Toshiba Satellite Laptop - Power Button female port on mobo...

jimmyco2008

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May 18, 2012
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Hey all,

A friend dropped her laptop, er her cousin did... In any case, the plastic is pretty beat, and the impact tore the screw sockets holding the display hinge out, so opening the laptop clamshell would cause the metal and loose hinges to pop up into the keyboard top plastic, not the keyboards themselves, but the same plastic top... Anyway that ripped the power outlet out of place, so she couldn't even charge the thing.

I fixed all that, got the hinge to stay put, but realized upon reassembly that when I took the keyboard top off back in disassembly, I tore out the female socket soldered on the mobo for the power button, the cable took the whole socket with it...

She doesn't really have the money for a new laptop, but at the same time she knows it's on the way out. Still, it would be nice if I could get this to work...

I whipped out the soldering iron... which I'm not too handy with at all :/ ... The little female socket that was soldered to the motherboard, and the contact points on the mobo, there are four.... I'm not exactly sure how a power button works, but there are only two wires going to the power button, and only two metal contact points on the end of the wire where it plugged into the socket on the mobo. So that makes me think that maybe I can split each of the two wires into four, and solder each of the four wires directly to the contact points, because soldering the socket back on to the mobo isn't really an option at this point, when the socket broke off, so did a part of the metal within it that connected the mobo and the power button wires, if that makes sense.

Why are there four solder points for two wires? Are all four solder points really necessary? I mean a power button is just completing a circuit to start the computer, I look at my desktop computer, it only has two wires...

It's going on midnight here, and I would be much obliged if someone could help me figure this out.

Thanks.
 

jimmyco2008

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May 18, 2012
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Alright I'm not saying I figured it out but... Desktop PCs' power buttons are not polarized, they work if + is at - and vice-versa...Upon closer inspection, like with a flashlight and battery tester, I found that the four solder points for the female jack that was soldered to the mobo is really just two solder points and two glue points or whatever for structural integrity of the jack...which was pointless because it still broke off.

Anyway, if I solder (or tape with electrical tape), regardless of which wire goes where, that should fix the button.

I can't do this for several more hours, but can anyone back me up on this, maybe point out a fatal flaw before I go for it?
 

jimmyco2008

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May 18, 2012
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Also let me add... The female jack that broke off... From the looks it accommodates up to four wires, four solder points... But the other two didn't break off, they were just never there...Toshiba just thought it could use this jack/port/whatever for convenience it seems.
 

jimmyco2008

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May 18, 2012
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10,510
Alright well I soldered two wires to the two contact points for the poiwer button, touched em together, and no go... The laptop lights up when you plug it in, but it's not firing up, even tried wiring the power button to the wires directly...


I gave up and don't have the thing anymore, so case closed, but really, know one knows anything about the power button on a laptop?