Repairing an old Sony Vaio Laptop Power Connector
Over a year ago my wife’s Sony VAIO laptop started having issues. At first, it seemed as if the battery didn’t hold a charge for very long. Not long after, it began shutting off without much warning. We eventually realized the power connector on the back of the laptop wasn’t getting a good connection. I ordered a new power cord thinking the cord or connector on the cord was faulty or had been worn. That didn’t work; the only way to get power to it was to jiggle the connector back and forth so it would get power for a while. Any slight movement would disconnect the power. Over a period of a month or so this worked until one day it just stopped working totally. At that time, I wasn’t up to fixing it myself so I tried a PC repair shop. When I realized the cost wasn’t much less than buying a new one I bought Shelly a new laptop and mothballed the VAIO for a while.
Several months ago, I pulled the old VAIO out of the box and decided I would try to fix it and use it for a digital photo frame. I found a great deal of information on the web about the many problems people had been having with VAIO laptops – many having the very same problem with the connector. The fix was to disassemble the laptop down to the motherboard, de-solder the old power connector from the motherboard and solder on a new one. I began disassembling laptop expecting some problems, but figured I could handle it.
The culprit - A dead power connector soldered to the motherboard
The keyboard and lcd screen detached from the laptop. The fun is beginning.
My mad scientist table. I had to use the dremmel on some of the case just to get to everything! Soldering was about to begin here as I had to desolder the old connector and solder back on the new power connector to the motherboard.
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Davis Freeberg
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10:36 PM, May 02, 2007
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Brent Evans
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10:46 PM, May 02, 2007
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Comprehensive Computing
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11:38 PM, June 10, 2007
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Brent Evans
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11:56 PM, June 10, 2007
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Comprehensive Computing
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7:42 AM, June 11, 2007
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jchance
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11:17 AM, December 14, 2007
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Brent Evans
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9:42 AM, December 17, 2007
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jchance
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10:03 AM, December 17, 2007
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terri
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1:42 PM, December 23, 2007
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Brent Evans
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7:34 AM, December 29, 2007
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Anonymous
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4:23 PM, December 30, 2007
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Brent Evans
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3:23 PM, January 02, 2008
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Anonymous
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2:01 AM, January 08, 2008
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Anonymous
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11:31 PM, February 29, 2008
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Anonymous
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9:02 PM, March 05, 2008
blog comments powered by DisqusThat is absolutely amazing. If I tried to do anything like that, I would have caught my apartment on fire.
Trust me when I tell you - my wife was noticibly concerned about that sort of thing. I just tell her everythings good here :)
It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I did it over several days and took my time since I'd never done anthing like that before.
Brent, congratulations on a job well done! I replace the power jacks in laptops all the time, and I can tell you from experience that it's not something the average person would want to tackle!
Hey maybe I should hire you as a tech for us at http://comprehensivecomputing.net !!! haha Seriously, good job, man. :-)
Thanks, but I think I'll keep my day job. Still, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. The most difficult thing for the "average person" is getting the case apart without breaking anything and getting it back together with all of the parts intact.
Yeah, that's absolutely true. I've got a buddy who asked me once, "How do you do this without having screws left over?" HAHA
Could you share where you sourced the replacement connector? I have a slightly newer model Vaio that is having the same problems and I have the skill to replace the jack, but I am not sure where to find them.
Were there any markings on the jack that helped you source a replacement part like a model number?
Chance,
I finally found my invoice from the place I purchased the power connector from. It was http://www.laptopjacks.com/
They have an excellent selection of these parts and you can find the part by laptop model number (that's how I found mine. Hope that helps,
Brent
Brent, thanks for the info!
I've added your blog to my feed reader- I look forward to future posts. Thanks again!
My Sony Vaio PCG FX310 was only 1.5 yrs new when it failed to start up. I went ahead and purchased another laptop since I didn't know what the problem was. It's been three years now and I would like to try and fix the FX310S and give it my Mom just for websurfing and email. I noticed this site and if my problem is the power connector, I'm going to take a shot at replacing it. I've taken apart the top and I can see the hard drive and power connection. I don't know how to remove the screen. Can you walk me through it? I sure would appreciate it.
Terri,
To remove the lcd you need to pop off the plastic cover just below the screen (above the keyboard) as well as the plastic around the screen. There should be some screws behind the plastic that you can unfasten and then remove the screen. Be careful to detach the thin cable that attaches the screen from the main part of the laptop as well - you'll have to reattach that once you are done.
Scan through my flickr set and look closely at the pictures of the laptop to see how the laptop screen attaches.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/evansfam/sets/72157594269455467/
Hope that helps.
Thank you for this blog. It gave me a big sigh of relief. I hope you don't mind hearing my tale with this Sony #%@$&! I got very close to completing this task on my $1800 Sony pcg-983L which has spent 90% of its very short working life mothballed because of this. Because of over tightened screws by Sony I couldn't get the motherboard out. So I chewed TRex-style thru the case over the jack, checked the polarity of the three pins with a meter, cut off the power cord head and clipped the power wires directly to the motherboard. It wouldn't power up. I resoldered the pins thinking there may be a crack in the connection. I even unplugged my soldering iron when actually soldering thinking the ungrounded 120V heating element would fry something. No go. So I balked thinking there was a multi-layer sandwich board or some quirky design with the connector jack. I went to laptopjack.com and ordered the part but it didn't come. I was still paranoid about the soldering iron ground and the possibility of a sandwich board so I have remained balked on this ; until your blog. Any comments on my paranoias or on getting out the motherboard would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Guy
Guy,
All I can tell you is the laptop makers certainly didn't make things easy with the way they build these things. Are you still having trouble getting the motherboard out?
Did your part ever come from laptopjack.com? My service from them was pretty good so let me know if your experience is otherwise.
thanks,
Thanks for your reply. Haven't received the jack yet; it's only been a week perhaps. Any comments on soldering on the motherboard with a 120 volt soldering iron, knowing that they are ungrounded, and even if they were there is always leak? Thanks again.
Guy
I have the same laptop, the same problem with connector, and just dug it out of the mothballs (since 5 years I think). I had looked at it before and after opening half of the case I was discouraged to go any further. Thanks Brent for creating some new encouragement. This tread along with the realization that I had nothing to loose after 5 years of mothballs made me open the whole thing and analyze the problem. So here are my experiences...
The unit came apart fairly easily, though it took a good hour disaasembling. I was most worried about keeping all the little screws organized for the reassembly! prepare ample work area and I used several cups to hold the screws belonging to each step of the process. I did not have to use any major force or damage any plasticware as someone posted earlier. It does come apart nicely. FInally got to the "the other side" of the motherboard to see how the culprid connector is soldered in. I was expecting a simple loose solder connection, but actually things looked quite good. I saw in this thread people ordering a new connector. I do not believe this thing actually goes bad. It can get dirty inside, corroded even, so if you have this problem you should first run a qtip in and out of the bottom half of the circular opening. Maybe that is all the problem you have and you do not have to open the case ( My friend had this problem and cleanup fixed it!) Anyway I was not that lucky, so here I am with a table full of components. I removed the connector and analyzed it. It has three pins, two for the power lines and one is a switch line to indicate the computer that the plug is connected. I would be really surprised if this thing can break. The switch contacts could get dirty I guess, but mine worked just fine. The suspicion was in the little wiggle it had when it was still soldered down. Here is the mysterious part: the top side of the circuit board has copper contacts on the three connector pins but no factory solder was on there. The bottom part has the enforcements, like rivets around the three holes and that is where the connector contacts were soldered onto. One of these was wiggle and in fact came loose when I unsoldered it. The mystery is that the connector is soldered at the bottom but the contacts seem to be at the top of the board. if the rivets in the cicuit board would connect top and bottom all would be fine, but they seem to only sit on the bottom. Strange. So I reconnected three wires to the top of the circuit board and make sure some lead would go down into the hole and connect to the bottom as well. Now I left a few inches of the wire loose coming out of the back and reconnected the original plug to the three wires. In other words a little extension cord to act as stress relieve. I tied the wire down to the mother board with a little strap. There are two convenient holes in the motherboard to do so. These were the ones the connector would latch into. Now I have to put most things back together to see if the trick worked. Unfortunately I am out of heat transfer paste, and I will need it to put the cooling back onto the processor chip (don't forget this ever, you will have nothing but trouble otherwise). I will finish this story tomorrow. Hopefully it works and can encourage more people to fix their old viao's.
By the way: stupid design from SONY to put this connector on the motherboard. I know three people with VAIOS with the exact same problem. Repair quote from SONY (4 years ago!) was $900 - thanks a lot!
Ok this is the continuation of the long post above... I put the laptop back together which went pretty smoothly. And YES it worked! The connector was not bad after all it was just the way it came loose from the motherboard. So the lesson learned: I now found out that you have the guy from Comprehensive Computing will do this for at a fixed price of about $100. Considering the risk of breaking something while you are taking this thing apart even with precautions, and just the plain time it takes to do the job, I would happily pay them! I really did enjoy the project though and if you are so inclined go for it. You do need to be pretty handy to get through this, if you have any doubts just send it off.