Broken / Loose Power Jack on Laptop and Repair?

MegaMan001

For the last few weeks my laptop's power jack has been acting weird. I have to sometimes rotate around my charging plug to get the laptop to stop charging. Then, while charging, it'll just stop charging for apparently no reason.

I did a little reading and it looks like these are symptoms of a laptop's DC / power jack being loose or breaking from the laptop motherboard and it's pretty common.

Does anyone have any experience with this and getting it repaired? Many guides say you can do it yourself with a soldering gun but, well I've ever soldered anything in my life.

If anyone has any advice on where to take it near Allston (Boston), MA that would also be great.

AtomBomb

Someone gave me $80 to do this for them recently. Not only do you have to be decent with a soldering iron, you also need to be able to disassemble and reassemble a laptop. You might also need to get another jack, depending on how it was constructed (I got 2 on ebay for like $4).

You should be able to tell if the jack is loose. There might be some flex, but it shouldn't rattle. The problem is that some shitty designs rely almost entirely on the solder joints to hold the thing in place. Couple that with cords that are designed to not come out "accidentally" and the potential to bang it into stuff and you get a broken jack.

mehmehmeh

I had a old gateway laptop that had Similar symptoms. The laptop used a big barrel plug with copper contacts inside the laptop but the copper had developed some patina/corrosion (was dull brown/green instead of shiny). I made a loop of fine sandpaper and sanded the contacts with the computer turned off and and the battery removed. After that everything worked fine.

The barrel plugs on most laptops have gotten smaller and I don't think I have seen copper connectors on any recently but it could be something to checkout before taking your laptop apart.

MegaMan001

mehmehmeh wrote: »

I had a old gateway laptop that had Similar symptoms. The laptop used a big barrel plug with copper contacts inside the laptop but the copper had developed some patina/corrosion (was dull brown/green instead of shiny). I made a loop of fine sandpaper and sanded the contacts with the computer turned off and and the battery removed. After that everything worked fine.

The barrel plugs on most laptops have gotten smaller and I don't think I have seen copper connectors on any recently but it could be something to checkout before taking your laptop apart.

There does appear to be a single copper connector in the center of the DC jack so this may be something to try. I found the disassembly instructions online and my buddy and I may take a look at it. But, $100 for a repair judging from how many steps it'll take to take the thing apart and put it back together doesn't sound to bad to what could amount to several hours of work.

TychoCelchuuu

On some laptops the power jack part can be disconnected from the motherboard, and a new one can be reconnected, without any soldering. It all depends on what model/brand you have.

Gdiguy

If you can, it might be worthwhile to find another power cord to check it with...

I was having similar problems, and it turned out to be a problem with my charger (the cord had gotten bent at the brick and frayed or something)

much easier repair at least =)

MegaMan001

It's a Sager 8660 built on the M860TU Clevo shell. I don't have any other chargers to try, the power brick works at 20 volts and 6amps and the closest one I have is 18.5 volts and 4amps for my girlfriend's old Gateway.