My power cord only charges at a certain angle

Question

So my laptop's battery has been useless so I've made my laptop AC only. Recently, the cord will only give the laptop life if it is at a specific angle. If you were to draw a horizontal line, and from one end of the line draw another, the interior angle formed can only be like 15 degrees. How can I remedy it so that I can actually use the charger instead of having to delicately caress the charger at an exact angle each time? Targus APA32US with Q-type end connector.

Edit: I'd like to describe this cord first. It's not the one that came with the manufacturer. It's a 3rd party one. Model listed above. So there's the big box part which has a hole for the power cord. The powercord part is plugged into the big box which is normal on all chargers.

However, the part permanently attached to the big box which leads to the PC has an end that is unique. Normally it would be a long cord, with a plug at the end. However, my plug is detachable and has different bits to suit different pc charging ports.

Also the cord attaches to the PC in an L shape. i.e. the plug goes into the computer, but the plug itself has a right turn that makes the rest of the cord go perpendicular to the plug itself

for those things, when you plug them into the computer, you can play with it and spin the cord around in a circular motion. The problem is, only a certain sector of that circle is the right sweet spot to give the PC power.

Answer 1

Could be the cord itself is the problem. I've seen cords that only provide power when they're bent in the right position, probably from a break of the wires inside, but still stays touching enough sometimes. Especially if the laptop and the plug part of the wire plugged into the laptop stay completely still.

Could try testing the cord with a multimeter at the end that plugs into your laptop, and try moving/bending around the cord (slowly if your multimeter takes a second to read).

This good looking page shows how to test the cord & jack too, with nice images like this one showing the cord being tested:

If the voltage drops to zero in some cord positions, and it's definitely a good connection between the multimeter and the end plug, then it looks like a bad/broken cord.
Cutting off the "bad" part of the cord, and soldering it back together could work, don't mix up the +/- wires though.

If not the cord, it could be the jack on the laptop as the rest of the good looking page (& other answer) suggests; says if it's a solder-on jack then it's probably bad, and to just replace the solder-on jack, with the warning Disclaimer: I’ve made these instructions only for people experienced with soldering and repairing computers. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this job, please do not open the laptop or you can permanently damage your computer. Take your laptop to a professional repair shop instead. Use this repair guide at your own risk.

Or maybe some part of the computer board around the jack is bad, or other computer board part. On a related note, I'll bet that most repair shops would charge enough trying and repair your old laptop that it would only cost "a little more" to buy a new laptop; that seems to be a common motivation to buy a new laptop.

Answer 2

If there are no visible damages to the tip of your charger, then the problem most likely is a bad power jack in your laptop. The best thing to do would be to take the laptop to a repair shop and get the jack replaced, if you are able to. Please tell me the model of your laptop and I can provide you with a link to eBay to purchase the jack. Hope this helps!

Answer 3

So I had this problem to actually alot but from my experience get a new cord nothing works unless you go into super deep stuff and start taking the cord apart which for most people it will probably work but if you dont want to do that like me or its to hard or not enough money then just keep trying angles. but it will get harder and harder to find the right spot that charges through time though. im about to buy a new one right now. Tip try not to be rough with your cord it will only make it worse.

{also it might not be this case so go to your local best buy and go to the counter and ask for help and tell her/him to inspect your cord or tell him/her whats wrong with it. thats what I did and he told me to get a new cord.}