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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October 18th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Ozzyys,
You can carefully drill it out or use a screw extractor tool. Google for “screw extractor” and you’ll get an idea.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
I though i was the only one with that problem…
i fix it temporarily resoldering the broken point and it worked
for a couple of weeks, now it’s worst the battery doesn’t not
charges, with the slightest tip on the table/desk (and of course the A75) it reboots, freezes, locks up and/or the screen looks like a bad tuned/scrambled TV screen.
Fortunately I found this GREAT topic, but OMG i tried to dismantle the A75 again then I ruined up a screw (the F8 one) the cross turned into a cone.
How extract a ruined screw?
October 14th, 2006 at 10:27 am
This site is AWESOME!!!!! I was able to repair the dc jack following the information in post #’s
57 and 59. Reassembling the the laptop was much harder than disassembling it, but as long as you’re patient you’ll be fine. I used 22 awg wire and radio shack dc jack #274-1576. You’ll need to use a multimeter to determine the proper polarity. I also soldered both sides of the system board to insure connectivity. BE SURE TO CHECK THE VOLTAGE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SYSTEM BOARD!! The new jack connects to case and looks like it belongs there. Again as long as you’re patient it’ll work out fine.
October 13th, 2006 at 3:10 am
After soldering and desoldering the wires to the motherboard THREE times and not getting the battery to charge, I went out and got a multimeter. After testing everything I discovered that the extension cord that was connected to the AC adapter was also going bad and that’s why I was not getting any power (additionally to the dc jack going bad).
Also, my local Radio Shack did not have parts 273-1563 or 274-1563 so I got 274-1577. It’s a little bigger but it works just fine and it has a screw-on housing so you can solder the wires to it and then the housing covers the soldered points.
Thanks a lot for all the tips everyone posted, great site.
October 11th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
[...] So I fired up my fresh new soldering iron and after practicing with a few resistors, I finally worked up the guts to solder the loose jack. I ended up with a decent sized blob so I cut off some of the extra with some wire clippers. It’s worked for a week now so I guess it turned out ok. So in summary it took me, a complete novice at electronics, several hours to fix and cost $45 but I can use the tools again and I learned a lot about the inner working of my computer so I guess the only real cost was a bit of solder. If it breaks again (knock on wood), I might have to try this workaround. [...]
October 9th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Hey Tony, the pwr connector on my A75 started going bad a couple of months ago and has gotten progressively worse. It would sometimes take 10 mins to get the plug to stay in the ‘right spot’ to run on AC pwr. Talk about frustrating! Anyway, I found your site while researching this problen and it was a big help. After understanding the prob was weakened solder joints, I removed the laptops bottom screws and the two in the rear. I was able to gently pry the case open enough to gain limited access to the pwr connectors pins on the underside of the MB. I used a VOM to identify a bad (intermittent) pos solder joint on the MB. I reapplied solder to the joints (Your photos were very helpful) and things seem to be working ok for now.
I know the prob is very likely to reoccur in the future and if it does I think I will try your fix. Since I will only need to take out a few screws, it will be fairly quick & easy. I think I’ll order the new connector now and be ready. Much thanks dude.
October 8th, 2006 at 11:36 am
hi ,ive got the same problem ( now totally dead laptop )
Toshiba tecra 8200
is there a guide to taking the unit apart ??
thanks for any replies
October 5th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
I have a Satellite 1115-S103 with this problem. Is there a web site that shows how to take it apart to install an outside located power jack?
Thanks! – Love the site!
October 4th, 2006 at 11:36 am
Joe, I was wondering if you could post complete descriptions about soldering both the top and bottom of the system board. If you have pictures that would be fantastic. I agree with NP Suber about attaching the jack to the case instead of the system board. Also NP Suber if you could post pictures that would be great as well. I,m also going to use either DC jack #274-1576 or #274-1583. If these won’t work please list the ones that will.
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:38 pm
Louie,
You can find tons of power jacks on eBay if you search for “A75 power jack”.