Compaq Presario R3000 power cord issue - Page 3

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For P4's: solder the positive pin on both sides of the board! Hope this solves something, but I'm afraid not.

positive pin? you mean of the charging jack? or on the processor? sorry, im a software guy, hardware is sort of a mystery to me... thanks

i'll take a look at the soldering job. it would be odd if this was the problem though because the new jack charges the battery fine, so the original problem is solved. i am beginning to believe that i broke the tiniest piece on the motherboard, which is preventing it from working. i tried another CPU on the montherboard and got the same effect. if i took the motherboard to a local computer place (not BestBuy or CompUSA) does anyone think they would be able to be able to tell what part of the motherboard was malfunctioning? (if that is even the problem)

Hardly anything there that could suffer from overheating, but I didn't watch you solder it, so...Don't know what tool you used, or if you cared about static discharge when touching or soldering the board. Better check again, always solder P4 board's dc-in (positive lead) on both sides of the board. You could take the board out, attach the adapter and see where you can get a voltage, on the charging leads in the battery compartment? Is there power on the most left and most right copper contacts of the docking port?

That's the positive lead you are missing! lol It broke off? Push it through from the other side when the solder is molten, !!!!HOT!!!

Update: I went through it again, and it's a little better now. At least it's back to a point where I can press the cord to the side when it's plugged in and it charges (wasn't doing anything before). I do think I MIGHT know what I've been doing wrong now though...but I wanted to check on here first.

Is it possible to put too much solder on? I suspect this is my problem. I started this project knowing nothing about soldering, so I've been learning as I go. I saw someone write "add plenty of solder so it will hold well"...but I've also saw posts that say the solder should be shiny and not dull. It seems like the more solder I have on it, the duller it is. This last time I went through the process, the only thing I really did different from my previous attempts was use less solder...but I'm guessing I'm still using too much. Maybe I'm wrong, but I wanted to go ahead and post it to be sure, and so the question and answer would be here for anyone else with the same problem.

Thanks for the post. I can see I was doing a few things wrong. The solder was a fully flowing liquid...but I wasn't really heating up the pins before adding the solder...although I probably did heat up the positive pin a little while feeling for it the last time (the iron seemed to stick to it a little). I didn't see that mentioned in any of the other posts, so I didn't know I was suppose to heat the pins up. I don't think my positive pin was ever sticking all the way through the board though, and the dc jack appears to be flush with the motherboard...so maybe it was broke from the factory? I have to press my soldering iron tip down into the hole (which melts a little of the plastic around it) to even hit metal. The other three do stick through the board.

Since it seems to be working when I press the cord/jack to the side, I'm guessing that maybe it's one of the side pins that's not making a good enough connection now though. I'll try heating those pins up the next time to see if they make a better connection. If all else fails, hopefully the All-in-one media cable will arrive soon and work fine.

I heated the pins up and it didn't really make a difference for me. I believe the dc jack is just bad (probably because of the positive pin I guess, since it must be broke off)...so I went ahead and ordered a new dc jack off ebay. I'll try the new jack before I open the All-In-One Media Cable (assuming I get it from Hong-Kong ok)...then I'll just sell the Media Cable if I get the new dc jack to work.

I have been dealing with this nightmare for over 6 months. I bought a new battery, power cord and , most recently, paid a tech almost $400.00 to fix it. He said he took the machine apart and put in a new AC adaptor. I'm having the same problem; the battery gets some power, but none going to the PC. My question is, could this guy have put in a new AC adaptor without soldering it to the motherboard? If I'm having the same problem, is it likely he did anything?

He won't return my phone calls, so I'm ready to leave a message threatening to report him to the State Attorney General. Can you shed any light on this?

My R3240US got the the point that it would charge the battery if left off with the cord jiggled just so to turn the front lightening bolt orange for an hour, or run the PC on battery if powered up, but the short in the power cord was too tenuous to run the PC on AC in, no matter how I tried and tried to adjust the cord.

I'm sharing my quote posted recently at takeitapartDOTnet, followed by my 25 minute fix at the end.

Having had some experience and background in such actions (class action and other legal maneuvers) I wouldn't hold my breath. Unless someone can demonstrate an implied usability beyond the warranty period, my hunch is we are chasing a losing cause. This is called Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware. From all the posts it appears that HP/Compaq upheld its warranties during the limited warranty period. I recall that this laptop was initially a bargain at less than $900 which compares to over $2,000 for the last X-series Thinkpad I purchased over three years ago, but is still going strong. To make the automobile analogy, we bought Yugos where others bought Buicks. That was a risk we were willing to take at the time of our purchases, and probably must accept now. That said, I am not a satisfied consumer and I can guarantee that I will not be purchasing another HP/Compaq laptop in the near future, nor will I be recommending them.

Right now my NEW battery is charging up just barely on the laptop. When it is done, I will be backing up the entire PC and then taking apart the old battery and direct wiring it to a 110V AC to DC transformer. I'm pretty sure this "tampering" will void any action I would otherwise have, but at least I will know definitively whether or not I can continue to run this PC or or not with the slight mod. If it doesn't work, I still can go back to the pictures at the top of this post and try to re-solder the power outlet.

The following link to a HP Limited Warranty might be good bedtime reading for some:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc [...] duct=86633

Good luck to those that take an alternate course., but remember that Time is Money! I'll keep you posted of my progress with the battery mod. Dead batteries are probably going for less than $10 plus shipping on e-bay.

Cheers!
Jeff

Following that post, I went against my own drethers and took it apart. I should have gone with the battery bypass or the media cord (which I only learned of today).

I found that if I flipped it on its back and took off the battery, the hard drive and the RAM cover off, that I could then take off the CPU cover plastic by uscrewing all the screws and leaving them in their sockets followed by lifting the black plastic cover straight up with the screws still in place, followed by unscrewing the CD/DVD locking screw (approx center of CD spindle within) and removing that screw alone, unsliding the DVD drive followed by unscrewing all the remaining screws in the remaining bottom black pastic, but leaving the screws in place and lifting it up gently enough to keep all the screw where they needed to be (like before), I got it apart in about 4 minutes. Then I took off the speaker assembly, and mini-sound card leaving their screws in the slots. I flipped it over and at that point pried the upper plastic gray cover off at the base of the screen, followed bt removing the 4 keyboard screws and the 4 now visible hinge screws, the wrap-around upper plastic could be removed from the mother board. Total time into it so far 8 minutes. ANother minute and the CPU was off, followed by its wrap-around gray chasis/sink.

I then noted the lack of solder near the power jack in question and the proximity to the HOT CPU. I pulled off the CPU cover and fan covers and extracted a TON of dust bunny. That was the apparent source of my overheating problem. It also probably weakened the minimal solder on the socket through.

I took the board to a TV repair shop and for $5 and in 5 minutes he resoldered the four pins nicely. I thought I was in the clear. I re-assembled it in 6 minutes and only had one screw extra. I plugged it in and the lightning bolt came on orange (good sign). I then turned on the power button and it glowed orange as did the mouse button and the fans whirred up. Still thinking good thoughts there. About 5 seconds later the fans stopped (no dust bunnies to fight) and the three orange lights remained lit, but nothing else happened. I expected to see the Compaq splash and never saw it. I killed it and listened and felt for the hard drive to spin up. Nothing. I tried several more times and was able to toggle the mouse control light, but no POST occurred.

Any ideas? At this point the lightning bolt stays fully lit so it looks like I solved one problem, but caused another. Clearly the Achillies Heel is the 2 cent power socket with a spot of solder where more would have been better. Any ideas would be much appreciated. As far a taking it apart and putting it back together goes, that was easy. On a scale of one to ten, I would give it a 4. I don't recall locking the CPU so that might be it. Anyone? If you have had luck getting a new motherboard, please share your source.

Oh, a note to those who have yet to have this problem, remove the CPU cover occassionally and clear the bunnies. This is the only laptop of 15 that I have owned that I ever found internal dust bunnies in.

Thanks in advance!
Jeff

Thanks for the info. Before the fix, the PC was working only off the battery and only for a few minutes. I'm noticing today that the battery will only charge to about 25%. the light doesn't stay on for long - just flickers.

Thanks for the tip! That was it!!!

I have a Pentium 4@2.8GHz and the problem was most certainly the CPU lock. Once I removed the cover, it was apparent that I got it half way connected. That was stalling the POST, I'm sure. Must have been that speed test I was performing to get it fixed. At any rate, add 3 more minutes to this project and call it a success.

I appreciate all the posts to this forum as they proved very insightful on my second attempt.

Fondly,
Jeff

I just came across this forum. I own a R3360 and had this problem a couple years ago. Luckily, the lappy was still under Best Buy's 3 year warranty and was fixed (replaced motherboard).

So far so good. I use this machine for work full time and I'm careful when inserting and removing the plug. Everything has held up great; no charging problems, no loose buttons. I guess there's hope for me.

The only issue I had was a noisy rear fan. I was able to easily fix that by removing the fan itself and applying a little 3-in-1 oil to the shaft. Worked like a charm and has for a few months now. Very quiet.

If my adapter does decide to go, I'm not worried, as I have already taken at least the bottom off before. I've taken other laptops apart fully, though not this one...yet. I'm also handy with a soldering gun.

I may even purchase the media cable just to be safe and put less wear on it (since I use an external monitor most of the time unless I'm traveling).

MY QUESTION would be, do you think Compaq replaced my board with a 'new version' that is stronger than the ones originally used?

@rpeters, newer revisions often have improvements. I have 2 boards here, same part number, different video chips (440 versus 420), the one with a later date code has extra capacitors just in front of the second fan connector. If they were smart, they resoldered the new board's jack before fitting it.

Selliot, forgot the little modem cable inside?

Ok, you're probably right...maybe it just didn't snap in all the way. There was ONE that attached to a mini-board, and it was always difficult getting it reconnected, because there were things in the way which made it hard to work it in there, and I bet that is it. I'll give it another try.

I haven't used my laptop modem in over a year. Do you know whether or not it worked before you started the project? Maybe you are just now uncovering an issue that was sleeping there all along.

Jeff

Checked it out and took a real close look at the connector that connects to the modem, and the wires were broke. I guess they broke while unplugging and plugging it in. I couldn't remove it from the keyboard side because the cheap, crappy screws strip too easy and wouldn't come out.

Probably a date code on that harddisk, he did not gave back the old disk??? A tech could see if a new adapter was placed, old one has most likely Foxcon written on it, where batches of these boards were assembled (partly, rest at Hannstar) and he could see how it is soldered, but that needs taking the board apart again.

If he even replaced the drive at all. Booting from a dos cd or usb stick, and typing fdisk/mbr <enter> indeed fixes shutdown drive corruptions most of the time.

LYNN1219, check the harddrive for a date code. If it is about 2 months older then your purchase of the laptop, it is the old one most likely. Ask for the old drive, try to get it back.
What is the state of the laptop now, charging battery and working after for an hour, then shuts off till you charge it again, etcetera? Is the computer working from the power adapter when the battery is removed from the laptop? Do you have a Pentium 4 processor, these boards need the dc-connector to be soldered on both sides of the board, the positive pin that is. I bet he missed that, shouldn't matter if you have an amd processor.

Hi,

The PC is running on battery power only. I even have to play with the power cord to get it to charge. Occasionally, for about 10 minutes, it will run on AC power, but that's it. I tried taking the battery out and running it, but no way. I just have to shut it down as soon as the "low battery" warning comes on and wait a couple hours for it to charge.

If he soldered it, he may have pushed the positive pin not far enough through the hole in the board to get a firm solderpoint, and it broke off again. Could be the pin is too short because he used the old broken one, outcome is the same. There might be an issue with dying capacitors on the board, leading to a too low amperage to charge the battery proper, or run the machine straight from AC. Some fiddling with the jack turns the power on/off for a couple of times, just may lead to a temporary success. (Hence the 10 minute success)
From a topic about erratic charging:

""Further Update - Fault repaired! After lengthy and tedious investigations the erratic behaviour of the battery charging/failure to run from the DC jack has been nailed. My motherboard uses MAXIM/DALLAS integrated circuits for power management and I gleaned a lot of useful info from application sheets provided on the web. Whilst the problem initially seemed to be related to the DC jack itself i.e. plugging the charger in and out would sometimes initiate charging, sometimes not the actual fault(s?) were traced to defective decoupling capacitors on the motherboard. There were at least 5 or 6 of them marked as NE* AA8 - they are 100mfd NEOCAPACITORS - conductive polymer tantalum capacitors - three had developed very high electrical leakage rendering the power control circuits unstable and eventually inoperative. The asterisk in the part mark is the production date code, in my case they were 's'. Changing these capacitors is NOT a job for the dabbler - you need to be VERY good at soldering and these parts are easily damaged by excessive heat. ""

There are actually 7 of these capacitors on the board. They cost next to nothing (20 cents a piece), but soldering them is difficult, because of 1mm large adjacent resistors, that just float away when getting to hot. A neighbour with better eyes and soldering skills/tools than I have did the job for me, to no avail, that's when I found one resistor sitting on top of a nearby solder point of a replaced capacitor.

So I bought a board off ebay for $240 incl. shipping, it showed no video, returned it, and now it is lost (I think) for 2 weeks in the us mail system. Seller did not seem to keen on giving any service but would investigate (why do these sellers always present themselves as plural when it comes to some conflict, "we have pulled it from a working system", "we will carefully investigate", to look more impressive in knowledge because we are 2 at least, or a company?)
In short, payed about $300 (board, taxes, postage back) and still empty handed, you are not alone in your struggle!

Do you know where I can order a new wire that connects the two modem plugins?

If I had realized I could plug the wire in/out from under the keyboard it would have been much easier...and probably easier on the wire. Instead I was doing it when I had the laptop flipped over and removing the motherboard. There's a little black square object that makes it hard to get a good angle to get the plug back in...so all the bending broke the wires. So anyone doing this disassembly, be sure to try disconnecting the modem wire at both locations from the keyboard side, after you have the keyboard out and top panel off.

Ok thanks, I'll check out radio shack to see if I can find the end there. I just assumed I could get a new wire for a few dollars...but doesn't sound that way. lol.

Make a report on paper and keep it short like a telegram:

First signs of errors that came up, what helped at the moment to keep your laptop working. Things you replaced to get rid of the error(s), the effect of them.

Repair attempt by repair guy:
mention what he said that needed to be done, and what he claimed he had done to the laptop at the moment you picked it up.
Take your invoice from the repair along, the repairman's address/telephone (tech might want to contact him to clear things).

Describe how the laptop acts after the repair attempt. Mention any difference between for and after the "repair".

Last, write down what you remember from the last contacts with the repairman. What he claims to have done, replaced, etc.

When you go to the technician, ask if he can verify the repairs and the replacements. Maybe he can intermediate in getting that old hard drive back too. Tell him what you learned from the forum, that the dc-in connector is a known weak spot on the R3000 - ZV/ZX5000 series, loose or even broken connectors, that needs to be soldered back or replaced. Mention (if you have a P4) you were told here that it is essential to solder the positive pin of the connector on both sides of the board for Pentium 4 processor based systems.

I spent long hours on HP chat and finally got them to ship/repair/return for free. In the course of that chat I pointed them towards this forum, mentioned that many people have been having this issue, and asked if there was a recall on it. They admitted that it was a "known issue", but said that there was no recall on it. When I asked how a recall could be set up, they said it would not, because not all the computers had this problem. When I asked if there were any known pattterns about the manufacture of those that did have the problem, the person finally elevated it, and I was supposed to hear from the supervisor. Instead of that, though, I got an email and a shipping box in the mail.

I won't bore you with my further misadventures as I tried to back up my computer, but suffice it to say I finally got that done and the computer is supposed to be back by 1/31, hopefully repaired.

If anyone wnats to see my transcript so they know what tack to take with the HP reps, let me know. It is really outrageous that everbody has to become a gearhead to resolve an issue that is obviously a manufacturer's defect.

Take your harddrive out, never send it along.