How to restore a laptop with a damaged DC charging port?

Question

I have a Samsung NP-RC512 laptop where the the female side of the DC charger port has been damaged. It has been sitting in the closet for over a year now and it is in the condition shown in the picture below.

The original problem was that it could not hold the connector in place. So I ordered a new one and tried to repair it. This worked, until one of the kids got tangled up in the cord and pulled it off the table. It landed on the connector. I didn't wait for a new female connector to be delivered, so I just hard-wired the charger to the motherboard, as shown in the picture. It worked for a few days, until I heard a pop sound and smelled some smoke. But the board itself and everything on it looks fine (but I am not a professional so I would not really know).

So the question is, is there anything I can do to repair it? The board, itself looks like it has seen better days, and I am not sure how durable these things are, or whether or not it's still in a working condition.

Answer 1

I will try to sum up here what I posted in the comments. If you want to try repairing it, this is what I would suggest.

Open the back cover if it's not open already.

Inspect the board visually. You want to be looking for burn marks, signs of melting and corrosion. Basically, you want to be looking for any type of abnormalities. The more training you have, the easier it will be to spot them.

You did hear a popping sound and you smelt smoke coming out of it. So you can expect to find marks of burning or melting. But it may be hard to locate, especially if you don't have the proper equipment. To help you in this process, these are the tools you want.

Magnifying glass for repair work:

Having a magnifying glass is the bare minimum (second to having a good eye sight). There are smaller models available, but for any serious repair work you want the big lamp type of glass. It both illuminates your work area properly and magnifies it.

Inspection (digital) microscope:

You can watch this Leica microscope in action here. I took this one as an example because they are demonstrating inspection of a PC motherboard. You can clearly see the quality of the imaging, with sharp focus and wide aperture. These are the more expensive, professional quality inspection microscopes that cost about as much as a new laptop. But there are some cheap, so called USB microscopes that do pretty decent job. Unless you plan on starting a repair business you won't need anything better.

There are also analogue inspection microscopes too. But the nice thing about the digital ones is that you can work more freely, and your eyes don't hurt as much after a long session. You can also capture the images for documentation. You may also want to share the images on the web, as we do live in a world of sharing. Some people share images of funny cats doing funny cat things that only cats know how to do. Some people share images of their damaged (and sometimes fixed) circuit boards.

This is what you want to be looking for.

Burning:

Melting:

Corrosion:

If it looks alright, go to the next phase. If not, depending on the severity and nature of the abnormality, you might want to do electrical testing and replacing components before you go to the next phase. The damage may only be mild, in which case you can often still operate the computer if it passes function testing later on.

Once it has passed the visual inspection, it's time to order a new female DC connector for soldering, and a new power cable if you don't have a spare. I don't recommend soldering a new male DC connector on the power cable, even if it can be done. Don't forget to order a new battery for the BIOS. This is usually CR2032, but your computer might be using a different type. So check your manual.

Since you did not use the computer for 1 year, you can expect the BIOS battery to be drained. Even if it's not, I recommend replacing it. Also, depending on the storage environment, electronic boards may become corroded due to humidity, and so on. Also, any magnetic disks may become demagnetized. If you experience problems with the hard disk drive, you might want to replace it with a new one.

This is what a BIOS battery may look like:

BIOS batteries are commonly placed in a battery holder that's soldered to the surface of the board. But on laptop computers, it is common to find them attached to another type of battery holder, insulated and then connected to a small connector with two wires.

This is what a BIOS battery may look like on some laptops:

Yet another example:

Once you have soldered a new DC connector, it's time for the first POST (power on self test). If it powers up and the screen comes on, press the magic key to enter BIOS setup. Check your manual to see what that key is. Set your system settings properly and save the changes. See if it boots up Windows. If not, then your hard disk drive may be damaged (too many bad sectors and degraded medium), or is missing an operating system. If it's damaged, you want to order a new disk and reinstall Windows. If the operating system installation is damaged only, you may want to troubleshoot it and try to restore it to operational state, or reinstall it.

The female DC connector is actually the male, and the male is female. In other words, the male is the receptacle on the laptop, and female is the plug on the power cable.

• Laptop side is male
• Power cable side is female

It's good to know this when you go looking for spare parts. This is true with the conventional DC connectors at least. I know that some manufacturers like to use their own connector designs. But I don't think yours falls into that category.