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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September 15th, 2009 at 10:09 am
So let me start by saying thank you for posting this info. My jack has been slowly getting looser over time and it finally came completely disconnected to where it wouldn’t charge. I re-soldered my jack, and it doesn’t work. I’ve been going through everything with a volt meter, and the charger is putting out 41.3 volts until I plug it into the jack, then it drops to nothing. I tried removing the jack and plugged the charger into the jack alone and I get 41.3 volts from the negative and positive on the jack itself. Then I run wires from the charger straight to the board, to see if perhaps the jack was still somehow bad, and get the same original result, it drops from 41.3v to nothing as soon as I touch the negative to the board. Any ideas as to why this is happening would be very appreciated. Thank you.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
OH my dear GOD….I have been checking these things all day..everything was ok…I mean CPU,motherboard,memory, and everything…
BUT I FOUND THE PROBLEM…I cannot believe I made a complete foul of myself over this (I am a technician
, this laptop is my client’s)…after reassembeling the laptop for the 10th time..i saw that the metal brace on the wireless card is not in the right place…The smaller part (not the one with the screw) has to fit in a tiny hole inside the base(back) cover. If it is not in its place, it doesn’t make the connection between the AUX and the MAIN (black and white) cables.
So now everything is OK. My customer’s laptop works perfectly fine now, with a cute little cable attached to the back..
I want to thank you for your helpful tutorial, and for your quick reply. Keep up the good work..
Oh and for those who didn’t succeed.CHECK,DOUBLE CHECK,TRIPLE CHECK everything, it just HAS to work..
THANKS AGAIN
September 4th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Attila,
First of all, check memory modules. Reconnect modules, make sure they are seated correctly. Look inside the memory slot and make sure there is no junk on pins.
If you removed the CPU, make sure the CPU is seated correctly and locked in the socket.
In order to start this laptop with video, you need only three parts: motherboard, CPU and memory. All three parts has to be properly connected to each other.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:10 am
hello..after doing this jack workaround, exactly like it is told, my LCD wont start up…everything looks fine for me..the LEDs are OK, battery is charging, it ever work without battery now, but i don’t see nothing..I have tried with external monitor too, result: NOTHING. All the soldering what I did is isolated with insulation tape, I did even the isolation for the speakers, and still nothing..
I have no idea what went wrong…checked, double and triple checked everything, still found no problem with it…Anybody has any suggestions please mail me.
Thank you in advance
September 1st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Size N Panel-Mount Coaxial DC Power Jack from radio shack#274-1576 wish is pos/or neg on the jack it self ?
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
hey man what kind of wire did you use. i was going to just replace the power jack but relocating it seems logical so it doesn’t become a recurring problem.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Awesome idea, and a fun project.
I used the coaxial jack, #274-1576 from Radio Shack.
here’s some pics of the hookup.
http://img.photobucket.com/alb.....pfixs2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/alb.....pfixs3.jpg
I ended up adhering the wires to the plastic case just before they go into the laptop via Instant-Bond Adhesive from Radio Shack to make certain that when the wires move outside of the case it wont affect the connection inside. It’s been running perfectly since the fix, and I intend to cover the wires in blue electrical tape, and find a way to fortify the wires a bit more as soon as I get some more motivation.
Thanks again for the excellent guide.
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Excellent post! I fixed my laptop by re-routing the wire externally after having no luck trying to fix the adapter internally. The laptop is running great now, but my concern is the heat coming from the wire I used. It is VERY hot to the touch. If I hold my finger on it for 5 seconds or so, it burns. I am obviously not comfortable with the amount of heat being generated. I guess I could be using too small a gauge wire. Does that sound right? Which type of wire should I use? Thanks!
June 13th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I was experiencing the same problem I did resold the part but after few months same problem, this was awesome technique and I really appreciate the way it presented.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I had the same problem fans spinning up an lights turning on. Disassembeld the laptop (2 time today first time was to fit new power jack) and looked for any posible shorting but then i realised that one og the ram modules was not seated right so i took out one of the ram modules and fited screen and then everything came back to life. So if you have any rammodules laying around just thest them in the pc and see if they are causing you problems