How do I take apart a Dell Inspiron 1000 in order to re-solder the jack plug? Thank you

I hope you understand that you’ll have to disassemble the whole laptop and remove the motherboard in order to fix the DC jack, right? You’ll need some computer repair and soldering skills.
If you are ready to go, here are step-by-step instructions for replacing DC jack in a Dell Inspiron 1000 laptop.

1. First of all, before you disassemble the laptop, make sure you have a brand new DC jack for your laptop.
I would recommend replacing the old jack with a new one, not just re-soldering it.

2. Get step-by-step Dell Inspiron 1000 disassembly instructions here. With these instructions you’ll be able to remove the motherboard.

3. Finally, read though this DC jack repair guide. It explains how to desolder the old DC jack and replace it with a new one.

On my Dell Vostro 1500, the plug in part for my charger adapter, inside my laptop broke off and is floating inside my laptop. Is this part replaceable?

In Dell Vostro 1500 the power plug (also known as power jack) is soldered to the motherboard.

Yes, the power plug is replaceable but it’s necessary to disassemble the laptop and take a closer look at the motherboard to make sure it’s not damaged by the broken power plug. This service manual explains how to remove the motherboard.

If the motherboard is not damaged, most likely you can solder a new power jack.

It looks like my laptop getting power and charging the battery but when I go to turn it on the power light goes on for about 3 seconds the the unit turns back off again. Any ideas???
It’s a Toshiba Satellite P300.

It’s possible that there is a problem with the AC power adapter. Maybe the adapter is not working properly under load. Test the laptop with another known good adapter.

If the laptop still fails even with another AC adapter, most likely this is the motherboard failure. You’ll have to replace the motherboard.

My Dell computer isn’t working properly. The battery symbol on the bottom claims that its plugged in but not charging. Unfortunately, whenever I pull the charger out, my laptop immediately shuts down.

Most likely your problem is related to the battery. Apparently the battery is not working properly and cannot power the laptop when the charger is unplugged. The first thing to do is testing the laptop with another known good battery, if you can find any.
If the laptop works fine with another working battery, your battery is bad and you need a new one. If you still experience the same problem even with a new battery, most likely there is a problem with the motherboard.

I have a Toshiba M115-S3154 laptop and it’s about a year and a half old. For a while, I never turned my laptop off and always left it charging so the battery only lasts max 5 minutes now when the laptop is unplugged. Today, I unplugged it from the wall and my laptop immediately turned off. It wouldn’t turn back on until I plugged it back into the wall outlet. Is there any way to fix this myself? Or, do I have to bring it in to get it looked at? I would appreciate any sort of help!

First of all, try updating the laptop BIOS to the latest version, at this time it’s version 1.50 released on 03-15-2007.
I just checked the BIOS change history for your laptop and in the latest version there is this fix:
Quote: “The pre-charge current was changed from 128mA to 256mA to correct rare occurrences of battery recharge failures.”
This could be related to your problem. Download the latest BIOS version from the Toshiba website and install it on your laptop. This can help to fix it.
If updating the BIOS doesn’t help, apparently you’ll have to replace the battery pack.

Once battery in my laptop is partially discharged and connected to the AC Power, it starts charging and then somewhere down the line, the laptop suspends with the ‘battery low’ pop up. When I bring it out of suspension, it shows the battery completely depleted, for whatever reason. Then, the second I power down, the battery starts charging. This isn’t normal behavior. If anyone can shower some light on this, I’d be really really grateful.

I think your laptop may have a problem with the DC power connector (AKA power jack). Even though the AC adapter is plugged, the laptop runs on the battery power. It happens because the power jack is not making good connection with the motherboard. As a result, the motherboard is not getting power from the adapter and runs on the battery power instead. The laptop works until the battery dries out and then it suspends. Did you notice if the battery starts charging if you wiggle the power plug inside the power jack a little bit? If it does, most likely the problem is related to the power jack and it has to be resoldered or replaced. Please read this post for more information: Laptop switching to battery while connected to AC adapter.

I have a Thinkpad T41. Yellow light for battery charging does not go even after switching the laptop off and power jack is disconnected. Battery does not charge at all with power source connected.
Can you please help?

First of all, try reconnection the battery if you haven’t done it already.
The battery plugs directly into the connector attached to the motherboard. If the battery charging light stay on even when the power adapter is unplugged and the laptop is switched off, it’s either bad battery or something is wrong with the motherboard. The only way to find the culprit is testing the laptop with another known good battery.
Also, you can try this. Remove the battery and plug in the power adapter. If the battery charging LED lights up even when the battery is removed, most likely you have a problem with the motherboard.

I have a Toshiba Satellite A70 laptop. Picked it up on eBay without an AC adapter. I tried several adapters rated 19v as required but shy on the required amperage. I was using a 450watt one. I noticed it would charge the battery OK when the laptop was off but once in windows it would not charge the battery. I read some threads above that pointed to anything from a bad motherboard, voltage regulator power supply or battery problem. Long story short, I bought the proper AC adapter for it, 19v 6.3amps and voila, problem fixed. It now charges in Windows. So if anyone has the same problem, that is how you fix it. Spend the money and get the right adapter for your laptop. Hope this helps someone.

This is very important to choose the right AC adapter for your laptop. The output voltage MUST be exactly the same. If your laptop requires 18.5V you must use 18.5V adapter. The amperage should be the same or higher. If the laptop requires 4.74A adapter, you’ll have to find an adapter witch provides 4.74A or MORE.

I’ve been longing for an answer for my Compaq NX9020 laptop’s battery problem.
Basically, last battery did not work so I bought a new one from HP store. I got it yesterday. It seemed fine. However, from this morning, problems came: while using AC adapter alone or battery alone, laptop works. However while using them together, laptop LED lights blinks and the power meter for battery drops down immediately to 0% critical level, whereas the battery LED indicator says it’s full. I tried to unplug the AC adaptor while it went down to 0%, then the power meter for the battery came back to normal 85%.

I think there could be a few different reasons why it happens:
1. It might be an issue with the BIOS. Make sure the laptop has the latest version of BIOS installed, update it if needed.
2. It might be a software related issue. If you have some kind of Compaq power management utility installed try uninstalling it and use Windows power management utility instead. Also I would try reinstalling the operating system if upgrading the BIOS or removing the power management utility does not help.
3. If you still experience the same problem even after upgrading the BIOS and reinstalling Windows, most likely you have a problem with the motherboard. Apparently the charging circuit is not working properly. I assume it’s not a problem with the battery because you just purchased a new one. You’ll have to replace the motherboard in this case.

I’ve weird problem with my battery (Acer Aspire 5562WXMi).
When I use only on battery, from 100% to about 40% the battery discharging normally (last about 1 hour) then suddenly from 40% it drop directly to 2%.
When I plug the AC cord, it won’t directly charge (the charge LED is still not on). After 10 to 20 minutes it then starts to charge the battery (the indicator say that it can be charged to 100%).
If I turn-off the laptop and then charge the battery, it won’t also directly charge but the delay is much shorter (maybe just about 1-2 minutes).
Is this the sign of a bad battery (when hot it can’t be charged?) or maybe a bad AC adapter (not enough power to charge the battery when the laptop is turned on?)
Note that this symptom is always repeating when I use the laptop.

From the first part of your complaint description I can see that you have a bad battery. I’ve seen this battery related problem many times before. The percentage might vary, but the process of discharging is the same – the battery discharges fine until some point and then the remaining charge suddenly drops to the minimum. You’ll have to replace the battery.
I’m not sure about the second part. Probably it’s a battery related problem too. Just in case check if there is a newer version of BIOS available for your laptop. If you find one, upgrade the BIOS.