Compaq Presario R3000 power cord issue - Page 5

What is your problem, not charging?
Charging while holding the input jack at a certain position?
Working off battery?
Not working at all off the adapter (battery removed from laptop), any lights lit on the laptop when trying to?

Guys:

I have been facing the same problem with the power cord and bad connection to the power jack. I contacted HP and they say that it is not a manufacturing defect. Following is a copy of the email that I received from HP. I have a Compaq Presario R3000z series bought in Sep 2004.

Thanks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Akshay,

Thank you for contacting HP Total Care.

From your mail, I understand that you are experiencing the issue with
the DC jack of the Notebook.

Let me assist you in this regard.

Although this service is provided as a means of technical support for
our customers, we appreciate any feedback about our company's products
and services.

And I would like to inform you that we have not come accross the one
perticular issue occuring with one perticular series or couple of
series. And i assure you that the issue is not from the HP manufacturing
side.

In order to resolve the issue you may have to resolder the power jack or
replace the jack with a new one.

I will help you with the available options to fix the issue.

Option 1:

To fix the power jack, please visit the Web site given below.

http://www.compaqrepair.com/guide/ [...] _jacks.htm

Option 2:

I am providing the Web site to purchase the power jack for the notebook
model. After purchasing the power jack for the notebook, you can take
the notebook to nearest service centre to resolder the power jack on the
motherboard.

http://www.laptopjacks.com/service.php

or

http://www.aacomputerelec.com/categories.asp?ca

This should resolve the issue. If you need further assistance, please
reply to this message and we will be happy to assist you further.


Sincerely,

Peter
HP Total Care

I totally agree Que. I think Peter is a liar too, but he has to, he cannot admit his company's mistake...it cost him his job. Also, if he admits, they will be bound to replace the power jack in thousands of laptops...which will cost the company a helluva lot of $$.

Riick it can be anything between a failing cpu or memory and leaking capacitors or failing power regulator switches.
Try an external monitor on the vga port, any picture?
Is your battery still charging? (see the charging led)
If you have a voltage meter, measure the most left and most right copper connectors of the docking port, if the voltage the adapter puts into the laptop can be measured there, the dc-in jack is not the problem. In case of multiple memory sticks, remove one, test per stick per slot, switch slots. Check your processor for blue (burning) marks, this requires removing the heatsink, and re-applying of thermal paste on the processor die before putting it back together.

Riick, always take the battery out and the adapter off when working on internals like memory/cpu. Hold the memory modules on the sides only.
If you are going to change the memory module under the keyboard, also reseat the connector that connects the screen to the board, no contact there can halt posting too. Remove the harddisk and dvd drive too, to exclude them from being faulty and stopping the start up.
I'm afraid it is a mainboard component though, capacitors leaking maybe. Keep pushing that startup button right after the computer turns off, does it stay on longer after some attempts? (Mine did, but only for about 8 sec. max)

Que- I finally got some thermal compound and was able to do the other tests you had suggested. I removed the memory from the primary slot and turned on the computer; still dies after 5.5 seconds. I swapped out memory cards so that the other card was in the secondary slot and nothing in the primary, still dies after 5.5 seconds. I didn't see any obvious blue burn marks on my processor. (However, if this is a very subtle effect I could have missed it; is it subtle?) I did however notice that the factory really globbed-on the thermal compound; enough so that it had spilled over and appeared to be touching two contacts of one of the adjacent components. Ask me for more details if this is relevant. I also tried re-melting the four solder points where the power-cord jack connects to the motherboard, just in case. My soldering skills aren't great, but they're good enough to make an electrical connection. The solder points looked great before I re-melted them; perhaps a bit heavy on the solder, though. They look OK now that I've re-melted them. It still dies after 5.5 seconds.

There is a pattern that happens when I push the power button repeatedly, but it's not quite like yours was, and it is very predictable. The first time I push the power button it stays on for 5.5 seconds. Then after it turns off, if I push the power button a second time it stays on for slightly shorter- about 4.5 or 5 seconds. Then after it turns off, if I push the power button a third time it stays on for about 5 seconds and then starts blinking as if it has gone into sleep mode. It continues to blink until I lean on the power button for 5 seconds, at which point it turns off. If I push the power button thereafter, it again stays on for about 5 seconds and then goes into the blinking mode until I lean on the power button again for 5 seconds. The pattern will reset if I unplug the computer and then plug it back in a few seconds later. This pattern (5.5 seconds, 4.5 seconds, blinking mode, blinking mode, blinking mode...) is highly reproducible. I have never seen it vary from this sequence.

I can force it to go into this blinking mode if I push the power button and then push it again more than 1 second later (but before it turns off). However, this does not cause any alteration in the pattern I mentioned previously. In other words, it can do (forced blinking mode, 4.5 seconds, blinking mode, blinking mode, blinking mode...) or (5.5 seconds, forced blinking mode, blinking mode, blinking mode, blinking mode...) or (forced blinking mode, forced blinking mode, blinking mode, blinking mode, blinking mode...). In all cases the pattern demonstates a rather bizarre ability to count to three. But will this mean anything to you or to anyone else as far as what might be wrong? I doubt it... but I'm still hopeful.

this thread and the link to the compag assembly instructions are great. I had the problem and so far its fixed with a hot solder job.
Re-assembled and still have two screws left; it works again.
Removed some dust bunnies on the heat sinks, and now both fans start at power up but only one continues to run. Hopefully its the bunnies fault.

Maybe I need to get another dob of heat sink goop? and re-apply to the processor.
When I took the heat sink off originally, the cpu came with it. Plus I didn't undo the cpu screw release. (used it on installation)
I'm amazed it works despite all that.

Trevoz, you did apply some thermal paste, did you? A paperthin layer is enough. The second fan turns on too when booting, then turns off, and should start again if cpu temp goes over 55°C.

Riick, if you have a extracting program installed to zip or unzip packed files, use that to extract the exe file. Something like winrar or winzip, free programs. Unlikely that the bios file went corrupt, but possible.
Anyway, there is no use in trying, even with an usb drive, (don't know if it would take the usb stick/flash drive you mentioned) because flashing the bios would take much longer than the few seconds the laptop will run. It wouldn't do here too, but at least I did not see the usb drive lit up, so the bios recovery was not kicking in, and likely the bios was not currupt.
The only thing I noticed during the seconds the laptop ran with the Fn + b-key combo, is that the fans were blazing like hell, never heard a laptop make that much noise
Measure the voltage from the bios battery, if it is dead or way below 3 volts, this may be your problem.
I hope your cpu turns out dead in a test. Better that than the motherboard. :?

I've disassembled a Compaq Presario 1400 laptop, and re-soldered the DC jack on the motherboard. After re-assembling it, and plugging in the power cord, I get the green "power connected" light on the indicator panel (below the touchpad), but nothing happens when I try to hit the power-on switch!
The machine simply does not respond!

Since I get the light, it seems the jack is connected, so why can't I boot the machine? I've tried replacing the 3V BIOS battery with a fresh one -- still nothing...

Hope someone can help! Maybe some other components on the m.board are fried, in case the whole machine is junk, I guess...

- Joakim

I'm not sure how to perform such hardware checks... Also, this was a favor for a friend - see if I could revive his old laptop. After all the work of soldering the jack, and it still doesn't work, I don't think I'll bother doing more. Unless you think it's strange how I have power, but am unable to boot? Am I very near a solution, or can it still be a world of fried components?

Yes, I didn't bother wearing the wrist band Is it really that likely that static discharge can zap components? I did try to touch "earthed" points on the board (like heat sinks, etc) before touching anything else (does that make sense?). I guess there's no quick and easy way to check this, or is there? How much harm is it likely that my friend has done to the motherboard just by using the laptop with a loose, "wiggly" DC jack -- until it finally caved in? What's the most likely culprit?

The thing is, I'd love to help him out/impress him by fixing his laptop, plus also there's the environmental benefit of not wasting useful stuff. Still, being a novice means frustrating obstacles abound... Thanks for replying!

I found that if you keep the cord pulled foward or towards you the power cord stays connected it is a cheaper method rather than opening up your computer and resodering the plug on the motherboard.

Same problem - but I had a 2 year warranty, and was too lazy to get it repaired before it ran out (and got bad). grrrr

<< Before my story, I have a question/fix for someone who has the docking system some have mentioned. Could someone find out which terminals are the power ones? It seems like it would be simple to cut the end off the charger plug and glue them into an R-??? connector. And you'd have no mystery screws when finished. Anyone?>>

I used it in the car a lot with a 'street' program, and that couldn't have helped the connector. But it is a crappy design anyway, with little support around the plug.
I always thought it was the female connector, and that I'd eventually solder some wires to another connector. It didn't have to be pretty!. But after the last 3 months of serious cramming and futzing, the connector and the connection got worse.
I finally started to realize the problem was on the motherboard side - the one you can't easily get to. I found this site and was saved.
I foolishly called (India) and got the run around from an HP supervisor, then called corporate and just gave nonsense answers to the machine until I got a real person. Didn't get much further, but he did call back with an offer of 50% off the repair. I would have thought it was a nice offer, if it wasn't for all the others with this known/unknown issue (it was like talking to Rumsfeld!), and it should have been fixed for free. I guess $200 would have been a good deal for a new motherboard tho? (and new? Rebuilt??)
I did try something first - I tried heating up the center post from the outside. I was concerned about heating something critical, but when I put the battery and plug back in, it worked fine. Just as I was thinking ... those suckers... the charge light went out.
It took 40 min to take it apart. There were still some cables connected, but I just needed to get into that corner, and it slid over enough diagonally.
It is now working, but the connector is still loose (externally). I may try to get another connector online and do it right.
I was tempted to trim away the plastic to gain access, as it gets covered back up, but didn't. But that is an option.
Add me to the list of no more cheap laptops - even tho this one cost me $1500 at CompUSA, plus $350 for the warranty. OK, I was out of town and needed a laptop. I couldn't get online to find one, and bit the bullet. The sales guy even (gasp!) lied to me about the memory. I told him I would use Photoshop on it, and he assured me 500M was OK and that I could always add more. 500 is aggrivatingly slow, but what he didn't mention was that a quarter of that was used by the graphics card.
Still, except for the memory I have yet to add to, and the charging problem, it has been OK for the 32 months I've had it. It mostly sits quietly in the house, but it has had some rough miles on the road and in flight - a third of its life. And I'm not sure any other maker would have done any better on such a problem.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed!!!!!

Hi, your bios battery should hold something like 3 volts. I don't think it is a bios virus, definitely hardware. About that rompaq file: it is indeed an exe file, not zipped, BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER, just unzip it (if you have something like winrar installed rightclick and: extract to....) into a folder, it will give you a wph file, a flashing program, etc. Your capacitors are small black rectangular "matchboxes", flatmounted, 7 pieces marked NE* AA8, they are 100mfd conductive polymer tantalum capacitors. The * is a letter for the production date. I don't think they hold fluid like the larger ones found on desktop motherboards, the ones you will find with a burst top and dried residue on them after failure.

Que-
The bios battery tests as 2.7 volts; do you suppose this is OK? By the way, thank you for your clarifications about the extractions. I had to extract the bios exe twice, because the first extraction merely produced a second exe. Extracting from this second exe did basically produce the files you mentioned (the only difference is that instead of "phlash.exe" it is called "winphlash.exe" ). Also, I had to do it with Winrar, because winzip was unable to perform the extraction, saying it was not a valid file to extract from. Thanks also for the interesting information regarding the capacitors.

Que-
Thanks once again for the continued suggestions! I wasn't able to get a new CMOS battery (although I did look). Mine is not intended to be replaced by the user; the contacts are welded to the battery and then soldered to the motherboard. The battery itself is a Maxell ML coin-type rechargeable battery. (I think the contacts are probably custom-welded by Maxell for each manufacturer's bulk order.) Hard to know exactly what model, because the welded contacts cover the model number. According to Maxell's website, "Maxell ML (lithium manganese dioxide rechareable [sic]) batteries are available only for equipment manufacturers as a built-in part. Therefore, Maxell does not supply these batteries for replacement directly to users of equipment with these batteries. When built-in ML batteries need to be replaced, please contact your equipment manufacturer." But I couldn't find these batteries in HP's parts website. If I were really stuck I suppose I could find some other rechargeable 3V button battery and solder contacts to it. But I'm guessing that the CMOS battery probably isn't the problem. I suspect that the reason it is low is that it hasn't had a chance to recharge in the month that my computer has been broken. If it were the CMOS battery, then it seems that in the days leading up to the problem, the time and date would have been incorrect and some of my settings would have been changing. I've also heard that a bad CMOS battery can't result in the system not POSTing at all, and that as long as the battery is above 2.5 volts it still has adequate power. Do you agree with all these things?

I was able to borrow an external floppy drive, and I tried the bios restore technique that you outlined earlier. However, as you had predicted for my situation, the computer shut down without even trying to read the floppy disk.

Oh oh, I can't find a battery on 3 boards that goes over 2.75 Volts! I guess it is the max, because one that was at a lower voltage (1.3) showed 2.75 after a couple of hours on a board. Never higher.

Did you have your memory checked? Seems like a short circuit or a dead memory stick? Have you tried with the board out, just the frame with cpu and memory, and the lcd attached (or a vga monitor)?
I bought several boards off ebay,
got a dead board that was returned but never arrived back due to a wrong return address ($300 lost),
got one Intel board where I bought an AMD, returned it, and got money back only after a paypal claim, leaving bad feedback, and getting the shop closed temporarily with other buyers.
One board that would run off battery, but caught fire right away.
Now I'm in the process of returning a board from France, that has a desoldered bios battery, a broken keyboard connector securing latch, and no video on lcd or vga. Be carefull, a lot of people selling junk.
A search on ebay for R3000, put highest prices first, shows some. But I'm not spending that much, there are also complete working R3000's for those prices.

For those that purchased the media cable, would any of you mind sending a picture of it? I'm curious to see how you connect it to the laptop.

Or if anyone knows of a newer model of the media cable that works, I would try that. The ones I find are near 100 bucks.

Thanks

It should come out easy, no force! Your soldering tool may need a cleaner tip, use some sandpaper. Don't think it will cost a lot if a repair shop does it for you. Shouldn't be much more than $25 if you show up with a bare board and a jack.

I have an R3000 laptop that will not run on battery power. The battery monitor shows full charge and the led for battery charging only stays on shortly when started up or turned off. But when the ac power is removed it dies within a few seconds. I have the media adapter and have tried powering up with it, but it makes no difference. I originally thought it was the battery and replaced it with a new unit from Ebay, but no luck. Any thoughts or advise would be greatly appreciated. Laptops that aren't mobile really suck.

Thanks in advance,

Stupidguy

yup, measure the contacts, and let us know what you get..

There should be a contact reading 14. Volts, to charge the battery. Odd that you can not run with the media cable on the docking port, but can with the normal dc-in, because they use the same circuitry.
--Do you measure 19 volts on your most left and right copper contacts of the docking port, when the power adapter is connected to the regular dc-in jack?
--Were you not able to run the laptop at all with the new battery?(guessing that it came holding some charge?)

Seems board-level components are failing, capacitors maybe, maybe more. To have it fixed by a technician (if they even want to try) costs so much, another board from ebay is your best option, I guess.

Same here, never a new HP or Compaq, but a secondhand one, oh well. You might get lucky by upgrading the powerbrick from a 120 to a 135 watt model, if applicable. I get over 19Volts from the adapter itself, and 19Volts at the docking port. The 18V from yours, is this from the adapter itself too, and within it's specifications?