Laptops Restored Blog

From experience with multiple laptop power jack repairs, we have concluded that the laptop power jack should be replaced all of the time, even if it looks to be in good shape and just the solder joint is bad. If the existing jack is just resoldered and not replaced, there is a significant probability that it will fail in a short order of time.

If you have a faulty power jack, there is an alternative to disassembling the laptop and resoldering a new power jack. Many laptop models have a “universal” slot on them to plug into a docking station or to connect a universal cable. This cable will also have a power connection. The downside to this approach is that the universal cable will often cost as much as a power jack repair.

Before

After

We recently had a Compaq Presario R3000 in for a power jack repair. We took some before and after photos of the solder connections for the power jack. In the “before” photo, the black lines ringing the solder connections is where the solder joint cracked and broke the electrical connection. No rings are evident after a new power jack was soldered on.

Fixing display problems is one of our most frequent repair tasks. In our work we have dealt with many different causes of display failure. Here are the 6 most frequent ones.

1. Cracked Screen – This one is obvious, usually resulting from physical trauma to the laptop. In all cases, the screen needs to be replaced.
2. Failed Inverter – The inverter is the circuit that provides the high voltage to the LCD backlight. When it fails, the display is dark, but if you look at the display at an angle, you will be able to see a dim image.
3. Vertical White Lines – See this post. The driver circuit to the screen is going bad. Either replace the whole screen or the circuit (we always replace the whole screen to reduce problems down the road).
4. Colors are the negative image or bleeding – This can happen after a liquid spill. Liquid got in to the screen and/or the driver circuit. We replace the screen in this instance.
5. Glowing “dark” screen – In this case the inverter and the backlight are working but the screen is not getting a signal from the motherboard. The cause is either a bad motherboard or a bad cable that goes to the screen from the motherboard.
6. Laptop screen doesn’t turn on when the display is lowered and raised – If the display turns on and off when it is raised, but sometimes doesn’t turn back on after being lowered and raised, then the lid switch is the problem. The contacts need to be cleaned or the lid switch needs to be replaced.

I ran across this post in a Craigslist forum:

…Ok, here’s what i did, since people urge me not solder new dc jack myself, so i called Laptop repair service in beaverton area. They told me that the charge cost is going to be $150. But if i took out the motherboard (which they only need motherboard) it would cost $75 (to solder) . So i did took out part and gave to tech guy in Laptop Reapir service to solder the new one ( they provide the part, not the one i order from the internet). total soldering time was 1 hour. So, i took it back and reassembled the laptop and powered it up. The good part was that power came up, but it keeps rebooting itself every 5 seconds and it seem the monitor doesn’t come on at all…

To me, this is crazy! In order to take the motherboard out, you need antistatic protection and antistatic packaging as well as specialized knowledge on how to take the motherboard out and how to keep track of the connectors and the screws. As evidenced in the post above, the results speak for themselves. And if you do have all the skills, why not just finish the job yourself and solder the jack. Otherwise, do me a favor, send the whole laptop in (but not to this guy!).