Notebook repair

[juniorranger 0]

I have a Toshiba Satelite and you have to jiggle or hold the power cord in the port just a certain way or as soon as the battery gives way (which is old and doesnt hold charge for more than a few mintues) the computer goes off, the recepticle for the power cord doesnt seem to make good condition to run it off the power cord, It's like the recepticle is worn from plugging and unpluggling, not making good connection you have to hold the plug in from the power cord at just the right angle to make it work, Whats the easiest fix? Is there a way to charge it and power it from the usb port? Or just have the power recepticle plug in replaced and re soldered? Help please it works bad a__ but my wife complains all the time and i dont blame her... Please help..

[KE5AFU 0]

Lots of laptops have that same issue. The traces on the mb can't hold the current that you are feeding the unit / the cord gets pulled on and breaks the traces / cold weld. No go on powering through USB, if you are handy with a soldering iron you can open the unit up and reflow solder. I usually remove the jack completly and get a "m" size jack from RadioShack and replace it. (not for the faint of heart, you have to usually slightly drill out the hole in the laptop case and have to cut off the old plug and replace it with a "m" plug if yours is a different size. I've done that on 5 laptops now and they are all working great. When it's done it looks good, almost OEM and is 100 times more durable.

[dustinjtrr 0]

Yeah, personally I would just reflow the solder.  If you take it anywhere they are going to most likely charge you for motherboard replacement which would be more expensive than a new laptop.

[juniorranger 0]

I have taken mine apart and replaced the screen, is resoldering that connection about the same difficulty level? There are dozens of screws holding the back on i am not even sure what needs to come off. How much would it cost to have a repair place do it you think?

[KE5AFU 0]

I'm not a certified repair center, but I would do it for $20 + shipping to reflow or $25 + shipping to replace the jack / plug. I'm in Oklahoma City, but I'm in and out of texas fairly often.

[dustinjtrr 0]

I have taken mine apart and replaced the screen, is resoldering that connection about the same difficulty level? There are dozens of screws holding the back on i am not even sure what needs to come off. How much would it cost to have a repair place do it you think?

it depends.  do you have any experience soldering? or the correct equipment? 

there are a lot of tutorials and places that will do it online.

[CyberChuck 4]

I just read the post about the laptop overheating and shutting down. I know this sounds crazy, but check with your manufacturer's website for an updated video driver. Also, decrease the video acceleration in the display adapter properties. I had the same problem with my Toshiba a year or so ago. Drove me nuts to have the blasted thing turn of in the middle of a LAN game (I was running as the server). Did a lot of research and came across this suggestion. I haven't had a heat problem since then. It seems that the video on most laptops utilize the processor & memory and cause an increase in heat. That's why gaming computers have video cards with their own memory and video processors - reduces wear of the system resources.

Charlie

(who is not a tech guy, just a schmuck who has managed to break on figure out a fix for his computers from way back when I bought my first 286-16)

[dustinjtrr 0]

Yeah Charlie is right you should always check for driver and bios updates from your manufactures web site.

He also reminds me of my first computer.  It was an old 386-33 that was running windows 3.11 on dos 6.22.

I remember how cool it used to be to write programs in BASIC

[CyberChuck 4]

My old 286 had DOS 5.0 on it. I remember "upgrading" to 6.0 and then to 6.22 to get my Disk Space back. The only thing I didn't like about it was configuring IRQ's every time I changed a modem or sound card. Hard to believe that I complain when my cable net slows down - considering I started out on a 14.4 dial up modem.

Charlie

[chefgary 4]

I just came from a scouting merit badge meeting.  I was in charge of the computer merit badge.  I thought it would be kind of fun telling the boys about computer evolution in my life time.  It's hard to believe how much progress has been made since my first computer in the mid 80's.  It's amazing.

[CyberChuck 4]

Gary,

    I said that my first computer was a 286. But, in reality, my first was a Commodore, hooked up to my tv. It didn't do much, but that was the first. I also remember taking a computer programming class in the early 80's. I was programming FORTRAN on a TRS80. I still remember spending hours looking at amber colored pixelated letters! Back in the days when you had to install the drivers for your serial mouse.

    Now I feel old.

Charlie

[Cre8tiveCutter 7]

Gary,

     I said that my first computer was a 286. But, in reality, my first was a Commodore, hooked up to my tv. It didn't do much, but that was the first. I also remember taking a computer programming class in the early 80's. I was programming FORTRAN on a TRS80. I still remember spending hours looking at amber colored pixelated letters! Back in the days when you had to install the drivers for your serial mouse.

     Now I feel old.

Charlie

LOL!! Charlie my very first computer was a commodore "colt" wow have we come along way, to play a game you actually had to "type" in each line ( there seemed to be hundreds of them) and if you got even one character wrong the game wouldnt run. I got sick of that really quicklike and traded it for the very first Nintendo and played mario for hours! LOL!!

For my overheating problem, I did go to the HP site and did a little investigating, I updated my video card but not sure if I did the drivers?? Is that two seperate things? LOL!! Hard to believe that on one of my old computers ( and I'm talking 20 yrs ago at least) I had purchased a sound blaster kit. it included a sound card, a modem and a cd drive and I installed it all bymyself! I turned that baby on and was doing america online way before it was "cool" and unfortunatly my internet addiction began and I spent hundreds of hours and $$$$! Back then we only got a certain amount of time with aol and I always went WAY WAY over that! LOL!!

Anyhow, I digress, after updating what i did, it has only shut off on me once and the fans are running at least i can hear it. It always happens when I'm playing a game online, never when I'm just reading the forums or doing pictures or anything else. I got this computer at Best Buy I believe and they are 2 hours from me so the first chance I get I'm gonig to take it and let them check it out, maybe there is alot of dust in it or something. 

Renee

[dustinjtrr 0]

Hey Renee I wouldn't recommend taking it to best buy to be honest.  They are going to charge you for all kinds of nonsense.  If the only time it is shutting down is when you are stressing it the absolute most then it is almost definitely just overheating in which case they are going to charge you money and tell you they can't do anything unless they charge you a lot more money.  If you have a best buy warranty then it would probably be ok to take it there, if not then you should stay away.

As much as I normally don't recommend this because it's not the best habit and shouldn't be done all of the time.  I would turn off the computer, take some "canned air" (I'm not a fan of that expression, because it's not air at all) and spray into the fan intake which is almost always on the bottom and try to see if it blows some stuff out.  Make sure you don't blow into where the fan blows out (usually on the back). 

If you smoke or have pets you build up a lot of dust and dirt over a 1 year period.

Just as a little note to other people as well.  If you have a desktop I would recommend opening that up once a year to clean it out. 

[Cre8tiveCutter 7]

Thanx for the advise Dustin, I will do the canned air thing and see if that helps it any. I do have a warranty on this computer thru best buy thats why I said thats where I was going to take it lol. I installed more ram when I bought it, the ram was cheap but they wanted an arm and a leg to install, so i said no thanx i will do it myself! LOL! A simple pop in is all thats required and they wanted like 65.00 or something like that. I should advertise that service in my shop, they buy it, I'll pop it in for 30.00. LOL!!

what a racket!

Renee

[dustinjtrr 0]

Yeah if you have a warranty through them it's fine.  Otherwise, they are going to gouge the hell out of you. 

[CyberChuck 4]

I agree with Dustin. Canned air - isn't. I don't even own any. What I have done in the past (being a smoker with two housecats) is use the hose attachment on my vaccum to vac out the vents. Any loose trash/fur/dust will show itself at the vent if your vac isn't strong enough to remove it.

Charlie

[Guest fivestar]

Renee it could possibly be your power supply is weak and when you're playing games it's drawing more power and shutting your machine down.  Actually it could be alot of different things, but definitely the power supply is in the mix.

[Cre8tiveCutter 7]

Renee it could possibly be your power supply is weak and when you're playing games it's drawing more power and shutting your machine down.  Actually it could be alot of different things, but definitely the power supply is in the mix.

I like the vaccumm suggestion, I think I will buy one of those really small car ones and try that because in my opinion the canned air is just going to blow it around isnt it? redistribute it so to speak? Its not going to suck it out.

Five, My power supply gets really hot as does the computer itself, I did run pc health and there were several updates I needed to do, not sure if this will take care of it, but it does only happen when I'm playing a game and not all games just the busier games.

Can a person just go to the store and buy a new power supply or does that have to be a specific one for the make and model of the computer?

Renee

[CyberChuck 4]

For a desktop, you can buy an off the shelf power supply. You want to make sure that you get the same type with a minimum of the same wattage. If you remove your old one and go to the local computer store (CompUSA, BestBuy, etc), they can get you squared away easily. Every time I have ever changed a power supply, I try to go with one that produces more wattage than the old one. Things seem to run smoother when you have more power than you need (as opposed to not naving enough).

Charlie

[Cre8tiveCutter 7]

For a desktop, you can buy an off the shelf power supply. You want to make sure that you get the same type with a minimum of the same wattage. If you remove your old one and go to the local computer store (CompUSA, BestBuy, etc), they can get you squared away easily. Every time I have ever changed a power supply, I try to go with one that produces more wattage than the old one. Things seem to run smoother when you have more power than you need (as opposed to not naving enough).

Charlie

thanx for the info, The computer I'm having problems with is a laptop and its always plugged in, I harldy ever use the battery.

Renee

[dustinjtrr 0]

For a desktop, you can buy an off the shelf power supply. You want to make sure that you get the same type with a minimum of the same wattage. If you remove your old one and go to the local computer store (CompUSA, BestBuy, etc), they can get you squared away easily. Every time I have ever changed a power supply, I try to go with one that produces more wattage than the old one. Things seem to run smoother when you have more power than you need (as opposed to not naving enough).

Charlie

thanx for the info, The computer I'm having problems with is a laptop and its always plugged in, I harldy ever use the battery.

Renee

If you don't use the battery make sure you take it out. 

Also just to throw this out there...  If you are getting a new power supply for a desktop you should always go with a good reputable brand.  I would never go with a house brand.  Also when it comes to power ratings not all power supplies are created equally.  Most of the no name brands boast large wattage numbers, but there are different voltage rails on a power supply.  The 12V rail is usually the most important when you are looking at power supplies.  There are a lot of manufacturers out there that pump up the 3.3V and 5V rails because they are cheaper to make, but don't do you any good.  They are also usually made with cheaper components that are more likely to fail.  Power supply failure could take out several or all the components of a computer.  It is the last place you want to save money when dealing with computers.