The power plug on Acer Aspire would need to be fiddled with in order to work
I had a power problem with my Acer Aspire 5102 laptop.
The power plug would need to be fiddled with in order to work, once you found the right spot it would work great.
For about a week that worked, then it got harder. It’d take twice as long to find the sweet spot, then it would last 5 minutes to 12 hours and suddenly it was no longer charging.
I looked around online, and was told by a repair shop that it is definitely the power plug, Acers & Toshibas seem to have a problem with the power plug being crappy, he said to send it in & for $100+shipping he’d have it taken care of.
Well, for $400 I can buy a better laptop than what I currently have, so why would I spend 1/4 as much on a jack repair when I could just invest in a new laptop for that much?
I just kept putzing with the cord, (for about 3 weeks), while it kept getting worse, the cord needed to be putzed with at least once an hour to keep working, until today when it finally decided it would have no more & no amount of fiddling would work.
I have repaired XBOX & Wii boards for friends who were dumb enough to overheat them. This involves re-running a trace that been lifted, not nearly the same, but I’ve also helped them with their installations as well as repairing XBOX power supplies that had the built in fuse blow, so I figured what the heck, since I’m practically planning on throwing the machine away (not worth the repair & it won’t even function as a desktop), so I’ll fix it myself.
It was a massive pain to take apart. I’ve worked on Dells (upgrading CPU, general cleaning every 6 months or so), and while the equipment is junk (slow FSB, slow RAM, etc…) [at least the ones I've had to fix], the things are damn reliable & Dell is kind enough to provide a full break down set of instructions that show you every step of the way how to repair or replace anything.
NOT LIKE THIS ON THE ACER, I couldn’t find a manual, so I winged it.
When I get down to the motherboard, I notice solder splotches just about everywhere, the only reason for this is carelessness at the Acer factory, plain and simple.
Once I finally get to the power jack, I notice that 1 pin that’s connecting to the mobo is COMPLETELY BLACK, the only time I’ve ever seen solder like this is when you do a really really bad job soldering that results in a cold joint. So, I used some de-soldering braid & got all of the solder off (first you apply a new layer of solder, then you remove it all with the braid, don’t ask me why, but it works wonders), 2 of the other pins looked like the solder job wasn’t done very well either, so I de-soldered them as well.
I went ahead & re-soldered the pins back to the mobo, threw the battery in & low and behold! The problem is gone. I clean up the board using alcohol on swabs & more importantly removed the solder splotches that were all over the board. I finished putting it back together about an hour and a half ago, and its been running like new (while you’re in there, make sure you blow the cob webs out of the fans & heatsinks, you won’t regret it)!
Moral of the story, its not hard to fix, if your computer isn’t under warranty, consider fixing it yourself or having a competent friend who can solder take care of it for you.
July 29th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Hey there,
There are a couple of good videos about this repair on Youtube. I just repaired on where the board was really bad. I opted to solder a pigtail on it that has a jack at the end. If you do this, use a three wire cable and tie the third on to the board inside as a stress relief. Then cover the whole thing with a blob of non-conductive epoxy.
May 2nd, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Alex,
I believe in an Acer Aspire 9500 the power button is located on a power button board.
The part number for the power button board is: 435906BOL11
If the power button doesn’t work, you’ll have to replace the entire power button board.
May 2nd, 2010 at 11:03 pm
I have a different kind of problem! I have an acer aspire 9500 laptop and my power button doesnt work. At first I had to press it 2-3 times at different angles and it worked. Yesterday I tried about 500 times and I didnt manage to power up my laptop. I took the plastic covering off and pressed the tiny button on the green plate but still nothing! Can anybody help me?
April 19th, 2010 at 10:12 am
kate,
Sounds like a problem with the DC jack inside the laptop. It’s necessary to disassemble the laptop and take a closer look at the jack. Most likely the jack has to be resoldered or replaced.
Hopefully you didn’t damage the motherboard.
April 19th, 2010 at 9:53 am
I think I have the same problem with my Acer Travelmate. I thought it was my adapter that is busted. So i bought a new one. But with the new adapter i also have to fizzle it to get power. I used it for 15 minutes, after i unplugged it, i smelled burnt something on the power socket of the laptop. And the pin from the adapter looked a little bit melted and the pin was as hot as flat iron. Would it be the same problem as yours?
February 3rd, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Toshiba A105 S361 laptop Dead
Plug /power supply replaced 19V dc confirmed.
Mother Board and dc connector replaced.
Unit totally dead,no leds,nothing at all.
Any resets on this computer,any help appreciated?
December 25th, 2009 at 8:40 am
For acer aspire you must remove all the back screws and there are some in the battery bay too.
Then prize off the cover over the power on button,it levers off on the right .More screws are under it. Then remove keyboard carefully and the other connectors are under there.
I have worked on aspire and extensa and both come apart this way. Remove the wifi connectors to get the screen seperate.
On the extensa, unbolt the video out nuts to remove the motherboard ,on aspire it just lifts away in one piece.