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 [63] 62 61 60 59 58 57 56 55 54 … 1 » Show All
December 7th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Doug,
Maybe a screw under the keyboard?
December 6th, 2008 at 12:20 am
see here 20 steps, 3 pages.
http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/ToshibaM35X/satM35X_1.htm
December 6th, 2008 at 12:14 am
10x i have same problem.
Problem has been resolved with a soldering.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:16 am
with the toshiba 35x how does the back come off. i have every screw out and it starts to come off but in the back where the power is it will not release, is there a clip i am missing?
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:21 am
I am looking for info on a Toshiba A75-S276 power issue? the Jack was replaced and machine was powered on I believe the Bios may have been flashed and possibly failed in the middle. But it was brought to me and now all I can get it to do is when I plug the Power cord into the back the fans start but nothing else?? this will not charge the battery or even the screen.. Any help would be great if anyone has ever run into a problem like this. I was thinking of trying to replace the DC Jack again and see if that takes care of the issue. Is there a CMOS Clear jumper or reset switch anywhere…
Thanks for any help you can give me..
November 19th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
help i have packard bell argo c laptop and its not working. I was using it on battery power and when it had half bar I decided to charge it, but I realised something was wrong when the charge light did not come up. By this time it was so low it was telling me that i had 11 minutes remaining so I called a friend and ask them what to do but they did not know to do. Then that was when i saw that a pin in the slot where you push charger wire into was gone, then I saw it in the slot, then it was gone.
ANYBODY PLEASE I’M A STUDENT AND I NEED IT!
November 18th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Test the output voltage from your ac/dc converter before taking everything apart. Center pos., outside neg. (19v). Just took out 20 some screws to check the soldering. Turns out it the problem was within the converter. Seems stupid now that I didn’t check it first, but after finding this, I was sure the soldering was the problem. Good luck guys.
November 16th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Hi, first all WOW with all information I have a Dell Inspiron Mod. 5160 and have the same problem, let me explain a little bit, when I connect the ac adapter only are blinking the power led anthe batery led orange and green respectly. and I put my ear at the bottom I heard a liitle clickc click very lower, so let me try sneeak around the connector and the ac adapter
November 16th, 2008 at 8:08 am
If you’re good a soldering and taking things apart. Do it yourself.
I have to apply pressure to the power cord for it to connect, I did try to resolder my Tecra 8100 DC jack but it didn’t work. I will retry later.
My memory module slot B had some loose connections 6 in total. And all on the outside portion of the connector. I resoldered them and it works great! Now I have 512 Mb again.
October 31st, 2008 at 6:34 am
Unreal how hundreds of customers are experiencing the same problem with the power and motherboard but Toshiba has not recalled this and fixed it. I’m about to spend $125.00 to get this repaired.
Make sure you check out Toshiba’s support website. The posted a new recall on batteries that start fires. They are replacing them for free but you need to pay for shipping.