[Noisebridge-discuss] fixing laptop power connectors

[Jonathan Foote]

Is it a barrel connector plug?

I've fixed a lot of these. First consider making a microprobe with a
pin and an alligator clip to check continuity on the small pins. On
the PCB side, look carefully at the solder joints. Sometimes the
solder will crack or solder + copper will pull away from the board.
These can be nearly invisible, so  use the inspection scope. If you
can see a problem,  "sweat" the solder joints to reflow them with the
hot air station. Or maybe just sweat it anyway.

On the cable side. low-end injection molded plugs can be super flaky.
Cut the cable and make sure you have continuity all the way from the
PCB to the cable ends, and also check the PSU output. (You can splice
it back up.) Rarely, but it can happen, a PSU will look like it's OK
on the voltmeter but can't  deliver the current so it fails under
load. Try testing with a load like a power resistor.

There may be mobo mojo that disallows operation with a weak or missing
battery (to sell replacements?)  It's possible to -- carefully--
charge up a dead battery pack using a current-limited bench supply.
Set the voltage to the charging voltage, and limit the current to a
few watts, and connect directly to the cells. Make sure you watch it
and touch it to make sure it's not getting warm, if you do tit wrong
you could have a nice lithium fire on your hands.

HTH.

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 7:42 AM,
<travis+ml-noisebridge at subspacefield.org> wrote:
> This is so annoying.
>
> I've got a laptop that's barely 2 months old.
>
> I _think_ I yanked on the power cord too hard two days ago.
>
> Yesterday, I barely noticed as the battery was running down.
>
> Today, I see that it works fine with the battery in, but if I take
> it out, there's no way to get it to boot.
>
> I tried the old trick of wiggling the power cable in a circle while
> trying to power up - no dice.
>
> I measured voltage coming out of the cable, but try as I might, I
> could not find any on the motherboard or the teeny tiny leads coming
> out of the housing for the power jack.
>
> Any suggestions on what to do?  It's mostly disassembled right now.
>
> Model is an Asus EEE pc 1215n, and I miss it already :-(
> --
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