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.
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January 17th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Hello David,
Well, if you are implementing the external DC jack fix, you may let the broken jack be there in its place. It will do no harm. But if you insist on removing it, you will have to desolder it using a soldering iron and desoldring pump. The basic technique being to remove all the solder holding the DC jack to the motherboard and then pull it out. And regarding the WiFi antenna cable, it ok, its just a push-in connector and you just need to push the connector back into position.
Regards,
Tony Sakariya
January 17th, 2007 at 7:44 am
[...] Then I tried to clean the contacts on the board with an eraser to remove any oxidation on the copper, stuck the jack back in its holes and soldered it back on. So far I haven’t had any problems, we’ll see if it last this time. If it breaks again (knock on wood), I’m definitely trying the external power jack workaround. [...]
January 16th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Thank yoiu for the information. I have the same problem with my Toshiba laptop.
January 15th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I have the same DC jack problem on my toshiba laptop. I have disassembled the unit but don’t know how to get the old DC jack off of the motherboard. Can anyone offer some help? Also, while taking the thing apart i accidentally pulled one of the wifi wires off of the connector. That looks like it just pushes in to the connector though..
Thanks,
David
January 15th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Argh, I have this same problem with my A75 but I don’t have the courage or skill to do the fix. Is there such a thing as an external battery charger out there?
or is there anyone in the Cincinnati area that would be willing to do the fix for $?
January 11th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Incredible. My son who is in college has had the exact same problem. I gave him my HP to take back to school while his unit went off to be repaired – AGAIN – for exactly what you described above.
why hasn’t Toshiba issued a recalland FIXED?
Even if it’s out of waranty as stated in the item above, they have an obligation when its an apparent flaw.
January 6th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Hi Tony,
I followed the instructions for installling a new radio shack jack that had a small nut on it to secure it to the case. When I went to screw the motherboard down it was jammed by this nut. I then hacksawed a tiny piece off to increase the space to fit down. it still was not flat, however when I finshed with all of the screws it did seem ok. I was able to start it up and everything seemed great. The battery charged up at what I think was a faster rate and held the charge at 100%. I then had to leave with the laptop and did not shut it down, just closed it and left for a ferry. when I opened it the next day it did not start up, and still has not….any suggestions? Thanks for all the help so far!
January 4th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I also have a power receptor issue. A friend of mine dropped her laptop on the power cord male end while it was plugged in and broke the positive receptor post inside the receptacle.
I found drawing a simple diagram of the back of the laptop and mapping the screws as well as a simple sketch of the interior and doing the same. I also took some digital shot at a few stages of disassembly.
January 3rd, 2007 at 11:59 am
Pictures of dismantellingl the laptop helped me alot. Here are some simple tips to take apart the laptop. Since the screws are so tiny, put scotch tape over the screws after you loosen them. You wont loose them and the screws stay in their original hole. Laptop parts are also small so I use a notebook binder with plastic page protectors. I number each page 1-30. As I unscrew each part, I put that part in a page protector. Just one part per page. Heavy things like the battery, I just put aside, not in the binder. The last piece I took out is the last page. When I want to reassemble the laptop, I begin with the laptop component on the last page and then go to the next page (e.g., page 30 – page1). If you need to put notes to yourself about that component, you just slip it in the page protector with the component.
January 1st, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Thanks, cj2600. When I reassembled the laptop, I neglected to connect the touchpad cable. Missed that step. 5 minutes later, I reconnected the touchpad and everything works great now. Thanks again.