Thinkpads Forum

The cable on my AC adapter has suffered wear to the point that the power cuts out at a touch or a slight bend. In particular, the flexible part just behind the connector that plugs into the computer appears to be the site of trouble.

Yes, I can of course just buy a new adapter. But I have a perfectly good, yet underpowered adapter from a previous generation of Thinkpad.

So I was wondering what would be the best way of reducing two useless units to one working unit. The most obvious is to take a knife to the two cables and solder. Anyone done this? Alternatively, perhaps the adapters could be opened up, the cables unsoldered and one resoldered. Again anyone done this? Other recommendable alternatives?

Thanx.

Hello cure,

for what it's worth. I've had a similar problem. Slightly wiggling the connector that goes into the computer showed that the computer was running on batteries instead of mains power.
I also thought, at first, that the cable had broken just before the connector. However, at further investigation, it turned out that the two smal metal contacts in the connector had been "pushed back" to far so they made a bad contact with the connector on the computer side. Pushing the smal metal contacts back fixed the problem.

To clarify what to do: if you look at the power connector from the adapter that goes into the computer, you see a round yellow plastic ring. At the inner side of the ring, you see two small electrical contacts. Unplug the power supply from the mains electricity. Then carefully stick a needle between the yellow plastic ring and the electrical contact und carefully push the electrical contact to the center of the plug. Do this for both electrical contacts.
If you now plug the power connector back into the computer, you will feel that it will fit more firmly than it did before and that your problems will be over (at least that was so in my case).

Cut the wire to any length you like, twist on a new length of wire with the correct size of plug that you salvage from a wall wart. AC adapters are difficult to open cleanly. Make sure the polarity is correct. It is only two wires.