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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January 27th, 2010 at 4:13 am
Hi! Mate,
I have a problem with my Toshiba laptop (Equim). Whenever I attach the powercord in the laptop(when running on battery), it just freezes and cant be brought back to normal and needs to be completely shut. It also doesnt start when I attach the cord and start the laptop. But, it charges the battery when in closed position. So, I charge it then use on battery, which is making me sick.
Do please help!!!
January 26th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
go to page 67 of this site and follow Gene Goldstein’s fix. I was reading through all of these solutions and saw how many were having problems after reassemby of all the parts — a lot of disconnect and reconnect to get at the Power Jack. Gene’s solution is perfect and you don’t have to be a tech to do it. I went to Radio Shack and got a female jack, just like Gene said. I then tookk a piece of lamp cord (no need to use electric tap for bonidng the wires together) and I found a pen cap, you know one of those that goes over a pen? The female jack fit perfectly into the open end of the cap. I drilled a hole in the other end of the cap, threaded the wire through. I cut the ends of the wire, on slightly shorter thatn the other and removed just enough insulation form the ends to bare the wire, about 1/8 inch. I used a pencil soldering tool, any shordering iron with a small tip will work and it does not take much heat to get the solder to flow if you use very small solder wire. I used an aligator clamp to secure the wire to the Jack on the board. What you are doing is bypassing the onboard, female A/C power jack by making a direct connect from the bottom of the board. Once you cut away the sections of the Laptop surrounding the input jack you will see. Look at the pictures closely as presented on this site and make sure you have the positive solder spot and negative solder spot located correctly. The positive will be toward the keyboard, the negative toward the back edge, each in line with the other. There is not much room but it will solder up fast, so as soon as you see the solder flow do not move the wire. Take the heat away and it will be a solid connect. don’t be afraid to put heat to it again to get the solder to flow if the connections is not right. Once you have the wire soldered to the back of the board you can cut the wire to whatever length you want, I did 6″ then soldered the opposite ends to the Female Jack I purchased at Radio Shack. First, however, I threaded the wire through the pen cap. Once this was soldered up I put some Goop glue in the cap and pushed the Jack inot the end. Actually came out quite nice, better than I hoped. Next I took some of the Goop glue and put a gob on the connections I soldered to the board then folded the pieces I had cut away back into place, took a small clamp to hold it in place for the glue to dry — finished, works great. No more pwoer failures in the middle of work. the best part is not having to dismantle the machine. Gene is correct, 30 minute, when you have all you tools and everything ready to go. If you don’t care much for how it looks you could use a nastier tool that a dremel to cut the case away revealing the connect points behind the input jack, but the Dremel worked quit nicely.
Thanks Gene for the good, fast and easy solution to thei problem.
January 25th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Hey Computer Guy,
I’am having the same problem with my toshiba m35x. Your solution sounds like a miracle. Why could’nt you connect the appropriate Plus/minus wires right to the battery in its compartment with out having to take apart the whole darn computer. wouldn’t this also solve the bad dc plug problem?
Chris
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:03 pm
SOULTION FOR SOME!!
wrap some tin foil around the AC plug and plug into socket on back and bingo!!!! for many the problem is a poor earth connection between the plug and the socket… fixed!! be carefull not to let tin foil touch inside of plug however, its just the outside of plug that needs to fit more tighter into socket, this reduces heat problem and allows power adaptor to work more efficiently. :]
December 19th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I have the solution for the non booting Toshiba m35 that I wrote almost a year ago. This tutorial is applicable to laptops that shut down without any warning, laptops that turn on only sometimes, and laptops that simply refuse to turn on. So if your laptop does not turn on, it goes completely dead within a few minutes after bootup, here’s the link to the tutorial. The repair takes about an hour, there’s no need of replacing any parts, reinstalling any software or any other thing. The only investment in repairing your laptop with this tutorial is your time. Basically, you can repair your laptop within the hour, without spending any money for any parts or software.
http://imateski.blogspot.com/2.....board.html
December 17th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Here is a youtube video I made about this problem in the HP-DV7 charger not working. Hopes this helps…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In5JoDVlZ0Y
October 25th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Douglas Lazarus,
Remove the battery and start the laptop with the AC adapter. Now wiggle the power plug inside the jack. Will it shut down when you wiggle the adapter plug? If yes, it’s either DC jack problem or you have a damaged wire inside the cord.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Ingrid,
Hmmm, he said the hard drive is not detected by the laptop and at the same time it gets to the Winodws screen? Really strange. When the hard drive is toast, you will not see Windows screen at all.
I cannot advice in this situation because I’m not really sure what’s going on with the laptop.
Yes, it’s possible.
Nope, with unlocked CPU the laptop will not start at all.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
rollie,
Check the memory module, maybe it’s not seated correctly. Try reconnecting the memory module.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I have a toshiba M35x. I resoldered the +pin and all the 3 leds turned on. I wiggled the plug , all the leds stayed on. While the laptop was booting, the screen went blank. I hit the on button to turn the computer back on but nothing happened. I resolder the pin and all the connections again but still the computer will not turn on. There is a fuse beside the power connector. I used my meter to test the voltage between the output side of the fuse and -voltage, I was reading 19+ volts dc. Any idea about what happened?