My Satellite A105 laptop registers power only when I jiggle the port
I have a Toshiba Satellite A105-S4284 laptop. It is not showing that it is connected to the power cord. When I jiggle the port it registers. It seems loose. It doesn’t have warranty. I took it in to best buy and they think my motherboard needs replaced. Please help if possible…
First of all, this problem could be related to the power adapter. It’s possible that one of the wires inside the power cord is damaged and they make contact only when you jiggle the power plug. You can test the power adapter with a voltmeter. If the power cuts off when you jiggle the cable, most likely the power adapter is bad and has to be replaced. Also, you can test the laptop with another working power adapter. If you still experience the same problem even with another known good power adapter, most likely the problem is related to the power jack.
If your problem is related to the power jack, you can replace the jack WITHOUT replacing the whole motherboard. Fortunately for you in this model the power jack is attached to the power cable witch can be unplugged from the motherboard. You can find a new power jack (DC-IN cable) by this part number V000922060. From my experience, the power jack in this model is not reliable. I think that’s your problem.
In order to replace the power jack you’ll have to disassembly the laptop, remove the top cover, unplug the old broken DC-IN cable and replace it with a new one. You can use my disassembly guide but proceed on your own risk. 
June 25th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I have a Toshiba Satelite R15/S822 Tablet Notebook. I don’t have power. The light that is supposed to come on when you plug the AC cord in doesn’t come on, so I bought a new one. Still no luck. My Laptop was purchased in 2005 and I haven’t replaced the battery, could that be the problem? This isn’t the first time I have had problems with the power, I have had to replace the cord once before. I am not terribly computer savvy, but I follow directions well if you have any suggestions, I need some HELP!!! My whole life is in that stupid machine!! Thanks for the help!
Kat
June 25th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Kat,
I don’t think so. The power LED should light up when you plug the AC adapter even if the battery is dead or even removed from the laptop.
If you purchased a new power adapter but still experience the same issue, apparently you have a problem with the laptop.
What could be wrong? Take a look at this disassembly guide for a Satellite R10/R10 notebook. I’ll try to explain using pictures from the disassembly guide.
1. It’s possible that the DC-IN power jack is broken and the motherboard is not getting any power. DC-IN power jack is a socket where you plug in the power adapter. You can see it on the step 10, the jack is located right above the cooling fan. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to access and replace the power jack in this model, you simply unplug the old one from the motherboard and install a new one. In order to remove the laptop bottom cover you’ll have to follow steps 1,2,3,4 and 8. You can buy new power jack here.
2. If replacing the jack doesn’t help and the laptop is still dead, most likely there is a problem with the motherboard and it has to be replaced.
June 28th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I have a problem with only getting power when I jiggle the power cord, except I have a Gateway 7320gz. I noticed almost everything on these pages are for Toshibas, but I have been searching for a resolution for months, and thought you could help. Mainly all I want to know is if I will have to solder anything. And I don’t have disassembly instructions.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:07 am
I am pretty certain I need to replace the power connector in my laptop and wanted to know if it is a simple unplug method as I’ve read that some are soldered to the motherboard. It is an Advent 7085. If it is just a “plug in” type then i’m happy to have a go. Hope you can help
Regards
Jayne
July 1st, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Jayne,
In your laptop the power jack is soldered, you cannot simply unplug it and replace with a new one.
July 4th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I have a Toshiba M115. I had noticed, in the last month or so, that my battery discharged fully in about 15 minutes after a full charge (as indicated by the little battery icon on the desktop).
In what may be an unrelated condition, today I plugged the laptop in with the AC Adaptor and nothing happeed. The battey was out of juice, no light came on and there is no power to the laptop. I checked several outlets to make sure it wasn’t a problem with the power in my house.
I was ready to buy a new adaptor until I saw your site. HELP!
Your previous comments lead me to think that I should try another adaptor, but how do I do that without buying it?
Thanks for your time.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:40 am
My daughter has a Toshiba Equium L100 and we have a very weird power problem (so weird I didn’t actually believe her) It is this; if the laptop is connected to the AC power, the laptop thinks it is on battery only and the power drains out the battery at about the rate you’d expect. In order for the laptop to ‘think’ it is mains connected and for the battery to recharge she has been plugging our HP Deskjet printer into the USB port. If the printer is not mains attached but it still plugged into the USB port, the laptop thinks that it is no longer mains attached. More in hope than expectation I upgraded the BIOS but this made no difference. Has anyone ever experienced a problem similar to this, and if so, what might fix it? The laptop is 24 months old and does get used a couple of hours a day. I’d be grateful for any advice because my daughter’s suggested fix is to simply buy a new one which I’m loathe to do.
August 15th, 2008 at 11:40 am
i have a toshiba 5005 S507 PS500U-OUXOHX laptop which shutsdown or goes into a blank screen state after running disk defragmenter or other programs for a while. it is not going into standby or hibernation, as i’ve turned all that off. if i reboot and don’t run anything, the machine will stand at ready for hours and hours. what could this be? thanks
September 5th, 2008 at 4:52 am
Hi. My acer travelmate 2702wlmi laptop runs fine on ac adaptor with no battery inserted. When I put the battery in it remains on ac power as expected with the charging LED on. However after only a few minutes it swithches over to battery and ignores any ac supply until battery dead and it wont restart until battery removed. It will charge trhe battery however when pc shutdown. All help appreciated.
Jim
September 11th, 2008 at 6:41 am
I have an hp pavillion dv5000. While showing a presentation a few days ago it went into hibernating and shut down. AC plugged in. When attempted to power back on nothing happened. led lights on front panel blink but power led does not.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Jamie,
I think you have a problem with the power adapter. I posted your question and some suggestions here:
Laptop went into hibernation and now it will not power up.
September 18th, 2008 at 8:46 am
PLS PLS HELP. my acer laptop just recently, the monitor does not light up as brightly as it used to. i tried different electric sockets, etc. i think it might be a power options problem. but for some reason, i try and click on the power options tab, and nothing happens, for some reason . pls help, what can i do, its so freakin dark my screen.
November 30th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
My laptop when connected to a AC adapter will not charge unless i connect it to a USB Printer( HP Printer). I have a HP Pavillion DV4250us.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
I have a Toshiba satellite A75-S2112. When I plug it in to charge, the light comes on recognizing the connection. The light that shows whether it is actually charging, however, either doesn’t come on, or goes off intermittently. Do I need a new AC adapter?
January 30th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Trying to get to motherboard/DC jack question:
Got all the way through the guide (removed hd, memory,etc) and got all screws removed.
In carefully trying to remove the bottom (laptop is upside down, on the keyboard faced down), when it comes off should the motherboard and all other components be coming up with it or not? It may sound dumb, but trying to remove the case it seems like it could go either way… and I don’t want to force it one way or the other without confirming.
thanks!
January 30th, 2009 at 11:17 am
TK,
Did you read through the ENTIRE disassembly guide? The guide has 3 pages and explains how to remove the motherboard. It looks like you stuck on the first page. Click on the next one.
January 30th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Haha, yes, that was it exactly _thanks_. I knew something was off, my bad.
In fairness to me the last step on page 1 was to remove all the screws, so figured now just pry off the case to get to the dc-jack.
I was bit excited to get inside there I guess.
January 30th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
TK,
Do not hurry now. Take your time when you are inside the laptop.
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I have a Dell Latitude C600. I dropped the notebook from a table to the (carpeted) floor which broke the piece of the motherboard where the power connector is soldered to. I took the notebook apart and tried connecting the 2 pieces together by hand but that did nothing.
Is there anyway I could power the system by bypassing the power connector? It is an older notebook (700MHz, 256MB RAM) but it is in good condition with a new battery that I recently purchased.
I was thinking about selling (Ebay or Craigslist) it for someone who could do something with it but I am living in Germany right now. If could use it as another PC running Windows or Linux to run some server processes that would be helpful for me.
Thanks,
April 21st, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I have a toshiba equium a100-02L. The power jack has come loose and now it wont charge or register the power supply is plugged in. I just wondered how difficult it would be to repair myself. I tried a couple of repair shops an the cheapest quote i’ve had is £130 is the jack a plug or soldered to the motherboard? Any help would be greatly appreciated, i cant cope without my laptop!
thanks in advance
April 21st, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Nadine,
All you have to do is take apart the whole thing, remove the motherboard and replace the jack.
I think your laptop is similar to a Toshiba Satellite A105 and the jack is NOT soldered to the motherboard, it’s on a cable.
Look here for Toshiba laptop disassembly guides, a Satellite A105 is in there.
Before you take it apart, make sure your problem is not related to the AC adapter. Could be damaged cable inside the adapter power cord. Test it with a voltmeter.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Thanks! Checked the power cord and its fine. When i plug the power cord in the connection is loose. I used to get power by wiggling the power cord but even that doesnt work anymore. I’ll have a look at the dissembly guide. Thanks!
April 21st, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Nadine,
Apparently, the DC-IN jack itself is broken and has to be repaired or replaced. Probably one of the cables broke of off the connector. Access the power jack and check if both cables are soldered to it.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:14 am
I have a dell inspiron laptopWill not turn on when power cord is attached . Bought a new battery and power cord. Light only flashes for a second when you wiggle the cord. Was working fine until batterey went dead. Then couldn’t get it to charge so thats when we baought a new battery and power cord. Any clue on whats going on.
November 30th, 2009 at 7:27 am
I had an ac adapter problem on a Toshiba Satellite A135 system which I thought was power jack related. (Jiggling the jack, I would effect the power LED illumination.)
After disassembling the laptop, I found the jack and wire harness were fine (remote power jack with discrete wires to MB).
It turned out that the ac adapter itself had a broken wire at the plug that mates with the power jack. I repaired this by cutting the sheath and resoldering the positive (center wire) to the plug. Worked fine for months. THEN -one day- it seems my solder joint failed and I didn’t notice the power LED went out. The laptop continued to run until I recieved a low battery warning and that’s when I realized the adapeter had failed again.
Here’s the problem now- I think the broken power wire may have shorted to the ground (sheild) while the laptop was running and that may have toasted the MB charging circuit.
I repaired the AC adapter again and the output voltage is good BUT-when I plug it into the laptop, it does nothing. No LED’s at all- No battery charging and the laptop won’t even attempt to turn on with just the adapter and no battery. It still works fine on a good battery but the laptop cannot make use of the adapters DC power in any way… not even to recharge the battery.
Questions: 1) is it reasonable to attempt component level repair on the MB charging circuit?
2) is there any way to run the adapters DC outout directly to the battery pins (hollowing out the battery) so that the laptop thinks it’s running off battery power?
3) if option 2 is possible, is there a resource that documents the batteries pin outs so that I may understand where to apply power and how to condition the other pins to allow the laptop to run this way?
thanks
December 29th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
my toshiba laptop problem:
1) once the ac adapter was plugged in, the laptop screen was frozen with horizontal lines. cant move, cant shut down, no response to alt crtl del.
but if jz use the battery without ac adapter, the laptop wil operate normally. however, the battery only can use for 1 half hours. therefore, i hv to plug in the ac adapter. once plugged the screen was frozen with horizontal lines. cant move, cant shut down, no response to alt crtl del.
can any1 tel me wat’s wrong with my laptop?
January 13th, 2010 at 11:57 am
hello, I recently bought a new charger for my toshiba equium a 100-02L, When i plugger it in and tryed to power the laptop up it wouldnt work. I had a blue LED light and a orange battery light. does anyone no what that means and what a an do it fix this. Thank you in advance
March 24th, 2010 at 8:55 am
I have a Toshiba L455D, which is 5 months old. I had the same problem with the ac jack. Sent it to be fixed, they want $150 to fix the broken piece. They said I broke it. I don’t know how you break something by plugging it in. Looks like alot of their computers have this same problem. I will Never buy anything from Toshiba again!! Their warranty means nothing. I am now calling the better business bureau.