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PSA: I spent 3 years pulling laptop batteries before checking the charge port with a flashlight
Last Tuesday a guy brought in a Dell that would not power on at all, and I did my usual thing of ripping the bottom cover off before he stopped me and asked if I had looked inside the barrel jack. I grabbed a flashlight, looked in the port, and there was a bent pin mashed flat against the side, probably from somebody tripping over the cord. I swapped the jack for $12 in parts and 20 minutes of bench time, and it booted right up while I sat there feeling like a rookie. Now I keep a cheap USB borescope on the bench and check every port before I touch a single screw. How many of you check the jack first, or did you learn it the hard way like I did?
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the_henry20d ago
Man, this brings back memories of my old man's shop. He kept a little plastic box of flashlight bulbs next to a beat up Eveready and would test every single jack with a bent paperclip before he even grabbed a screwdriver. I thought it was the dumbest habit ever until I watched him fix a Toshiba in like five minutes that I had already quoted a full teardown on. Turns out he'd been doing it that way since the 90s because of some Gateway laptop that ate three motherboards in a row over a jack that was shorting. Some of those old guys really did know a thing or two. Glad you got the borescope now, that bent pin stuff is sneaky.
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