As most of us know all too well most likely the number one problem a person ends up with when owning/using a laptop computer is power. In particular problems with adapters and dc jacks, either becoming broken or loose. I sit here writing this due to a repair I performed earlier this week.
So here is the story, around late 2007 I purchased a macbook directly from apple for my wife. I had the perception that most of us I believe have that the new magsafe jack is a great thing and is going to save a lot of time and repair when it comes to power. Now yes it is nearly 3 years later and all of a sudden we start having power issues with her macbook. First we replaced her adapter, and that adapter after about a week stopped working so I decided to tear down the machine to check for shorts. Upon tearing down her laptop I remove the magsafe board and notice two big problems. First problem being that like many dc jacks the magsafe jack was cold-soldered; and the second that when it was soldered, there was very little solder used so the jack was not thoroughly soldered to the board.
All of this together left the jack loose in on the board. I have seen this issue many times with Toshiba laptops but did not think that I would find it here. The repair to this problem is simple however you coat the old solder with a little bit of rosin hit it with heat and use a solder sucker to pull the old solder off the board. It is important to remove the old solder as it is now brittle and reheating it will only make your problems worse. After removing the old solder clean the contacts and board with a high percentage rubbing alcohol or a small amount of acetone to clear off any leftover traces of rosin goo left on the board. Now with it clean drip fresh rosin down on/into the solder joints apply heat and add new solder making sure that it flows evenly and completely covers the contacts on the bottom of the board as well as you can see it partially peak out of the top side.
After performing this repair on my wife’s macbook it is back to working normally and with the original factory adapter no less. I would rate this repair as something extremely easy for someone who has general soldering and laptop repair skills.
Posted By zerocool1014a