I have a Compaq Presario R3000 laptop. And for the past several months, the power jack has been intermittent. The recharge light would go out and it’d run on battery, even though the power was plugged in. At first, just pulling it out and replugging it would fix it. Then several minutes later, the light would go out again. Over time, it got worse and worse. Then after several weeks, the light would go out immediately after plugging it in.
After searching, I found out that this is a common problem with Compaq/HP laptops. I discovered this thread, Compaq Presario R3000 power cord issue, that was exactly my problem. Basically the problem is a bad connection on the power jack on the motherboard and needs to be resoldered. The thread contained a link to the disassembly manual. So, I tried to first fix the power jack. It took me an hour to disassemble it. There was a ton of dust on the heat sink and cleaned that out.
Here is what power jack connections looked like:
Here it is after I redid the solder joints:
After another hour, I had it back together and had 4 small screws left over. And unfortunately, it still had the same problem.
Another solution in the thread was to buy a XC1000 cable and plug it into the universal port on the right side of the laptop. However, since they don’t make it anymore and that there is a high demand for this, it is hard to get. And if you can find it, it’s ridiculously expensive. I found one on ebay for $168.
Near the end of the thread, there is another solution. To just make an adapter to connect to the power pins on the universal port. So, I tried that.
I went to Radio Shack to buy the parts and they had a female DC power jack size N (part # 274-1475). I went to Fry’s to buy a 8 pin .100 KK Header Tin Contacts (WMLX-110).
I pulled out pins 2 and 7, stuck it into the port and used jumper cables to connect the positive on the far right and negative on the far left. And it worked!
So, I then soldered wire on it and wrapped it in electrical tape. Here’s the final product:
And here it is with the recharge light on.
Yay! Didn’t have to spend a ton of money and got the laptop working for less than $10.
Update on 8/9/2010:
I discovered another solution to this problem. One person has made a custom adapter that is reasonable priced. I tried one out and it works. And it’s a more robust solution than the one above.
You can order it from TLC 3 Cables.
Update on 11/4/2013:
TLC 3 Cables is no longer available. I’ve tried to contact the owner of it and have not been able to reach him. Unfortunately, there is no other source that I know of that makes a power adapter solution.