This email I received from one guy last evening. He had a problem with DC jack on his Toshiba Satellite 1900 laptop and fixed the problem by resoldering the DC jack on the system board. The problem is very similar to Toshiba Satellite M30X, M35X, A70 and A75 power jack issue.
I finally got around to using the guide you provided to try to solve the problem on my Satellite 1900.
The power plug kept not making contact somehow and ultimately it would shut down.
You would see in the Toshiba Power Management Utility in the Battery Power Meter, the charge bar would show “Online Discharging”, which doesn’t logically make any sense anyway.
If you wiggled the plug at the back of the laptop it might make a connection but could fail at any time with no warning if you weren’t paying close attention to the red/green charge light on the front edge of the laptop and discharge the battery.
I took it apart and discovered that the barrel power socket on the back of the unit that is soldered in to the motherboard had over the course of time worked the centre post contact loose and pulled away from the solder.
There is no real anchor for the socket to the motherboard or anywhere else on the case plastic. The solder on the motherboard that holds the socket in place is very weak, there is not much there at all.
Over the course of normal use, and being a laptop people trip over the power cord from time to time adding to the stress of the almost non-existent solder.
All I did was to re-solder the damaged connection, and I beefed up all of the other three solder points on the motherboard as well to try to strengthen the contacts against failure in the future.
I have provided a picture that if you look very closely at the base of the pin as it goes through the circuit board there is a slight gap between the pin and the solder it used to be attached to.
I search all over the internet and the only resolution I could find for this problem was to have the motherboard replaced. It appears that is not the case. I repaired it 6 hours ago and it hasn’t failed since.
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May 3rd, 2006 at 10:55 am
Hello, I just did this FIX and it works great. Had some trouble gettin the soder to hold to the connecting point, not sure even if it will hold for long, but the comp is working fine now. The only thing is my Power Management program isnt working anymore. The batt is charging and everything but the only prg that is managing the power is the defult windows one.
Anyone elts get this problem?
May 2nd, 2006 at 12:03 am
[...] Toshiba Satellite 1900. Laptop loses power and shuts down without warning. [...]
May 1st, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Well I have arrived with the same problem as the rest of you. I bought a M35X-S149, my first mistake. Let me say that I think toshiba robbed us all. What a LEMON. My LCD backlight inverter burnt out at 3 months, and now at 12 months and 2 weeks my laptop won’t charge. I called toshiba and they WILL NOT SEND ME A #041011, nor will anyone who will repair the board for $150-$200. The spring in the audio out jack that holds a plug snug is shot, all output is crackling and worthless.
Talk about pissed. Oh yea I almost forgot, the recall too. The idiots forgot to install proper shielding for the motherboard causing freezing and reboots; of course toshiba never notified me about the problem. Anyway my anger is causing me to loose my focus.
The author is 95% correct, resolder the circled points in the picture and you should be back in business. Although if the jack itself has problems like mine did, all resoldering the jack will do is PISS YOU OFF. The way that the jack is designed provides a poor connection. There is only one tiny piece of metal that makes contact to the outer negative part of the plug.
The rest of the story is here.
May 1st, 2006 at 3:27 pm
What laptop do you have? Give me the name and the model number from the bottom and I’ll look it up. For example: Toshiba Satellite A70-S249 PSA70U-00L00F
May 1st, 2006 at 3:22 pm
any ideas what a new system board or power jack would cost?
April 30th, 2006 at 9:11 am
Alex,
When you take your laptop with a bad power jack to a Toshiba Repair Center, they will replace the entire system board. So, you are going to pay an exchange price for the system board; they will take your old board for the repair and install you already repaired board. Also you will have to pay for labor.
You can take your laptop to a local laptop repair shop. Most likely they will offer you to replace the power jack; it would by much cheaper, then replacing the board.
April 30th, 2006 at 6:49 am
does anyone know what toshiba charges to repair this power jack problem, either for replacing or resoldering?
April 26th, 2006 at 5:49 am
Joju,
I think it would be possible to repair your laptop if you resolder or replace the power jack on the main board. You can get it fix in any local laptop repair shop. Also, you can find a laptop repair company who offer this service on the Internet and ship it in. I cannot offer a particular company but if you do your research on Google, you will find it. Search for something like “repair laptop power jack”.
April 25th, 2006 at 9:05 am
HI,
I have a toshiba M35X-S109 laptop and it is 15 months old and it is out of warranty. recently I had a problem with DC power jack and the battery would not charge and I had to apply pressure to the dc jack only then the battery would charge. due to this the suddenly the laptop stopped and it would not boot or show any display. I sent it to best buy for repair and they said I need to replace the system board(mother board) can anyone help me in this as I do not know how to repair it. or is there any place that I can get this repaired.
March 30th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Hey Almir,
Check if the system board is seated properly. I guess it is possible that you jammed a cable somehow and now some contacts are shortened until you apply the pressure on the board and disconnect them. It is also possible that you put a wrong screw into a wrong location; it also might cause a short. I would try to remove the display and the top cover and try to boot the laptop with an external monitor. If you still have the same problem you can go dipper inside and check if the laptop is assembled correctly. If you get video on the external monitor, start to assemble the computer back adding parts one by one. Try to boot after each added part.
About the battery problem. Check if you re-soldered the jack correctly. May be you accidentally connected traces that shouldn’t be connected? That is just a guess.