Thinkpads Forum

hey everyone -

The power jack on my thinkpad is starting to get annoyingly loose where the cable plugs in, causing the power to switch on and off randomly. Sometimes if I have the speaker on mute I won't even notice, and the battery will drain down until I catch it.

Are there any quick fixes for this, or do I just have to bring it to a repair shop? It's a couple years old and past warranty.

thanks

Depending on the model it could be easy or very hard to replace just the DC power jack. I'm not familiar with every model but the ones I've opened up generally have the jack mounted on either a small circuit board (I/O ports) or directly on the motherboard. It can either be soldered to the board or screwed on; if the latter, look directly underneath the jack and see if there's a screw there. Some jacks will have a set of short wires leading to a connector that's plugged into another part of the motherboard.

A typical do-it-yourself fix is to bend the metal tabs inside the DC jack back into position (towards the center post) using various implements such as a tiny screwdriver or dental pick. If you have to replace the jack, then you might be able to find one on eBay or post a wanted ad here in the Marketplace. You should use the appropriate Hardware Maintenance Manual for your model in the disassembly / assembly process:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 39298.html

How about telling us exactly which model and TYPE Thinkpad you have? E.g. T23 2647-4MU