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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February 4th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Edward,
Apparently it’s not enough just removing screws from the bottom. I think the next step would be lifting up the keyboard, remove all screws and disconnect all cables under the keyboard. After that you can disconnect and remove the display assembly. Finally, split the notebook case and remove the motherboard. Repair the jack.
January 29th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
How do you take the back off of a sony vaio.
I have took all of the screws out of the back & it does not come apart.
I need to replace the power connector.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Michele,
Here’s a disassembly guide I’ve created for taking apart Satellite P30/P35 notebooks. It might help you a lot. In order to replace the power jack (not harness) it is necessary to remove the motherboard. In most cases it’s not necessary to replace the power jack, you just have to resolder the original one.
You’ll need some soldering skills. Here’s how I usually do it.
- Unsolder the power jack from the motherboard.
- Clean up the jack contacts and soldering pads on the motherboard. Apply new coat of solder on the jack contacts and soldering pads
- Install the jack and solder it.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Helllo
I have a Toshiba P30 and it seems the dc jack harness is bad. I called Toshiba and they said I’m out of luck cause I’m out of warranty. The laptop is ony 18 months old and cost a good penny too. So Toshiba referred me to a repair shop that said it may cost anywhere from $100 to $300 or up depending if the dc jack harness is soldered to the motherboard if it was I would need a new motherboard.
My husband is a mechanic, but we’re both nervous about taking this laptop apart. Any suggestions??
Thanks,
Michele
January 18th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Chris Egbert,
May be the cooling fan is not working? Can you hear fan spinning when you turn on the laptop? It’s also possible that thermal grease dried out and you have to apply new grease on the CPU.
January 16th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I am having problems with my systemax: Model is unsure. Laptop. When I have it pluggin in the A/C and am using the laptop at the same time after about 5-10 minutes the thing shuts down by its self. I have done the following by myself to figure out whats wrong: Opened the bottom hatch of the laptop and blew all around incase dust was hidden around the edges and took out what looked like the heat sink “attached to blower” and blew at that.
didn’t appear to be any visible dust, dirt, scratches. I am desperately trying to figure out an answer to this so that I can leave my computer on charge while in use so i don’t have to worry about draining the battery. If you have any answers to this than please send me an e-mail. I’m getting sick of important unsaved data being erased because the thing overheats and shuts down.
January 10th, 2007 at 12:38 am
I don’t have Toshiba, I have some random brand laptop (my first mistake). I know this is my problem because I took my laptop apart and the solder connections were bad. The bad part was… I don’t know which wire goes where. Is there any way that I can tell so that I can solder them back to charge the laptop again? I tried just holding the wires doing different connections, FRUSTRATING and not good because I might have short circuit the whole thing.
My point is, is there any way I can tell which is positive and which is negative? My solder connections look almost exactly like the picture provided here but they have wires coming from the solder points (3 to be exact). Any help or insight would be appreciated.
December 19th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
James,
Just recently Toshiba issued a 12 months warranty extension for Toshiba Satellite M30X, M35X, A70 and A75X laptops. You might be able to fix the laptop for free even though it’s not under warranty anymore. Read Jaime’s comment #26 here.
December 19th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
I have exactly the same problem with my Toshiba Satellite M35X. I searched online for months with no answer until I saw your post today. Thanks.I initially thought it maybe the adapter, wire or the inserting pin but was not sure. Please tell me how hard is it to open the laptop and any precautions to be taken. Although I have done soldering I am not expert, please tell if soldering is easy. Also if you have high resolution clear picture please mail me. Thanks a lot
December 17th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
My Satellite Pro 6000 is failing to power on. The power on light blinks amber as SL SSL SSL – hex 92 I believe. It will power on when I sit it on an ice pack and will work for approx 25 minutes before lock-up or freezing with a multicolor screen. I guessing the cold helps a contact to me made that fails as soon as the temp drops a bit. The heat sink assembly has been cleaned and new paste applied. A friend soldered the 20 pin power connector and this made no difference. Can you provide insight for resolution? Thanks