Today I received an email from Tony Sakariya (tsakariyaATyahooDOTcom) who was experiencing a problem with the power jack on his Toshiba Satellite A75 laptop. He’s been able to fix the problem by relocating the power jack outside the laptop case away from the system board.
I would like to share with others a tip for repairing their Toshiba A75 laptop for the DC Jack and battery charge problem.
I have a Toshiba A75-S209 for a year now. After the first 3 months it developed the exact same problem. Battery would not charge and I had to twist and turn the power jack to make the connection. Since it was in warranty, I returned it and they repaired and sent it back to me. The problem recurred again after about 4 months and I sent it again and they repaired it and worked fine for 5 more months and it failed. This is a design flaw with Toshiba. Now that I am out of warranty, I decided to repair it myself. Your guide for dismantling A75 was awesome. Thanks for the info. Now here is what I want to share with others. Resoldering the power jack with a new one does solve the problem for a while but it will reoccur. Hence I decided to bring out a wire with the Jack outside. Of course it looks dirty but it is a permanent solution. I am attaching the photo of the repair I did. I got the DC jack from ebay and insulated it with a electrical insulation tape. Now it is working fine, I do the connection and disconnection on the dangling power jack outside the laptop and hence no chance of breaking the soldering outside.
• Coil the pair of wire one round through the ventilation grill before taking it out as shown in the picture above. This is to prevent any external shock or force being directly transmitted to the soldering joints.
• Now we need to connect a new DC Jack to other end of the wire. I purchased the new DC jack from here for a price of $6. Shown in the picture above the white wire is the positive terminal (+) and hence must connect to the inner ring of the DC Jack. Similarly the blue wire being the negative terminal (-) should connect to the outer ring of the DC jack. Refer the picture below on how the wires are soldered to the DC Jack. Be careful not to short the leads as they are very close.
• Now neatly wind a round of insulation tape over the wire and especially on the exposed DC Jack exterior. This will prevent any short-circuit and also give a better appearance.
Toshiba Satellite A70/A75. Disassembly guide with pictures.
Valued Comments.
Submitted by Binney:
The workaround relocates the jack externally. When I did this, a short occurred between the metal casing on the top cover (the one removed with the guitar pick). This happens if the solder repair is too tall. I covered my repair with electrical insulation tape and that fixed the problem. It took me quite some time to figure out where the short was and would like to save others the headache.
Comments #282, 286 submitted by Jake and John:
Size N: DC Power Jack #274-1576 from Radioshack works perfect and looks great. Costs $2.99, easier to solder, snugger fit, 5.5mm O.D. x 2.5mm I.D.
Here are some pictures of the end result of the repair with
the Radio Shack type jack. I added one of those quick release
key holder that I had lying around as a retention holder.Here is what it looks like unplugged: Power tip unplugged.
Here is what it looks like with the adapter plugged in and
the key holder reattached: Power tip plugged.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
April 1st, 2013 at 5:38 pm
@ MP,
I think 18-14 gauge cable should work fine for this repair.
April 1st, 2013 at 12:46 pm
What size wire did you use for the connection from the motherboard to the power jack?
September 29th, 2012 at 4:08 am
Hi
Do you have any instructions for an Asus F3JM and how to fix the charging port? i have a bit of knowledge and know if i had instructions i would be confident to do it. Any help would be appriciated.
Thanks
July 14th, 2012 at 9:08 pm
I should show you my work around for my toshiba. After countless fails of the dc jack, I used an old power cable and hard wired mine directly. It looks a bit ghetto, but it works great!
December 2nd, 2011 at 3:17 pm
@ KGP,
It looks like in Toshiba Satellite T115D power jack IS NOT soldered to the motherboard. It’s attached to the power cable.
If the jack is bad, you simply unplug the harness from the motherboard and replace it with a new harness.
Alternatively, you can use the following DC jack modification I posted in the following post:
http://www.insidemylaptop.com/.....5-laptops/
This DC jack repair works for many newer Toshiba laptops and probably will work for you too.
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Hey I have Satellite T115D and have had this issue with my socket. at first it was just going further into the body of the lap top but with careful manipulation it would still charge. Now it doesn’t charge at all. I took the lap top apart in order to access the socket better but when I plugged the AC adapter in it didn’t work either.
I guess I just need to replace the entire AC power socket assembly? I’m not going to solder anything, I’m just going to order the whole thing including the ground wire and the pin clip. (Sorry not a computer person).
You think this is a good idea?
November 24th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
@ henry,
It’s possible there is a micro crack in the solder. Try resoldering the jack.
November 23rd, 2011 at 8:35 pm
I have the same problem. It is a little weird anyway, I tested and the three negative pins individually were working and gave 19v with the positive. The notebook anyway, worked only when the plug was forced to one side… I can’t figure how could that be the case, but anyway, I am buying another jack and soldering it to the m/b
thanks!
October 24th, 2011 at 6:48 am
@ avedis,
I don’t have this picture BUT why do you need it?
Just unplug the connector from the failed inverter and plug it into the new inverter. You don’t have to separate wires one by one.
October 22nd, 2011 at 12:21 am
Dear sir
I have Toshiba satellite l20-121 laptop. I have some problem with the screen now. It has gone dull, which means i can see the display but the backlight is not working, i have bought a new inverter for the backlight and need to know about the cable. The 5 pin connector that goes to the invertor is broken , i need a picture of it showing me which color of wire goes in which pion
There are 5 wires. Black, orange, yellow, brown, red. please can you send me a picture of the 5 pin connector that goes to the invertor
Best regards