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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February 4th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
My Toshiba MX35 S311 laptop monitor fails to turn on when powering up. I hooked up an external monitor and got it to come on and then it automatically switches back to laptop monitor and everything seemed to be working until I moved the laptop; then it went dead again. Now when I hook up the external monitor, I cannot get either monitor to work. Could there be a short in the wiring that connects to the monitor? I have also tried removing RAM and hard drive and reinstalling but I do not think that is the problem. Please help!
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Chris,
Did you check the RAM module? Maybe it’s not seated correctly?
January 29th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I need help. I replaced the power jack and now the computer is getting power but my screen is dead. I checked all of the cables and they seem to be in place. Any suggestions?
Thanks
January 27th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
GHETTO WAY THAT WORKS!!!!
The peg inside my computer broke, and I was about to try to replace it, but if you like do things kind of ghetto like me, I discovered an option. First take out the broken peg if it is still in the end of the power adapter, and in is place, fit in 4 pieces of 1 inch long copper wireing. Then cut them all at once, just so the copper is only slightly coming out of the end of the power adapter. Does not work perfect because you need to wiggle it sometimes, but better than getting rid of the computer, or trying to fix when you have no experience.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Bottom line Toshibas are JUNK.
January 19th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Bottom line — no more Toshibas for me! My A70 did this before it was stolen (hurrah), and my wife’s is a piece of junk – the keyboard keeps shifting out of place, and they wouldn’t cover it under warranty; it’s slower than the 2nd coming of Christ, and the battery has hardly any life in it at all. All for a $1,200 3-year old laptop!
January 13th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Mine did this twice, 1st time it was still under warrenty. Second time I took the whole thing apart and resoldered the thing, without replacing the jack, which didnt fix it. turns out my damn power cord was bad…..D’oh
December 31st, 2008 at 4:14 am
I just had the same problem with my m35x. I installed a new power jack and the same problem was still there. After checking the problem with my meter it seems that the solder makes no contact to the system board. I then soldered from the top side and it looks like all is well. Hope this helps someone. Happy New Year!
December 29th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I have a Toshiba A60-S159 and the center pin is broken off from the power supply input jack on the motherboard. Anybody know what circular connector replaces the broken one?
Thanks,
Dick
December 16th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
unscrew the two little silver bolts holding in the blue connector. Not sure what it is called but this was a problem that I had. I had every screw out..everything unhooked and the motherboard wouldn’t come out. Finally I took needle nose pliers and unscrewed them.