Faulty Charging Port

[JohnnyWizard]

Hi guys,

I have a customer with a faulty charging port and she wants it fixed as cheap as possible.

What would be her best option?

 

[Xander]

"Charging port"?....for her phone? Or are you talking a laptop's DC jack? You need to be more clear, Mr. Wizard.

And, honestly, I hope you're not asking a laptop jack because that's a "replace it DERP" kind of question.

 

[JohnnyWizard]

Yes a laptop. The reason I ask as I have heard trying to replace, i.e remove the broken one and resolder in the replace can fry the motherboard capacitors if the solder spreads even a few mm too far.

 

[NYJimbo]

Yes a laptop. The reason I ask as I have heard trying to replace, i.e remove the broken one and resolder in the replace can fry the motherboard capacitors if the solder spreads even a few mm too far.

Find someone who does DC jacks/ports and ask them how much they would charge to do it. This is not something you want to do with a customers machine as your first time. Trust me.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

You're best is telling her you don't solder and send her to a more experienced company in my opinion as it appears you don't have any laptop electrical knowledge.

 

[mr m]

A lot of newer laptops don't solder the DC jack to the mobo anymore. You might get lucky otherwise like NYJimbo said, farm it out.

 

[Romaniac]

... I have heard trying to replace, i.e remove the broken one and resolder in the replace can fry the motherboard capacitors if the solder spreads even a few mm too far.

...what the? Simply, this is wrong. The only way you can mess anything up is if you use a ridiculous amount of solder (hard to imagine) to where it starts spreading to other components and starts making bridges.
OR if you end up using too much heat or something.


What is the laptop model number? Some of them have the DC Jack connected with a wire - much easier to fix / re-solder. If it needs to be replaced, and it's soldered onto the MOBO, that's a definite outsource. I had to do this twice.

If the jack is just loose, you can re-solder what's there fairly easily. It's usually the main pin and maybe one anchor where the old solder has melted away.
But you must at least have SOME experience with soldering. Maybe you practice with a good iron on some junk motherboards or components you may have laying around / to recycle. But not sure if timeline allows for this.

 

[Markverhyden]

Look for the service manual for the laptop. That will tell you whether it is directly on the motherboard or a separate daughter/cable assemble. Back when I used to work on a lot of Sony's most of them had cable assemblies.

 

[Wezzel98765]

Depending on where you're based in the UK>.. pop the motherboard in the post to me and I will get it sorted on site for you and sent back
£20 for part and fitting

Takes around 10 minutes to remove and replace the jack once board is out (with my new tools)

 

[kyriacos]

if you don't feel comfortable with it, outsource it.

Yes a laptop. The reason I ask as I have heard trying to replace, i.e remove the broken one and resolder in the replace can fry the motherboard capacitors if the solder spreads even a few mm too far.

Its highly unlikely that you will fry anything if you apply common sense. If your solder makes contact with something it shouldn't, remove it before you power up and no harm should be done. One thing to note about factory solders is that they sometimes have a higher melting point so if you have trouble removing it properly then try and blend some of your solder with it to lower the melting point, that way you can clean the through holes nicely.
Make sure you have the basics before you power up your soldering iron. Buy some decent solder, de-soldering wick, a sucker and some flux.

Anyway, you can always try with some dead laptops until you get the hang of it.

As suggested elsewere in this thread, if you don't feel comfortable with it, outsource it. If you don't want to be doing electronic repair it's perfectly acceptable, find the best way to serve your customer and you can't go wrong with that!

I would suggest you look up the model online before doing anything, if you're lucky it may just be the harness/connector variety so you wouldn't need to do any soldering.

 

[DataMedics]

What model laptop is it?

 

[NYJimbo]

What model laptop is it?

Yeah, I think we should know this before we decide if he should work on it. I am assuming its a soldered jack. If its a wire harness or jack/power board then it can be pretty easy to fix.