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12/27/2007 Persistent Power Jack Defects in Many Laptops This entry is an anthology of information about this widespread problem. Here you may find links to local repair shops, repair guides, images, comments from other blogs, and a general orientation to this issue. It presumes a basic knowledge of simple electrical circuits.
************************************************************ My Toshiba M35X-S149 laptop developed a defect in its power jack for the 3rd time in 16 months, this after 2 repairs/replacements of its motherboard, and after a court-ordered extended warranty expired. Google searches on this issued indicated this is a widespread problem. Links to websites discussing this issue will follow in this space.
My own story:
I "fixed" my own Toshiba M35X-S149 laptop which had a defective
power jack. I used the guide to disassembly of this model mentioned in the comments. I was positive the power jack was the problem, since it had happened twice before, with a new motherboard & then a resoldered power jack repair which did not last. My attempts at desoldering weren't of much use until I sawed the old power jack into 3 pieces. Then I was able to desolder the smaller remnants. After the mounting holes were cleaned I soldered two new leads of flexible wire direct to the motherboard at the positive & negative holes,
put a loop in the wires for strain relief, brought the wires out the back of the case
so that they formed a "dongle", then soldered a "chassis-mount" power jack (one that fit my AC adapter) to the ends of the wires.
To my surprise, the computer booted up, and is still working. The job is very poor-looking, but works just fine.
I did my repair fully aware that I might fatally damage the motherboard in the process, but I was unwilling to pay for another "professional repair" in a machine out of warranty. The hardest part of the entire process was removal of the defective power jack from the motherboard. The only tools I had were a soldering iron and a syringe-type solder sucker (illustrated).
A basic guide to desoldering may be found by clicking here. If you haven't done it before, secure a circuit board from some discarded electronic device and learn your basic technique on it by removing components as quickly & neatly as possible.
It would have been much easier with a more specialized de-soldering tool attached to a vacuum.
Once the power jack was removed & the holes in the motherboard cleaned, soldering a new power jack is fairly easy, but the process leading up to it was not.
The way to prevent this problem in laptops would have been to either stabilize the power jack so it can't be dislodged by repetitive minor trauma or put a flexible connection between the power jack and the motherboard, as Lenovo has done in their 3000 series.
The Lenovo power jack (the yellow round socket in the image) is visible from the rear of the machine, but is not attached directly to the motherboard, but has a bundle of leads that plug into the motherboard.
The Apple (MacBook) power jack assembly seen below is similar, but the contacts are held to the power "plug" by magnetism. The power cord can be yanked forcefully away from the laptop without any damage to the power jack. However, the wires connected to the power jack can still be damaged if excessive direct traction is exerted on them.
See this video of the MacBook power connector in action
Yanking on a cable attached to a plug (as shown in this video) is never a good idea. Better to push, pull and/or rotate the plug, which is designed to take that strain.
These seem far better engineered for durability than run-of-the-mill laptops.
Of all the fixes I came across on the internet, this one was the most straightforward and also the crudest:
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