Idea for repairing my laptop power jack

[Tim R]

I have a perfectly good Asus K501 sitting in a drawer. It can't be powered up because the power jack at the back has come loose inside. For a while we could get it to work by wiggling the cord from the power supply but now it's dead.

I've researched online, and apparently this is a fairly common problem with an easy fix: you either resolder the jack onto the circuit board, or replace it.

But you have to disassemble the entire laptop, everything else comes out before you can get to that jack, and I'm not confident I can do that job and have it work when I'm done. I've watched it on youtube, and it doesn't look easy at all. It's cheaper to buy a new laptop than pay somebody to fix that one.

But i just had a thought. The battery pops out, and there is a 9 pin (well, not pin, blade I guess you'd call them) connector where it makes contact. Can I just run the laptop tethered from that connector, using the original power supply? It's rarely on batter power anyway. Can I buy that connector, or maybe individual female blade sockets? How do I find the pinout for the blades? It seems likely to me that 3 are power and ground to the PC, 2 are charging leads for the battery, and the rest maybe monitor state of charge or something.

 

[Tim R]

On Sunday, August 10, 2014 4:40:38 PM UTC-4, William Sommerwerck wrote:

IF... if, if, if... ALL that's required is resoldering the jack... I can't

imagine why the repair would be horribly expensive.

Because it takes 3 hours to get it apart far enough to even see the jack.

3 hours of shop labor at $85 per will run an appreciable fraction of a new laptop

 

[Tim R]

I'll bet you any shop will charge $200 just to look at it.

Okay, I have another way to ask the question.

Suppose I man up and take the darned thing apart. It's been on my list of projects for a while, but it's been low on the list because of the obvious frustration factor. I hate plumbing but at least I can cut a hole in the wall and replace drywall later if I really have to.

And suppose it doesn't work. I get it all back together, but something's fried in the AC power circuit in the process

It would be nice to have a backup plan, run some DC in through the battery connector. It's my daughter's old school laptop, and I seem to remember the battery wasn't holding much charge anyway.

It probably isn't as simple as just putting jolts on V and Gnd, right? The laptop probably has some circuitry to check battery state before turning on?

I've done a bunch of googling and not found anyone who's succeeded at powering the laptop through the battery port. (but also a bunch of people who tried repairing the jack and couldn't get it out without ruining the board)

 

[Tim R]

Batteries are pretty smart, they have a printed circuit board inside; I don't know exactly what it does. But they have some kind of overcharge protection, and they also communicate with the PC, because the PC knows the state of charge and does some power management. So more pins than just voltage are probably needed.

 

[N_Cook]

On 10/08/2014 20:07, Tim R wrote:

I have a perfectly good Asus K501 sitting in a drawer. It can't be powered up because the power jack at the back has come loose inside. For a while we could get it to work by wiggling the cord from the power supply but now it's dead.

I've researched online, and apparently this is a fairly common problem with an easy fix: you either resolder the jack onto the circuit board, or replace it.

But you have to disassemble the entire laptop, everything else comes out before you can get to that jack, and I'm not confident I can do that job and have it work when I'm done. I've watched it on youtube, and it doesn't look easy at all. It's cheaper to buy a new laptop than pay somebody to fix that one.

But i just had a thought. The battery pops out, and there is a 9 pin (well, not pin, blade I guess you'd call them) connector where it makes contact. Can I just run the laptop tethered from that connector, using the original power supply? It's rarely on batter power anyway. Can I buy that connector, or maybe individual female blade sockets? How do I find the pinout for the blades? It seems likely to me that 3 are power and ground to the PC, 2 are charging leads for the battery, and the rest maybe monitor state of charge or something.

Get a felt tip pen and a camera and mark subparts and take pics at all
disassembly stages, and separate containers for subparts and screws,
while following the video.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

IF... if, if, if... ALL that's required is resoldering the jack... I can't
imagine why the repair would be horribly expensive.

 

[Adrian C]

On 10/08/14 20:07, Tim R wrote:

I have a perfectly good Asus K501 sitting in a drawer. It can't be
powered up because the power jack at the back has come loose inside.
For a while we could get it to work by wiggling the cord from the
power supply but now it's dead.

I've researched online, and apparently this is a fairly common
problem with an easy fix: you either resolder the jack onto the
circuit board, or replace it.

But you have to disassemble the entire laptop, everything else comes
out before you can get to that jack, and I'm not confident I can do
that job and have it work when I'm done. I've watched it on youtube,
and it doesn't look easy at all. It's cheaper to buy a new laptop
than pay somebody to fix that one.

OK do that.

P.S. Can you leave your old laptop carefully bagged by the trash can.
I'd wanna pick it up later...



Seriously, your local district is probably growing with smart kids that
are yearning for a challenge that might teach them something more than
you are willing to give yourself the experience. Maybe two heads better
than one, and yes there is youtube....

Not impressed. I'd expect this of a woman. Man up :-(

--
Adrian C

 

[amdx]

On 8/10/2014 4:10 PM, Tim R wrote:

On Sunday, August 10, 2014 4:40:38 PM UTC-4, William Sommerwerck wrote:
IF... if, if, if... ALL that's required is resoldering the jack... I can't

imagine why the repair would be horribly expensive.

Because it takes 3 hours to get it apart far enough to even see the jack.

3 hours of shop labor at $85 per will run an appreciable fraction of a new laptop

Show us the page or URL of a video, I don't see how it could even take
30 minutes to disassemble. I've had my Toshiba all apart, to fix the
jack, didn't take that long. Yours could be an outlier.
Mikek

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[amdx]

On 8/10/2014 4:10 PM, Tim R wrote:

On Sunday, August 10, 2014 4:40:38 PM UTC-4, William Sommerwerck wrote:
IF... if, if, if... ALL that's required is resoldering the jack... I can't

imagine why the repair would be horribly expensive.

Because it takes 3 hours to get it apart far enough to even see the jack.

3 hours of shop labor at $85 per will run an appreciable fraction of a new laptop

I just watched this video, disassembly is pretty involved, but I think
at 15:11 he pulls the board with the power connector.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtkEm7XXNjo

Mikek


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[amdx]

On 8/10/2014 4:41 PM, Tim R wrote:

I'll bet you any shop will charge $200 just to look at it.

Okay, I have another way to ask the question.

Suppose I man up and take the darned thing apart. It's been on my list of projects for a while, but it's been low on the list because of the obvious frustration factor. I hate plumbing but at least I can cut a hole in the wall and replace drywall later if I really have to.

And suppose it doesn't work. I get it all back together, but something's fried in the AC power circuit in the process

It would be nice to have a backup plan, run some DC in through the battery connector. It's my daughter's old school laptop, and I seem to remember the battery wasn't holding much charge anyway.

It probably isn't as simple as just putting jolts on V and Gnd, right? The laptop probably has some circuitry to check battery state before turning on?

I've done a bunch of googling and not found anyone who's succeeded at powering the laptop through the battery port. (but also a bunch of people who tried repairing the jack and couldn't get it out without ruining the board)

I don't know. The batteries have several pins, I'm not sure what they
all do. If I found two pins that measured 12.6 volts between them, and
ONLY TWO PINS, I would feel comfortable feeding 12.6 volts into the
mates on the laptop. I'm not confident you will only find only two pins
on the battery that have voltage.
If I had it and the battery was not good, I'd tear it apart and see
what pins were the correct ones. Might even be able to do that non
destructively.
Good Luck, Mikek

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[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 10 Aug 2014 14:10:02 -0700 (PDT), Tim R <timothy42b@aol.com>
wrote:

On Sunday, August 10, 2014 4:40:38 PM UTC-4, William Sommerwerck wrote:
IF... if, if, if... ALL that's required is resoldering the jack... I can't
imagine why the repair would be horribly expensive.

Because it takes 3 hours to get it apart far enough to even see the jack.
3 hours of shop labor at $85 per will run an appreciable fraction of a new laptop

I do power jack repairs and replacements quite regularly. For
example:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/HP-laptop/>

The time it takes is usually a function of how much damage was done to
the PCB, whether I have the correct jack in stock, and whether I need
to remove the motherboard to replace the jack. For power jacks with
connectorized pigtails (some HP and Compaq), I can be in and out in
about 45 minutes. For laptops with a zillion screws securing the
motherboard, about 2 hrs. Shop rate is $75/hr and I typically quote
$80 to $160 for the job, which includes cleaning out the crud, fan
lube, keyboard cleaning, and quicky charger/charging test.
Incidentally, I find a substantial number of bad power supply cords
and connectors, so don't assume that it's the jack without first
trying a different power supply.

Hint: Take a photo of the PCB, print it, put it over a sheet of
styrofoam, and shove the screws through the page in their original
locations. That way, you don't forget to reinstall any screws or put
the wrong length screw in the wrong hole.

As for "an appreciable fraction of a new laptop", I'm curious as to
what percentage of the cost of a new laptop you would be willing to
pay for a repair?

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Tim R]

On Sunday, August 10, 2014 11:29:17 PM UTC-4, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Hint: Take a photo of the PCB, print it, put it over a sheet of

styrofoam, and shove the screws through the page in their original

locations. That way, you don't forget to reinstall any screws or put

the wrong length screw in the wrong hole.



As for "an appreciable fraction of a new laptop", I'm curious as to

what percentage of the cost of a new laptop you would be willing to

pay for a repair?

Thanks, very helpful. I've been trying to think of a good way to remember where the screws go. Neat trick.

The cost is a good question. I'm still using a laptop (not this one!) I paid $1,000 for ten years ago. It has a wonky fan and I'm backing up files waiting for it to die. The local shop quoted me $200 to fix it, which is 20% of the purchase price, but a new laptop that is faster and better in every way would run me $300, or a refurb would be $179.

I think the break point is not a percentage but an amount. $80 I would pay, $100 is a maybe, $120 is definitely no.

 

Having done a fair number of these repairs, I can say that the majority of the time spent is to dis-assemble and re-assemble the unit. I have only had to replace a few connectors. In most cases, the solder joints have failed because of mechanical abuse NOT because of poor solder. The jacks often don't have sufficient support to prevent flexing of the solder joint. My own Toshiba unit suffered from a similar fate. A little expoxy around the connector to support it better and I have not had a recurrance in 4 years.

Use the advise above to keep track of the dis-assembly process and you shouldbe able to fix this yourself.

Dan

 

[Tim R]

On Monday, August 11, 2014 9:55:00 AM UTC-4, Michael Black wrote:

I'm not sure it's "mechanical abuse" so much as a stress point. Any

connector that gets used regularly is likely to show problems. And it is

because the solder is most of what's holding the connector in place. Add

that epoxy, it will be stronger afterwards.



Michael

I would call that stress point a design defect. Apple had a good idea with the magnetic connection.

 

[Tim R]

On Monday, August 11, 2014 10:41:31 AM UTC-4, Pat wrote:

As others have said, don't assume the problem is the jack. I had a

Sony laptop that had the same symptom - giggling it made it work. It

turned out to the wires in the cable right near the plug. I soldered

I think that the diagnosis is correct. A second known good cable was tried, and the center pin in the jack wiggles slightly when pushed. I think that I may also have tried the technical department at Best Buy or Staples.

 

[Tim R]

On Monday, August 11, 2014 11:55:57 AM UTC-4, Tim R wrote:

On Monday, August 11, 2014 10:41:31 AM UTC-4, Pat wrote:

As others have said, don't assume the problem is the jack. I had a



Sony laptop that had the same symptom - giggling it made it work. It



turned out to the wires in the cable right near the plug. I soldered



I think that the diagnosis is correct. A second known good cable was tried, and the center pin in the jack wiggles slightly when pushed. I think that I may also have tried the technical department at Best Buy or Staples.

Oh. I had a second laptop that was assumed to have the same problem. I didn't have an extra power supply to try, so I took it in to Staples. They found a power supply that would fit and I was back in business.

 

[Michael Black]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2014, dansabrservices@yahoo.com wrote:

Having done a fair number of these repairs, I can say that the majority
of the time spent is to dis-assemble and re-assemble the unit. I have
only had to replace a few connectors. In most cases, the solder joints
have failed because of mechanical abuse NOT because of poor solder.
The jacks often don't have sufficient support to prevent flexing of the
solder joint. My own Toshiba unit suffered from a similar fate. A
little expoxy around the connector to support it better and I have not
had a recurrance in 4 years.

I'm not sure it's "mechanical abuse" so much as a stress point. Any
connector that gets used regularly is likely to show problems. And it is
because the solder is most of what's holding the connector in place. Add
that epoxy, it will be stronger afterwards.

Michael

Use the advise above to keep track of the dis-assembly process and you
shouldbe able to fix this yourself.

Dan

 

[Pat]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2014 06:55:23 -0700 (PDT), Tim R <timothy42b@aol.com>
wrote:

On Monday, August 11, 2014 9:55:00 AM UTC-4, Michael Black wrote:
I'm not sure it's "mechanical abuse" so much as a stress point. Any

connector that gets used regularly is likely to show problems. And it is

because the solder is most of what's holding the connector in place. Add

that epoxy, it will be stronger afterwards.



Michael

I would call that stress point a design defect. Apple had a good idea with the magnetic connection.

As others have said, don't assume the problem is the jack. I had a
Sony laptop that had the same symptom - giggling it made it work. It
turned out to the wires in the cable right near the plug. I soldered
a new plug on and solved the problem for a year. It then did it again
so I shortened the wire slightly and resoldered the connections. Fixed
for another year. The wires in the cable were very brittle. Try a
friend's power supply before tearing anything apart. Note that this
was my wife's laptop. It never left the house and she is not the kind
of person to abuse electronics.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Given that the unit is unusable -- and those, technically, junk -- it seems
that the time spent to fix it would be worth the trouble. If you fail, you
haven't really lost anything -- except your time.

I think highly of ASUS products. (My last two computers used ASUS mobos.) That
alone would be justification for trying to fix it.

Here's a possibly useful suggestion... Find an undisturbed place to work on
the machine. Then, do a little bit at a time -- no more than perhaps ten
minutes. When you feel tired or irritated, stop and come back the next day.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I had a Sony laptop that had the same symptom --
giggling it made it work.

What did you use? "Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang"?