Dell 1150 Laptop wont start up?

[mrquazy]

My 1150 Dell laptop will not start up. The DC powerjack on the motherboard broke off on it. It was a clean break and the laptop still worked perfectly but I could obviously not charge it. I used it for a few hours until the battery got weak. I very carefully disasembled it and took the motherboard into my local computer shop to have them solder the DC powerjack back on the motherboard. This computer shop soldered it back on perfectly and it looked very professional. I put this laptop back together EXACTLY the way it was took apart very carefully...

Now when I plug it in to be charged, the front lights on the laptop blink 3 times and then stop blinking. There is no sounds, nothing is powering up or working either.. It will NOT charge, powerup, or come on at all. Is there something that you have to do to "reset" it after you put it back together or something? It should atleast come back on again even if they did not solder it good enough with the power of the battery? Anyone have any advice? I am to the point where I am just going to buy another motherboard, but they are just about as expensive as buying a new laptop! And would it be possible to buy another 1150 laptop, and put my hard drive in it? Any advice or input would be great.... Thanks in advance. :sad:

[harvester3]

Hi,
I've worked on several of these lappys with the same problem. From what you describe, it sounds as if one of the following happened:
1. The board is grounded to the case; hard to track down unless you can power up outside the case
2. power socket was installed improperly. Easy to do.also,
3. when the socket broke off, or during install of the new socket, one or more tracking on the board itself was cut.
Then the power board itself may be bad.
BUT, first, just for giggles, reseat the memory, or if possible, try different memory. That would be my first attempt.
If you do need a new board, ebay has plenty for WAY less than buying from the manufacturer, and most will offer warranty of some kind.
Good luck, sorry I couldn't be more help.
Harvester3

[mrquazy]

Thanks alot for the info.. Sounds like you definitely know what you are talking about. I guess I will try to put a good charged battery in it to see if it will come on as the battery in it might be too dead?

And you mean, it might be grounded out on the actual cover/case/housing of the whole laptop? I thought it was plastic? Maybe I can try to get it to come on without the housing on it? Ill definitely see what I can do. I do appreciate it alot. ;)

[harvester3]

Before you go to the trouble of taking it apart again, give reseating the memory a try. I know it sounds weird, but more than once it's been the fix.
Definitely try a charged battery if possible. If it fires up with a good battery, we have really narrowed it down!

[Kegtapper]

My 1150 Dell laptop will not start up. The DC powerjack on the motherboard broke off on it. It was a clean break and the laptop still worked perfectly but I could obviously not charge it. I used it for a few hours until the battery got weak. I very carefully disasembled it and took the motherboard into my local computer shop to have them solder the DC powerjack back on the motherboard. This computer shop soldered it back on perfectly and it looked very professional. I put this laptop back together EXACTLY the way it was took apart very carefully...

Sometimes the soldering is not as good as you thought. And the solder shorts out a capacitors path. These caps block DC. When shorted, tells the power circuit problem exists. I had similar incident with a DELL 1100 (same series) the lights on front would flash 3 or 5 times then stop. This image is from the 5 sided DC powerjack. The RED out
side points are NEGATIVE to Mobo, as well supposedly support the jacks frame.

NEVER use superglue on phenolic boards anchor DC Jacks.

[IMG]http://freehost11.websamba.com/kegtapper/images/PowerJacksm.jpg[/IMG]

[jams123]

My 1150 Dell laptop will not start up. The DC powerjack on the motherboard broke off on it. It was a clean break and the laptop still worked perfectly but I could obviously not charge it. I used it for a few hours until the battery got weak. I very carefully disasembled it and took the motherboard into my local computer shop to have them solder the DC powerjack back on the motherboard. This computer shop soldered it back on perfectly and it looked very professional. I put this laptop back together EXACTLY the way it was took apart very carefully...

Now when I plug it in to be charged, the front lights on the laptop blink 3 times and then stop blinking. There is no sounds, nothing is powering up or working either.. It will NOT charge, powerup, or come on at all. Is there something that you have to do to "reset" it after you put it back together or something? It should atleast come back on again even if they did not solder it good enough with the power of the battery? Anyone have any advice? I am to the point where I am just going to buy another motherboard, but they are just about as expensive as buying a new laptop! And would it be possible to buy another 1150 laptop, and put my hard drive in it? Any advice or input would be great.... Thanks in advance. :sad:

12

[jams123]

hi i have a dell 1150 , my laptop was doing the same thing , I tried to fine a place that would fix this with out replacing the board , I was inform to buy a new latop , I had pull the laptop apart and found one problem , with power plugin and board pointing up , theres a small silver and black cap , thats called a transformer that had a burn spot and was loose , i removed the cap and clean the board and resoldered and reinstalled board , the charging sysytem is now working and no problems , pull the board from the case , this part is right next to power plugin , on the front side of the board and to the left ,

[Kegtapper]

Why buy a whole board, you may be getting other problems. Especially from eBay. The repair on a DC jack is anywhere from $49 to $75. (shipping is usually $8.92 prioritymail in the US). The jacks themselves are about $5.00.

Locate the jack, find a Tech tell him you'll pay $50 to put that in. See what he says.

Assuming you are in the USA.

[cguan_77]

hi mrqazy,

if the dc jack connector just broke off and you said that tech did it professionally to solder, but if the solder just look nicely, it doesn't mean it's a good solder, sometimes it's a poor solder..when the connector broke from your laptop was it completely remove from your motherboard? because i'm afraid that the pad holding your connector to the motherboard was lifted then if it's that the case it would be very hard, you need to change the motherboard or maybe try to solder it back and check also if there is no short ciruit around the dc connector...

[Kegtapper]

If the jack is broken (more than 1 part) it will have to be replaced.
http://www.mayosoftware.us/repairs/Compaq/Power%20Plug.jpg

But either way I have found it time saving and cost effective to just replace the jack. Why?
If the jack has oxidation inside between contacts, that initally caused the user to wiggle the DC Jack. Then eventually the solder cracked or broke. This caused a poor conntection and the charging circuit also failed. So it is an escalated problem.

Time saved if you have to replace on a 50/50 chance. And $5.00 jack vs having to redo.... it's not rocket science.

Anyway - I replace them.