Toshiba x305 adapter can not fully charge the laptop battery

Does your Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q701, or some other Toshiba POS randomly shut off and not fully charge the laptop battery? This is apparently a very common problem with these notebooks. When I had to fix my friend’s laptop I searched all over the internet for a solution. I found quite a few forum threads and laptop reviews discussing the issue but no one actually fixed it themselves. Lazy bastards. Most of these folks were having them sent in for warranty work and having the entire main boards replaced. This is a ridiculous waste of money for someone. I did see an ad for some computer repair place who was charging $200 to fix these, which is a total rip off. They were replacing the jack (claiming $20 just for the part!!) which is not necessary (at least not with this one). Well, I am really cheap and I didn’t want to deal with the time or BS of having it shipped (the warranty is expired anyway), so I fixed it. Cliff’s notes at bottom.

The power led on the front would flicker when the Toshiba x305 adapter was plugged in. I could wiggle the power cord and it would change the nature of the flickering. Sometimes it would stay on continuously and sometimes it would shut off depending on the wiggling. This behavior had the obvious side effects of shutting the computer off and never really charging the battery. Oh how irritating.

At first I thought it was the power cord. I mean I could wiggle the cord and it made changes to the flickering, so why not? After testing it with the volt meter it seemed to be good, good enough to not spend ~$85 on a new power cord. What else could it be?

The x305 adapter jack in the machine turned out to be the culprit. Well, sort of. Technically it was the connection between the jack and the main board. Yeah, just a stupid connection. Not the whole motherboard like the corporate “customer service” reps want you to think. See, the jack has the positive connection coming out of the back and directly into the board with a little weak solder joint keeping the jack from rocking back and forth. When the laptop is subjected to normal amounts of power cord wiggling it breaks the weak joint and screws up power delivery. You can test this by plugging in the laptop and pushing the end of the cord (where it goes into the computer) in different directions while watching the green power light. Mine broke mostly on the top joint and so the light would be a solid green if I pushed the cord end UP (thereby pushing the connection back together), and would totally turn off when I pushed the cord end down.

You can view the backside of the jack by popping the little panel thats above the laptop keyboard (it also goes over the screen hinges):

You can plug the computer in and wiggle the cord end to see if there is a visible crack. Mine had a visible crack when i pushed the cord end down. The picture above, however, was taken after I fixed it, so I have no pics of the crack.

Ok, so now you have to fix it. This is extremely easy. If you have ever soldered, you can do it. Take the laptop apart. I used this guide here which is really good. Just get the main board out so you can solder on the bottom of the jack. Once the board is out you just solder the bottom of the + terminal of the jack (the part of the jack that goes into the middle of the cord). Then solder the top. I tried to make the top solder joint as beefy as possible so it takes a while before the problem happens again. i.e. solder the circled terminal on top and the corresponding bottom terminal:

Power stuff on X305-Q701 went to shit. Wasn’t the power cord. Was the + side jack connection to the main board. Take apart laptop, take out main board, re-solder on the bottom AND on the top of + connection. Put it back together. Enjoy the not-sucking laptop.

Disassembling laptop keyboard by yourself

May be you may ask those questions: How to disassemble a laptop keyboard? Can I take it apart and clean liquid spill? Is it easy to repair a damaged keyboard?

I’ve been getting these questions many times and today I show how to disassemble a laptop keyboard. You decide if it’s possible and easy or not.

By the way, in one of the previous posts I explain how to fix individual keys on a laptop keyboard.

I’m doing it for fun. I’m working on a damaged keyboard and have no intention to use it in the future.

First of all, you’ll have to remove the laptop keyboard.

For the keyboard disassembly I’ll be using one of my tools shown on the following picture.

STEP 1.

Remove sticky tape securing the keyboard cable to back of the keyboard.

STEP 2.

Part of the keyboard cable is glued to the keyboard. Carefully separate the cable from the keyboard.

STEP 3.

Start peeling off the aluminum protective film

STEP 4.

Remove the protective film.

After the protective film is removed it’s really hard to attach it back to the keyboard because it’s deformed.

STEP 5.

Most laptop keyboards have some kind of plastic separators.

These separators secured on the back of the keyboard.

Plastic pins are melted on the back of the keyboard and retain separators in place.

Push all plastic pins though wholes on the keyboard.

Start removing the separator.

The plastic separator has been removed.

STEP 6.

Now you’ll have to remove all key caps.

Before you start removing key caps, make a picture or xerocopy of the keyboard so you know the order in which keys are attached to the keyboard.

In order to remove the key cap carefully lift it up with your fingers.

Remove the key cap so the hinge underneath stays connected to the keyboard.

Some big keys have a different design.

In addition to the hinge, some big keys (Back space or Space bar for example) might have an additional support bracket.

Remove the key cap with the support bracket. As you see, the key hinge stays connected to the keyboard.

STEP 7.

Some laptop keyboards might have blank covers on the left and right sides from the up arrow key.

Lift up and remove the blank cover.

All keyboard key caps and plastic separators have been removed.

STEP 8.

Now you can start removing key hinges – key lifting mechanisms.

Carefully separate the key hinge from the keyboard.

Each key hinge has two parts – external and internal pieces.

When you remove the hinge, try to keep these parts connected to each other the same way they are connected on the keyboard.

If the external and internal pieces got separated, you can assemble them together.

On the following picture you see the lifting mechanism (hinge) assembled.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I’m taking this keyboard apart just for fun. That’s why I don’t care about removed parts.

If you following this guide to repair the keyboard, I would recommend to keep all hinges in the right order.

STEP 9.

The keyboard has two sheets laying one on the top of another.

Remove the sheet with silicone (or rubber) nipples.

STEP 10.

Remove the second sheet with traces.

Both sheets have been separated from the keyboard base.

STEP 11.

The sheet with traces has two layers and all traces are running between these layers.

STEP 12.

In order to access and repair traces you’ll have to separate to layers from each other.

The keyboard has been disassemble.

As you see it’s not easy to disassemble a laptop keyboard and even harder to put it back together.

Is it worth repairing? Probably not. These days you can find a brand new laptop keyboard very cheap.

If you successefuly fixed your keyboard, please share your experience! Let us know what was wrong and how you repaired the problem.