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.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Anyone have success in removing the motherboard from an M35X-S3112?
I’d like to remove the motherboard to solder on the bottom of the board, but can’t get it loose from the case bottom.
Followed the guide (thanks!), and it seems to be held fast in 2 areas — on the side toward the PCMCIA, 1394, and USB slot (right side of the laptop) and also near the CPU, DC jack, serial port, an parallel port (rear of the laptop).
I hestitate to force things too much since I don’t want to create another problem (aside from the DC jack) by losening up soldered points to these other IO connectors.
Guess if I can’t get the board out I’ll add the wires and the new jack by soldering to the existing jack solder points that I can reach… Hopefully that will do?
Any tips/hints appreciated. Thanks!
September 19th, 2007 at 6:34 am
I have a toshiba satellite M45. I push the power button and it lights up, but it makes no sound. We had a storm this morning, computer was plugged in, everthing else plugged in there still works. Pushed power button at one time and it made sound like it was running, but it neve went ahead and powered up. Any suggestions?
September 19th, 2007 at 3:44 am
I was wondering if their is any way to just bypass the jack all together and just hardwire the power supply directly? I have no reason why I would need to disconnect it.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
hello i succesfully put an outside adapter for my laptop
and still have flashing lights the power will not stay on
and don’t have money to send to shop what could be the
problem now can anyone help ??????
September 14th, 2007 at 1:45 am
Hello- I own the Satellite A85-S107 and reading the blog I seems to have the same issue.When plugging the power in the computer the light is flickering and the computer not charging. Does it look to be the same issue?
September 13th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Kristianne,
You can find disassembly guide for many different Toshiba models at http://www.irisvista.com
Taking apart Satellite 2435 will not be much different then taking apart any other Toshiba laptop. Read through a few different guides and you’ll get the idea hot to get to the motherboard and power jack.
September 13th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I am looking to try and repair my Toshiba Satelite 2435 and could use some guidance. Can someone help me? I need to make my DC Jack external. My old Jack is completly broken, so I ordered a new one. I have never done anything like this before, but I am a really good with computers and repairing things I just need some guidance. Money is really tight and can’t afford to have it done, so any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated.
September 10th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
I had a friend soldered the power supply like in the picture above but why is it getting hot and melting the tape off? today I powered up and it started smoking from the wire what is causing that?
September 10th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I have everything ready and would like to attach the new power jack outsie the computer. What kind of wire do I use to make the connection?
August 25th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Brian,
I think it’s not necessary removing the old jack unless it’s broken and can cause a short on the motherboard, you can leave it in there.
I would use the same type of the power jack so you can use the same AC adapter. The power jack has to match the AC adapter plug.