elimenohpee

I have a broken laptop laying in my bedroom floor calling for attention. I'm fairly certain the dc jack input is bad on it. Now the thing is, is there a way to hardwire the laptop to work in the car. I don't care about not being able to use it outside the car because it's never going to be used again (I have another laptop). Has anyone done anything like this before?

FusionFanatic

is the "DC jack" the only part that's broken?

if yes, then that's a pretty easy fix. you'll have to open up the laptop to access the motherboard. you'll have to de-solder the damaged jack and either replace it with another jack or solder wires directly to the board (pass the wires through the hole where the jack used to be then attach a connector)

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current carPC setup
previous carPC setup

elimenohpee

It's actually not even a solder job, it just plugs in. All the solder joints are fine on the mb too, I just cannot find a dc input ANYWHERE, so I just gave up on it after about a month of searching. If there was a way to hard wire it directly to a psu, then I'd be all for it. I don't /wouldn't mind hacking this thing up because it's not going to get any use anyways.

If you know of where to buy those parts, TELL ME!! I can't find a store anywhere, it's like everyone wants to keep it a secret or something!

walstib

You kind of lost me there... Your laptop has a power brick, right? And that plugs into the wall and into the laptop, right? If so...

You want something like this?
12 VDC -> Car PSU -> Laptop, right?
If you can see where the jack attaches to the mobo, you can use something like a Carnetix PSU and solder directly where the jack connected to the mobo.

The Carnetix allows you a little more voltage flexibility as some computers take 18 or 20 VDC instead of 12. You will have to check to see what your laptop needs.



Ummm. What parts? The jack inside the laptop? As long as male and female are matching and have the required number of pins, can carry the current you need, you can go to Radio Shack and get any kind you want.

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elimenohpee

Yes, thats exactly what I would want to do. I'll have to check the power draw on the laptop, but I don't think it would be TOO high, not high enough a carnetix couldn't power it. I'll have to do some searching to see if anyone else has done this before.




I've tried looking everywhere for that jack, and I cannot find the specific size that came with the laptop. Now I did buy a new jack that matched up on the pins perfectly, but didn't match the original input for the powersupply. I had another power supply laying around that fit it and it still wouldn't power up. But I'll try radio shack. For all I know it's only a bad power supply.

FusionFanatic

ok, in your first post you said "I'm fairly certain the dc jack input is bad on it.". then you said it's ok?

if there's nothing wrong with the input jack itself then just get a cheap auto adapter off eBay to power it up. they're available for most laptops.

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current carPC setup
previous carPC setup

elimenohpee

Well thats the thing, I'm not sure what exactly is wrong with it. But it's between 3 things:

1. bad motherboard (I doubt)
2. bad dc jack
3. bad power supply

I haven't had all the time in the world to sit down and work on it because of school, and I've been hesitant to throw anymore money into it because of not knowing for sure what the problem is. Thats why I was looking for a solution where I didn't have to know the problem lol.

Is there an easy way to decipher which of those 3 it could be? I don't have a dmm, but I'm looking to pick one up soon.

JimmyFitz

Start with a voltmeter reading on the power brick. That is the simplest and most likely

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2002 T-Bird, Via SP13000, Travla C158, M1-ATX, 1GB RAM, 120GB 2.5" drive, SlimSlot DVD-RW, XP, RR, Winamp, Xenarc 700TSV, HTC Touch PPC/Phone, BU-353 GPS/iG3, Elmscan OBDII, Griffin PowerMate, 2 Blaupunkt amps, Polk spkrs, 5 sec startup/STR
~Jimmy