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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July 23rd, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Your instructin are simple ,But i had a small problem.
I done every thing you said to do When i plug everything in theirs no power. All i hear is a beeping sound from my AC adapter box . When i usa my old connection it powers up ,but Now my monitor is not working . don,t worry about it my computer is out of warranty.
HOw can i fix this problem? Thank you
July 6th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
You can use any jack that will fit the plug. It is very low voltage, can’t hurt you. Take the new jack from Radio Shack, leave about a 12″ tail and cut and strip the wires. Using a meter, if you don’t have one, Harbor Frieght Tools has them for $3.99. Plug in the adaptor and measure the voltage on the striped ends. Pay close attenion to if it says negitive before the voltage. This will tell you if you have a good connection between the to connectors. It will also tell you which one is postive and which is negitive. If the wires are not clearly marked, I recommend putting a small piece of red shrink wrap around the positive wire.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Back in February, I used advice on this website, bought an iron, followed the very well explained disassembly instructions, and re-soldered the DC jack to the board. 3 months later, in May, problem shows up again. My guess is that the recent hot temperatures (I live in Montreal Canada) were a factor.
I was then fed up with this and was even online shopping for a new laptop. But after realizing I had no money for that, I came across this post suggesting taking out the DC jack.
I figured out, hey, nothing to loose, tried it, and it works great now! I just want to give a more detailed explanation for anyone who has the will to do it but doesn’t know too much about how to do it. Think about the 2-3 weeks you’ll have to spend without your laptop if you take it to service, plus the 300$ to replace your motherboard if your warranty’s dead…I know I couldn’t afford both.
What you’ll need:
- Electronics tool kit…to remove the zillion screws holding the laptop together (5-10 bucks)
- A 25W iron for electronics that you can buy in any hardware shop. Cost: about 10-15 bucks.
- Solder: It generally comes with the iron but can be bought separately for 2$
- Connection wires: I used 18G connection wires at 8.99$ for a pack of 3 at radio shack
First, take the notebook apart. Check out and print out the a70/75 disassembly instructions. When you follow them step by step and work carefully, taking this notebook apart is a piece of cake.
Second, you remove the DC jack from the board. To do this, once you do have your motherboard in your hands, you need to use the soldering iron to remove the solder points. It takes a little bit of time as you gotta be quick in removing the solder while it’s hot. I used the tip of a flat screwdriver to do this while heating the solder. (CJ2600: I would recommend using a solder sucker tool because if you use a screwdriver, you can damage the traces on the system board). You need to remove each one on the top of the board, and also the two underneath holding the jack to the board. This is the hardest part of it all really…
Third, you connect the wires. I used the standard red and black so as to avoid confusion. Then you solder the red one to the board, in the whole where the DC jack pin use to connect. That means the red = positive. You connect the other end to the now loose jack. You do the same thing for the black (negative), which you will connect to the flat pin on the top of the DC jack (e.g. on the side where the cord connects). Then I insulated the DC jack using electrical tape. Please make sure that the connections don’t touch each other before reassembling your laptop!
And this is it, as simple as 1, 2, and 3!! The pigtail option is certainly not the most sexy looking solution but effective and cheap! By working properly you’ll have your laptop up and running AND charging in less than an hour. To me that’s much better than 2-3 weeks! Thanks to the person that came up with this idea, I just wanted to add some detail so that anyone understands how to do it.
Hope this can help others with this stupid problem!
Jim
June 30th, 2006 at 5:49 am
Hello Everybody, I have compiled a detailed document that explains the complete repair process with pictures. If you would like to get a copy of it just send me an email mentioned above (tsakariya AT Yahoo dot COM) or let me see if I can post it here on the forum.
I purchased the DC via ebay for $6.
Regards,
Tony Sakariya
June 25th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
[...] I had to wiggle the AC adapter plug in the laptop jack to make it charge the battery Toshiba Satellite A75 has power problem. Hi, my laptop began having issues with the power jack about 1 week ago. We had to wiggle the plug in the jack to make it charge the battery. Yesterday I could not get the battery to charge at all with the adapter… none of the lights showing ac power or battery charge light up. [...]
June 21st, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Adil,
You still need the AC adapter. You just relocate the power jack from the system board. You solder wires to the system board and solder the power jack to the other end.
June 21st, 2006 at 9:08 am
Tony,
Thanks for the detailed explaination, but I dont quite understand how to deal with the DC Jack.Dont I need the adapter in the middle to convert the power? Do I just put the dc jack on the wire and directly connect it on the wall?
Please advise, and if you can provide additional pics, that would be wonderful. I dont want to burn off the motherboard, if u know what i mean
. Hope to get a quick response.
Adil.
June 19th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Nick, humanspider,
Recently I received an email from one of the readers. It has more detailed explanations for relocating the power jack. I’ll post it soon, when I have some free time.
June 19th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
i’m having this problem with my toshiba A75-S226 and was quoted approx $300 to replace the motherboard. i’d rather find an inexpensive, permanent alternative, and this may be it. one problem is i’m completely naive to DC Jacks and electrical repair and the such. i need this explained to me very explicitly.
i think i understand the concept of soldering the wires to the reverse points of the bad dc jack, as long as it is the same in my A75-S226 (it shouldn’t be any different in my model, right?). the thing that i foresee posing a problem is the alternate dc jack.
1) can i use one of the Radio Shack ones mentioned above (part # 273-1563 or part # 274-1563)? would these work for my specific model laptop?
2) once i have either the Radio Shack dc jack or the one off ebay, how exactly do i connect it to the wires out of the laptop? do i solder them? could anyone provide picture of this?
thank you all in advance for your help!
June 19th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Where did you get the new DC Jack that is connected to the other end of the wire? Can you send a picture? I got Radio Shack 273-1563..is that okay? Thanks.