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.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
June 9th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Hey Axiak,
I wouldn’t epoxy the power jack to the board. This problem might occur again even after you re-solder the jack. It would be much harder to do a good job if you have old epoxy all around the connector.
You can reduce the stress if you move the power jack outside the laptop. Doesn’t look very good, but actually that’s not a bad idea. Here’s an example of relocating Toshiba Satellite A75 power jack.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Ahh
undo –> undue
Serves me right for trying to use that word
June 9th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Thank you very much. My gf’s laptop started having this issue and I suspected it was the connection.
It was exactly as you had pointed out.
I wonder if there’s a way to “fix” this by (a) epoxying the dc jack to the board and (b) connecting the proper connections with ~16 AWG wires. That way undo stress will only weaken the mechanical function, not the connections…
Any thoughts?
May 31st, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Muhammad,
Check what version of BIOS you have. The latest version for your laptop would be v1.90 and there is an updated related to the battery charging in v1.30 Try it first and see if it helps.
In Toshiba Satellite M35X the battery connects directly to the system board. It’s possible that the battery doesn’t make a good contact. Press on the battery and try to turn on the laptop. If the laptop starts, the contact on the system board could be bad or dirty.
Test the AC adapter with a millimeter, may be it doesn’t provide required output and the battery doesn’t get charged.
May 31st, 2006 at 7:44 am
Sir, I have Toshiba Satellite M35X-S109. With power Adapter it’s working very nice, but on battery it’s not give power on.
i purchase new battery but still same problem. it’s charging good.
Pls. help me out
May 15th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
My M30 Sattelite was having an issue where it says “online, discharging” What does this mean? This isnt a continuous problem, and only seems to happen occaisionally. What does this mean?If the battery discharges all the way when it says “online, discharging” will I still have power via the AC?
May 11th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Silverarrows,
It is hard to say for now witch module is failing. Try to do a basic troubleshooting. Remove the battery, the hard drive, the wireless card, the DVD drive and the memory module from the slot on the bottom (if you have any). Try to boot the laptop after each removed device and see if you can get a stable video on the screen. It would be also a good idea to test the AC adapter if it has a proper voltage output, do it first. If you can boot the laptop and get video, then most likely the last removed device is failing. If your laptop still reboots, then you might have more serious problem.
Here is Toshiba Satellite A65 laptop disassembly guide. Use it to locate and remove devices I mentioned above.
May 11th, 2006 at 8:49 am
i have a A65-s126 that just shuts down after 5 seconds of being turned i have three green lights that come on one beside the cap lock the other 2 come on under the f10 and f11,the one big fan comes on under the laptop but shuts down when the laptop shuts down.
the motherboard was already repl under the toshiba warrenty one time already for the power power plug connection on the motherboard since it is out of warrenty know any help would be appreciated thanks.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
I had the exact same problem with my toshiba satellite pro A10 and there were actually 3 thnigs to do: first of all, have your laptop cleaned for dust as it cumulates and clogs the fan. That was my major problem #1. Also, I had a new adapter and then a new battery. Toshiba batteries don’t seem to last very long through time. I did all of the above while still under extended warranty and it has been more than 1 year since without any problems. Start with a simple cleanup and it may solve your problem.
May 3rd, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Robert,
Try to uninstall the Toshiba power management software. After that you can download it again from Toshiba website and install. It might help.