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 22nd, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Thank you so much for the info….I have been having problems off and on with my power adapter…It finally stopped working today…I just happened to look online for a new battery and came arcoss this….I am going to have my hubby do what you suggested….When the power adapter stopped working it was within minutes that the battery died too….Do you think I need a new battery??? I love how Toshiba tells ppl about this problem…Makes me mad…..And I also see the settlement they are going thru with this same model….I have had that problem since I have owned this laptop…..And looks like it is to late for me to get anything from them…..Again I love how they alert Toshiba owners….Thanks
July 21st, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Ken,
1. Try “Last Known Good Configuration” option from the boot menu
2. Run memory test and hard drive test. Make sure both pass test. Use Memtest86+ for the memory test and Hitachi’s DFT for the hard drive test. You’ll find links to both utilities on the right side of the website in Resources. Replace the faulty device if needed.
3. Backup all personal data from the hard drive and run the recovery process. I will load original factory image on the hard drive.
July 20th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Ken, I have had what sounds like the same problem on my hp. It turned out to be a hard drive failure and I had to replace it…now works like a charm.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Actually I needed help to resolved an issue with my Toshiba Satellite Toshiba Satellite A85-S107. It keeps rebooting without loading the operating system. Since it gives me the choice to select safe mode, I did that but again it only reboots and comes to the same point. Any help? Please e-mail your help to my address nkendrich@hotmail.com
Thanks
Ken
July 18th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Thanks for this article, I have yet to do this, but I will be by the end of the week. I’ve soldered the box back onto the motherboard about 5 times now, and each time it gives out sooner and sooner, it’s a real pain. This looks like it’ll do the trick though.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:08 am
i Soldered the wires and tied it on the thing and put it back 2gethor… i hope it works cause i dont wanna take the “headache” apart again
July 11th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Gary Tremblay,
Make sure the cooling fans are plugged into the system board. It is possible that the laptop locks up because one of the fans (or both fans) are not plugged in and the laptop overheats. Both fans should start as soon as you turn on the laptop. You can check fans through the air intakes on the bottom. Check if both fans start spinning as soon as you turn on the laptop. If they don’t, check if the fans are plugged in.
July 9th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Hi again and thanks very much for your help. Further to my comments (215), I wasn’t sure if I had touched the cpu when I took the laptop apart but I took it apart again and pushed and wiggled everything and now it works just fine. The only problem I have now is that it keeps locking up on me after about 5 minutes of operation.
July 8th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Gary Tremblay,
Do you have an external memory module? Make sure it’s installed properly. Reseat the memory.
Did you remove the CPU during disassembly? Make sure the CPU is seated properly and is LOCKED inside the socket on the motherboard.
July 8th, 2007 at 11:50 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite A70 and just repaired the ac adaptor plug in. It seems to work ok but the computer will not boot up and all I get is a black screen. The blue light is on but no indication that the processor is working. Any hint as to what I shoul do??