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
337 Responses to “Toshiba Satellite A75 failed power jack workaround”
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Pages: « 34 … 11 10 9 8 7 6 [5] 4 3 2 1 » Show All
September 6th, 2006 at 9:04 am
IS THE DC JACK WORK AROUND THE SAME FOR THE M35X -S329?
September 4th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
Waht kind of wire did you use for the Power Jack Workaround
September 2nd, 2006 at 8:09 pm
Tim,
Read comments 163 and 166 posted by Bernie here. It looks like you have exactly the same problem. Check if solder points on your motherboard are clean and there is no short of any kind.
September 2nd, 2006 at 6:22 am
i need help! i followed the instructions of disassembly, got down to the board, but couldnt get it out of the case without force. so i left the old plug in and then just soldered the wires to the top of the board as in the picture. got it all back together and now alls i get is beeping from the adapter box. does anyone know what that is? must i take it back apart and remove the old plug? please help
August 25th, 2006 at 10:09 am
Sandra,
I’ve already mentioned a link to the disassembly guide in the post. OK, I added one more link under the last photo.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Ok, how do you get the laptop apart to even get to the plug?
August 24th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
CJ,
Thanks for the quick response! In another part of your site someone with the same problem mentioned he had to reseat the CPU as many as 30-40 times to get the laptop to boot properly. I’ve read that the CPU mount is very finicky on this particular laptop. I will try doing that for a while to see if I can save myself from having to buy another system board. The board number is K000016390… what is the best price you can get it for?
August 24th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Mike,
I have one more guess but I’m not sure if it’s correct. There should be a fuse somewhere close to the power jack. If the fuse is bad, the motherboard will not get power and you can fix the problem by replacing the fuse.
Here’s the thing I’m not really sure about. Would it be possible to start the laptop from the battery power if the fuse is bad?
I do not repair motherboards, so I cannot help you to locate the fuse. I just looked at Satellite 1135 motherboard and I found a small component located very close to the power jack with “FU” on it, I think it’s a fuse. If the fuse is good, you should get a good continuity between fuse ends.
Hey guys, if you know the answer and can help to locate and test the fuse, please leave a comment.
August 24th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Kevin,
I would try to minimize the system completely and even remove the system board from the laptop base. I usually assemble it on my bench with ESD mat. With Satellite A75 you need only the motherboard, the CPU with cooling module and an external monitor. The memory is already imbedded into the system board and power button is located on the systemboard too. Connect the external monitor and turn it on. If you get video on the monitor, start assembling the laptop back and test after each installed component. If it doesn’t start with video, then apparently the system board is bad.
August 24th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Ok, I checked the solder passing through the board and it does have good continuity going from the topside where I soldered the wire on to the bottom side + hole where the jack used to be. Is there another place i can check to see if juice is getting to the motherboard? or narrow down where the problem is? i dont see where the juice goes from that hole as there are no leads or tracks coming off if that I can see. thanks again for all your help!