.
3) The battery charges but very slowly.
I have resoldered the power jack. But the problem still persists. I can see 18 volts with a multimeter inside the MOBO (after the jack). In other words it doesn’t seem like a faulty jack but the symptoms are like one.
If I plug in the AC adapter while its running on battery the LCD brightens up as would happen in perfect conditions, and also shows “battery charging”. But the Laptop still runs as if it is running on battery only, hence after an hour when the battery reaches 0%, it shuts down. Any ideas?
September 9th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
John,
Yes, you can replace the system board. You’ll find DIY laptop disassembly instructions at http://www.irisvista.com
September 7th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
If you want to open the adapter you have to jam a screw driver into the side of it and pop each side open. You will scrape up the plastic a bit, but it will pop apart.
Don’t forget to discharge the cap so you don’t get zapped.
Chances are if you can’t open the adapter your not going to be able to fix it either. lol
Good luck.
September 6th, 2008 at 2:43 am
i put AC adapter for HP into toshiba satellite m35x power jack and smoke came out of the notebook since then if i put M35x AC adapter in the power jack nothing come at all, the system as totally goes down so i want to know if i can replace the system motherboard and where i can get one i really need your help. hope to hear from you soon. THANK YOU
August 29th, 2008 at 3:20 am
This is a great site, loads of info and help. I guess i have been reasonably lucky, I have had a Toshiba Sat S1800 712 since 2002 with only a few problems including 2 full reinstalls. Then several problems with the computer running very slowly and with the cooling fan not working. I resolved the these by stripping it down and blasting it with compressed air, which seemed to work ok. As it is still running fine, although slower than newer stuff my 8 year old daughter now has the use of it. Not being able to increase the Ram or upgrade the old processor due to it being fixed and the clock speed will not handle anything bigger I wondered if anyone out there knew of a mother board that I could use to replace the existing one. I’m not being tight it just seems a waste just to buy an new laptop unless it’s going to cost too much anyway.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Follow-up to post #555
I’ve given my laptop to a friend of mine who is good at fixing stuff. He isolated the issue. Surprisingly, it is not the motherboard or the power jack. It was a loose hard drive. He fixed it… and it is working fine. I hope this might help some of you to at least rule out one possible cause.
HTH.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Following on from my comment 600
I have repaired the issue with the aid of this excellent site. I resoldered the power jack after seeing possible damage around the solder. It now appears to be working as it should do.
Thank you