Compaq Presario R3000 power cord issue - Page 8

Update :

Have got datasheet of the neocapacitor and located 3 of them on the motherboard so the questions now are : wich capacitor(s) have i to replace, where to find them for selling and can i use a standard non smd capacitors (100mf) just for cheking.
Thanks again.

All! No kidding, hard to tell which one, and even if changing them will help. Did you mean by "dim light on the charger" the light on the power brick, which should shine bright always, when on? Are you shure about the output of the charger itself?

Looks like a Schottky diode after a google. Don't know where to get one, maybe there's one on some old r3000 board I have laying around. Is it for an amd board?

Is there a number on the board adjacent to the part? I have 2 old boards (video problems) and could pry them off and send them to you, but find it a bit hard to locate the ones you mean, hardly any imprint on them. If interested, pm me your address.

Thanks for your reply. I guess its time to buy another computer and ditch this one in the nearest trash can.

hi all

this is my first post in this forum so if i miss something or have not read something in other post my apologies.

i have been having a compaq r3000 ( r3265 maybe ) for some 4 years now. last year it started switching to battery while on ac and eventually turning off unexpectadly bcs the battery holds more or less 5 minutes.

bcsw i needed a relyable laptop i already bought one but i'm looking/trying to repair my old compaq . before giving in to spending for the new i had already tried opening it up but given my inexperience propably it did more harm than good.

as now, when connect it to ac it switches on but showes a blank screen ie black and the hard disk indicater showes no sign doesnt blink or etc. i do have a spare hard disk compatible but i'm not sure how to fit the plastic socket in front of it page 116 manual posted http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00212209.pdf
in early posts in this thread and i don't know what this sockets serve for if not the obvious part of completing the circuit.

if anyone could and is willing to help me out with restoring my old laptop operational would be most apreaciated. thank to all in advance

Have you secured the cpu by a screw on the socket (intel) or by a lever (amd)?

It appears i hadn't ? funny bcs i took the laptop to two "tecnicians" and all they said was that mootherboard was bad.

now it's up and running, bought a new hard disk ( 160giga) bcs i was using the old one as external, installed suse linux and it goes just fine for now.

thank you so much Que for taking the time and helping .

No need to clean it, heat it up and put the pins through the board, if the solder blocks the holes. Not for minutes, it might run between the boards layers.

Yes, that's how it is done. What I meant is, when you heat it up too much too long, the layers of the board and the isolation layer between it, might burn = turn into some kind of black goo, which expands and breaks circuits or causes shortcuts because the solder gets caught between the layers. About those layers, the mainboard looks like a single plate of plastic with electronics on it, but in consists of 4 layers (some even 6) of those plates pressed to one, with circuitry running all over and between the layers, hidden from the eye. Hope it is a bit clear, english is not my best foreign language.

When your solder is flowing in a smooth way, leaving a shiny blob, and not a dull sort of silver clay. Hold your jack steady, so it does not move for a 10 seconds, giving the solder time to harden. Try not to exceed holding that irontip for more than 4-5 seconds max on a solder spot.

You hold your soldering iron tip on the old solder for 4-5 secs., till it melts and flows and settles, then remove the tip and do not move the soldered parts for 10 seconds, to let it harden. If you move it before, the soft solder will break very easy, still making contact, but easy to break such a joint.
To add extra solder, heat up the spot to be soldered for 4-5 seconds, at about 4 seconds add the new solder, once flowed move away the soldering tip.
About the 4-5 seconds, can differ, depends on how your soldering is flowing.

Can you please explain to me the order of doing things?

----Follow the video's to take it apart and rebuilt it:
http://www.r3000forums.com/viewtop [...] =53&t=9683

I haven't pulled the laptop apart yet so what is the order of things once I get access to the motherboard?
Do I remove the old jack first or the old solder?

---You need to heat up the old solder joints to remove the old jack, if done, put the new jack in it's position.
---You probably have to heat up the solder around the holes in the board again to get the contacts of the new jack through the board, there's no need to completely remove the old solder.
---Tthe old solder might block the holes, if you heat up the old solder and put a pressure on the new jack towards the board, you'll see the pin get through the board once the solder is molten and doesn't block the holes any more.
---Once the pins are through, you can add solder if necessary to give a firm contact.
To add solder, heat up the contact till you see the (old) solder melt, then add new solder to the pin or molten solder, don't put it on the soldering tip.

So you say to melt the old solder which is still stuck on the board for about 5 seconds. How do I take the old solder off then once it melts? Will it come off with the tip of the soldering pen?

----No need to take it off, if it sticks to your iron, tick it off against a hard surface

You say not to move the soldered parts. Are you referring to the new jack which is going to be soldered on?

---Yes, keep it complete still to let the molten solder harden, 10 seconds max.

If you are afraid to kill your board, then let someone at a tv repair shop do it, maybe some skilled family member or neighbour?

Hey my laptop battery will not charge, its been this way for a while now and i have been using the docking station to keep my laptop working because if i take it off the docking station the laptop last for only about 5 minutes. Is the docking station supposed to charge the laptop? the power cord of my laptop broke as well, it doesnt work or charge the computer because of some pin thats broken or something but should i buy a new battery?

I have been having this problem (among others) and have scanned the entire thread to find the answer to my problem. I've re soldered the power supply's 4 pins and that didn't seem to fix the problem with me not being able to charge or work off of AC power. Working off the battery (while it was charged) is fine. I wrapped paper around the ac adapter's tip and that seemed to solve the problem. However, I took the AC power out and now cannot replicate my success with the paper trick.

I currently have a new DC power jack on order and am going to get that soldered onto the board to replace the original one. Do you guys think that will solve my problem? or does the paper trick suggest that my adapter may be the problem?

Ok I think I may have a slightly different problem but it appears to be along the same lines as other post in this thread.

I have a Compaq R3000Z CTO (DP533AV). It seems to kill batteries about every year. My current runtime is only about 40 minutes to an hour out of a 6000 mah battery. So I think it may be the battery but I want to hear what you guys think. BTW this problem just started.

If my battery is below approximately 60% charge and I plug the charger (Kensington 120W universal N3 tip) in it charges for about 2 seconds and then switches back to the battery. In order to charge the battery I have to turn the laptop off and let it charge. If I take the battery out the Laptop runs fine on the A/C alone. Also if the battery is above about 60% I can plug the charger in and continue to use the Laptop and charge the battery. What gives? Is this a battery problem or Laptop Problem?

I also tried to reset the battery life per Compaq's instructions by leaving the Laptop on in the BIOS screen and letting the battery run down. This only took 2 hours. I then recharged it with laptop off and it only recharged to 5% and quit charging. I unplugged the charger and plugged it back in with the OS up and it charged back to 100% and ran for about an hour and 40 mintues.

I am totally baffled here.

Hellboy,

Call me stupid here but Kensington says this is an exact replacement to what I had. Also prior to switching to the Kensington PS the OEM one would get insanely hot when running the latop on A/C along. If it was charging the battery it would be too hot to pickup. Which is why I switch to the slimline replacement which doesn't heatup.

Do you think my laptop is toast already?

Why do you believe the Kensigntion PS fry laptops?

Thanks for the info...

I finally got around to taking it apart and resoldering the connections. They were in fact cold soldered, but it wasn't the problem. I believe it may actually be in the cord itself. Near the plug, some of the insulation is coming off, and around that area the cord is severely bent in many places. Is there a way to test the plug to make sure?
EDIT: I just tested the output voltage and it's perfectly fine. something else is the problem. could it be that I improperly resoldered it?
disregard that. there was a fourth connection to resolder, which I overlooked. It's working perfectly now.

I am finding it difficult to believe that I have to take the whole thing apart. Is it possible to solder just the tops of the pins after taking off the top plate above the keyboard?

Are you using a new jack?

I have a version of the power cord issue that is not addressed here.

1) initially I had the same problem of the computer switching to battery power even though the power cable was plugged in. I would unplug it, replug it, wiggle it and get it to work, and eventually that stopped.

2) so I soldered a new dc jack to the EXPANSION port to bypass the back input. And for 36 hours it worked perfectly!

3) but now, the NEW connection does the same thing! Whether I plug into the back of the machine OR the new input via the media/expansion port, the charge lasts only 1 second before switching to battery. This is not a wiggling issue. (fyi, the lighting bolt on the front of the machine lights up, despite some reports that it would not light when on A/C with this mod).

4) BUT, when the computer is on hibernate or off, the computer battery WILL charge. It's only once windows is up and running that it loses the ability to charge up. Does this make sense to anyone?

I don't understand how my fix worked for two days and then suddenly stopped working.

Any ideas?

Oh, and for what it's worth, the laptop works fine when I remove the battery (it's a new battery).

Thanks!

Amazing - we are having the same issue. Sounds like a brand to avoid in the future.

My son and I have just used the snowy Sunday afternoon to resolve our power issue. We have followed the instructions we have read in this forum.
Indeed, you need to make free a couple of hours and organize the repair job, but it is not difficult to do. If you have doubts about your own capability, you could at least, take a picture of every operational step. We found it important to have about 6 little cups for the little screws, which you free at every operational step. Pay attention to loosen the various connectors. Some are tiny and vulnerable. We could not see if the pin (1) of the plug contact was loose, we just have made a “re-solder” and with success.
Also be aware of the tooling you need, as described earlier in this forum. Not many tools, but the right screw drivers though. And yes, the solder iron should not be too hot; we have used one of 25 watt with the appropriate solder.
I would advise Patrat to look for a smart E-guy to assist him, instead of searching for a repair shop.

I have just bought a second-hand R3000 off UK eBay for my Grandson's Christmas present!!

It was sold as "requires new battery" but I have found that SOMETIMES the battery behaves OK and shows as being 100% (this is, of course, without the power cord being connected). But MOST of the time the R3000 will only operate with the power cord plugged in and if I remove the cord I get the message that the battery is critically low and that I should replace the power cord immediately.

This situation indicates to me that the battery must be OK but there is probably an intermittent fault caused be a poor connection or 'dry' solder joint.

Can anyone here advice me what is the likely cause and remedy and I think it must be something to do with the problem being discussed on this forum.

Any help would be greatly appreciated - Dave UK

Thanks Que - But I have run the R3000 on the battery alone for more than an hour and it still shows a good charge! On another occasion I get the message immediately that the battery is critically low.

Is there any way I can test the battery with a meter as I don't want to incurr the expense of buying another battery unless it is absolutely necessary.

I finally decided to pull my R3000 out of the closet and try to fix it -- Had problems with it charging right after i bought it.. got frustrated and tossed it in the closet

Now i need a laptop for some software in my car.. so time to fix it

I replaced the connector on the laptop, but that didn't solve the problem...

I'm thinking about just attaching the cable directly to the mobo and calling it a day or something along those lines

Anywho, which pin is the positive, and which 3 are the negative ones?

I assume the center one is the positive... and the others are negative