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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June 25th, 2010 at 12:37 am
Mike,
I already submitted my suggestion in a different thread but here it is again.
I hope you didn’t fry the motherboard.
First of all, make sure the memory module is seated correctly (if you have it installed).
Remove the external memory module and test the laptop without it (there is some RAM soldered to the motherboard).
Minimize the laptop as much as you can. All you need is motherboard (again, it has onboard RAM) and CPU. If you still cannot get image on the internal or external screens, most likely you have a problem with the motherboard.
Check out this thread for help: http://www.laptoprepair101.com.....e-problem/
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:52 am
Sorry for my last post. I know the words are separate from each other, I actually made it on Notepad and pasted it here. Sorry again!
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:50 am
Hi! Just by reading your instructions you seem know almost everything about Toshiba laptops. I’m just
wondering if you can help me with my problem. I have a Toshiba Satellite A75-S231 laptop and it’s been working
fine till the last 3 months. Originally the problem was it’s shutting down by itself randomly. I’ve done a couple of
researches on the net till I had the chance to see what we have on this site. I must say that you all are pros!
Anyway, I found out that I have to clean the heatsink and I must tell it resolved the problem and it’s been fine
for 2 months. Lately, about 2 or 3 weeks ago it’s doing the same thing, it’s shutting down by it self randomly.
The new thing about it is it doesn’t overheat like what it was doing when I had the problem with my heatsink. So
I’ve done a research on this site till I got something like having a problem with the DC Jack and believe me it
really is the problem. I’ve re soldered the stupid dc jack coz that’s where the issue is. I decided to do the
Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround and decided to have a small cord wiggling at the back of my
laptop to make sure that it won’t happen again. At first I was having problems turning it on coz it wont turn on
until I found out that some leads were actually sticking with my laptop’s metal case. So I had to re solder that
put it all back and guess what it powered on. BUT! my LCD won’t display a thing! It’s all black! When I turn the
laptop on the fan spins but after 3-5 seconds the fan stops and it wont do anything as if it doenst wanna boot
properly, it wont also display a thing on the LCD. Again I’ve done some research and found something about
using an external monitor to test the LCD but still it wont display anything on the LCD! Apart from that the fan
also stops in 4-5 seconds after I turned it on. Based on what your post says I could have a problem with my RAM
but I dont wanna a new one till I find out if I really need to buy a new one.
June 17th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Hi guys! I have been having major problems with my Toshiba a75 laptop. It keeps shutting itself down so I tried what you guys have on this site which is very helpful. I must say that I didn’t have the confidence taking my laptop apart but you guys have done it all for me. So first, I was able to take it apart with no problems, re soldered the stupid dc jack coz that’s where the issue is. I decided to do the Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround and decided to have a small cord wiggling at the back of my laptop. At first I was having problems turning it on until I found out that some leads were actually sticking with my laptop’s metal case. So I had to re solder that put it all back and guess what it powered on. BUT! my LCD won’t display a thing! I can hear the fans spinning like what it normally does but the screen is all black, I’m worried something must have been damaged when I first had the problem with the metal casing sticking with the soldering leads. I haven’t been able to fully check if I missed something putting the parts all together again but I’m sure I’ve done it correctly because I’ve been taking it apart and putting it all back for so many times now. I’m just wondering if someone can give me some sort of advice how to resolve this and hopefully fixed the problem. Cheers!
April 29th, 2010 at 4:59 am
Whats the best type and size of wire to use for this?
February 5th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Hi– thanks for the advice.help on getting this repair done. I used the connector/housing combo from radio shack, then a dot of hot glue holds it in place on the laptop– about a 6.5/10 on the clean scale I think.
(http://www.radioshack.com/prod.....Id=2102490)
Problem for me now is that in XP, things run fine under AC… but when you pull the power, it still thinks it’s on AC, not battery. It’d think it was an XP issue, but when you power all the way down, it still lights the LED lamps like it’s charging (which I assume is draining hte battery). The only fix I’ve come up with to correct the lights and behavior is to pop the battery in and out.
Any other ideas as to what we may have done wrong ro what’s happening here??
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:19 pm
More update. Took it back apart, desoldered the + connection on the back side and made sure that the hole thru the mother baord was full of solder. Resoldered the connection and powered up and it appears to be working.
I believe the problem was the sleave connecting the bottom and top traces. There was another article that discussed this issue.I had my unit repaired by a company and the sleave was not there when I started my fix.
I believe making sure that there is a good connection between the top and the bottom traces cured my problem.
Thanks again for your site. I could not have started without it.
February 1st, 2010 at 3:52 am
Update from my last. I removed some solder from the + terminal on the back side and all seemed to work. Put it all back together and let it sit powered up. Disconnected the ac power and let the battery drain. Plugged the AC cord back in ligts all came on, ie amber battey light and the green power cord symbol.Looked at after a few minutes and all thelights were out.
Since then nothing. I took it apart again last night and intend to start over.
Any suggestions/comments would be appreciated.
This is an A35X unit.
Bill Barr
January 31st, 2010 at 9:57 am
An additional comment after my last post. With the battery removed and the power plugged in the mother board will power up. Cooling fan runs etc.
Bill Barr
January 31st, 2010 at 9:52 am
Great artice. I used the idea but purchased the Radio Shack DC jack. It is sturdier than the toshiba jack. I mounted it on an external wire as shown here.
Problem. It powered up, got lights for a few minutes but now nothing.
I checked for voltage on the board by plugging the power cord in then placed my positive meter probe on the positive terminal and put the negative probe at various places on the board that I had continuity with the negative point on the dc jack solder point.
Any suggestions?
Bill Barr
Charleston SC