Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround
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.
Entry Filed under: Laptop Tips and Tricks
317 Responses to “Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround”
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October 4th, 2007 at 11:18 am
solved!!!
Both sides of motherboard must be solderedto have proper conection
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:19 am
This message is for 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.
September 25th, 2007 at 1:07 am
HDD connector resolved. :o)
For anyone else puzzled by the Satellite M35X-S3112 laptop’s HDD connector here’s what I found:
While the HDD doesn’t appear to be in a “caddy” the HDD has a small brownish plastic cover over its 44-pins that allow it to mate wth the HDD connector on the motherboard.
You can see examples of this small piece by searching for “Toshiba HDD caddy connector” or “Toshiba HDD laptop caddy connector” (no quotes). Several are listed on eBay.
This connector can be carefully removed by using a small flathead jeweller’s screwdriver (or similar) and prying under it’s shoulder away from the HDD alternating each side until you can lift the connector off the normal IDE pins.
Once the plastic connector is off, the HDD which is a Hitachi Travelstar (in this case its an 80 GB model tha goes under the name of Travelstar 80GN as found on hitachigst.com). The HDD pinouts are provided on Hitachi’s site, but for this drive they are:
43 — 19 — 1 C A
44 — 22 — 2 D B
That is 2 rows of 22 pins with row 2-44 missing a pin at point 22. 4 additional pins A-D are at the right and are for the “drive address setting” (my assumption is that this may be like the typical master, slave, cable select setting).
Anyway, the exposed IDE pins allow the HDD to be mounted in an external case and connected to another laptop or computer via USB cable. Generally these sell for under $20.
Hopefully this info will help someone else trying to access their data but afraid to start prying this plastic part off the HDD. Of course the bottom line is carefully and without too much force…
September 24th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Thanks for the response cj2600.
No memory, no beep. :o(
But, perhaps I’m losing a clue-bird… I also don’t have the HDD installed (its got critical data and don’t want to toast it as well if the main board is toast… I’m also in the process of building a fileserver for handling backups more thoroughly, this HDD was backed up about a week ago, but I’d rather not redo some of the work not included in that backup)
Before the no memory retest, I’d disassembled again to double check the voltages coming in to the board through the jacks (resoldered original one & radio shack add-on). Both appear to provide the 19+v as measured from the external metal jacket and inside pin of the original jack. Soldering was all done on the bottom of the board which is quite dense — (M35x-S3112 has lots of tight components, but care was taken to avoid soldering across other components and soldering points on the bottom). Also added additional thermal grease to both the CPU and video.
So at this point am still puzzling on whether the laptop is salvageable. In any event, I also need to find an adapter that will allow me to access the HDD as an external HDD.
I’ve got 40pin adapters and a weibetech combodock, but no adapter for what appears to be a proprietary connector that Toshiba uses for their HDD on this model.
Anyone know where I can find a HDD adapter for it - or even what type of connector it is?
Also am I losing the forest for the trees by thinking the laptop should still run the POST without memory, HDD, or CD installed?
September 24th, 2007 at 3:27 am
Hi,
I just attempted to relocate the power jack socket outside the case of my Satellite P10-873. It seems the metal jack ‘cube’ used to touch onto a springy metal plate which runs along the inside back of the laptop. With the ‘cube’ outside this will no longer happen so instead I soldered some wire between one of the pins where the ‘cube’ used to attach to mother board and soldered the other end to the springy metal bit. Seems to work but not sure what it is for?
Kev.
P.S. In the end I did away with the power jack as it was making a poor connection and simply hardwired the laptop to the charger using a terminal block. Never use it without mains power anyway.
September 24th, 2007 at 2:00 am
I have Toshiba Satellite A-75 S209, i buy one year ago. now, i will break my laptop because every 15 minute the power always shut down by it self.
I hate you toshiba, back my money.!!!
September 19th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
NWdev,
This problem could be related to a faulty memory module.
Try starting the laptop without any memory. When you start a Satellite M35X without memory, it beeps. Does your laptop beep when you have no memory installed? Make sure that speakers are connected. If the laptop will not beep without memory, you might have a motherboard related problem.
Did you remove the CPU during the disassembly process. If you did, make sure the CPU is seated properly and it’s locked inside the socket on the motherboard.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Alice,
Try this. Remove the battery, unplug the AC adapter, press on the power button and keep it down for a few seconds. Now plug the AC adapter (without battery installed) and try to turn it on.
Another thing to try is reseating the memory module/modules. Just remove the memory from the slot and install it back. It’s possible that memory is not making a good connection with the slot on the motherboard. Try replacing the memory module with a known good one.
September 19th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Forgot to mention, the battery appears to be charging based on the front lights when the AC plug is put into either the old or new jack…
Course not sure that matters if the motherboard is toast. :o(
September 19th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Well, got the motherboard removed — it was hung up on the 1394 connector.
Soldered the wires onto the bottom of the board to the + and - for the original jack.
Put it back together the reverse of disassembly (except left the secure strip off for the time being).
Unfortunately it appears the board has failed — no boot when powered up w/ or w/o AC power. Reseated memory, still same. Powers up, fan runs, blue light on the power, then fan shuts off. Power light remains on until I remove AC and battery.
I’ll be picking up some thermal grease for re-greasing just in case, but its not on long enough to heat anything I wouldn’t think — less than about 3 seconds.
Any ideas of other things to try?