Power Problem: Is it the brick, chord, or motherboard plug?

I'm taking this quote from a previous thread, which seemed to describe the problem pretty well... but there is a key difference in that he was using an aftermarket brick and I'm using the original ASUS brick.

I have a G73jh (2 years old) and lately it's been doing the exact thing described above. One thing I would add is that if the display flips from AC to Battery over and over 5-10 times, I'll unplug the adapter/plug that goes into the side of the computer and feel the metal part is very hot. I'll also add that the front LED display also shows the battery icon on/off during these times. And it happens every 5 min or so, even if the pc is not moving at all.

Messing with the cord has little effect. It just looks like the computer is freaking out. It's just too inconsistent to say "if I bend the cord this way or that then it stops". Usually when it happens I'll unplug for a few seconds and plug it back in, that seems to work 70% of the time.(maybe it just needs that time to cool off?)

So where I need some help is in diagnosing the problem. How would you go about figuring out what is wrong?
Brick (please please be it), Chord plug, Internal Plug (NOOOO!!) or something else like a driver/bios.

I'm comfortable with any software issue including bios flashing, also disassembling and cleaning/re-pasting, but know nothing about soldering so really don't want to have to replace that part off the motherboard. I wonder how much someone would charge me to replace the plug assembly off the motherboard if I just brought the MB and a new plug to them.

 

Does it power on and function normally without the battery? Usually to test power issues i load the bios screen and start trying to figure out if moving the cord, dc jack or battery has any effect on the laptop. You could have a poor connection that's causing a short, though it's hard to tell exactly.

Try to power on without the battery and see if you can eliminate some things.

 

Let's do some troubleshooting.

This could be a problem with the battery, ac adapter, power cord or motherboard and its dc jack.

Can you remove the battery first and just use the laptop by itself with the ac adapter only. If the laptop runs with just the ac adapter on without any issues and not shutting down then your problem is the battery. If the computer does not start or it starts then shuts off then it could be a problem with the dc jack or the ac adapter. Let's hope the problem is the ac adapter since the ac adapter is cheap and easier to replace than the motherboard.

To test it to find out if it's the motherboard or ac adapter, see if you can borrow a 120-150w ac adapter that matches the voltage/amps and the right connector, if that works fine then your problem is a bad ac adapter, if it has the same issue then unfortunately the problem lies within your motherboard and its dc jack.

You can also try your ac adapter on another laptop that matches the connector and if that works fine then ur ac adapter is good but u don't want this because this will guarantee you a defective dc jack on the motherboard.

Let us know

 

Thanks for the replies. I hadn't even considered trying out the machine with the battery out. I'll give that a shot. Do you think that using a multimeter on the adapter and getting a consistent 19V reading would clear the adapter from any issues? I don't have any friends that have laptops with this size power supply.

I would almost rather have the issue be the jack than the adapter. The brick assembly costs about $40, where the jack is $5.

I found a friend who is great with soldering small electronics. For some reason I had forgotten that before moving into his career, he used to work at a small PC repair shop. I have no problem pulling out the mobo,and frankly was going to re-paste my CPU anyway. (I re-pasted the GPU a few months ago but not the CPU)

Oh, I forgot to add, when the plug is all the way in, it definitely wiggles if you move it. I can't remember what it was like when the laptop was new, but I think it didn't use to do that.

 

...confusion sets in.

Took out battery and it still does it. Sometimes it alternates battery mode/ac mode... sometimes it flashes the same one for a while. Then stops. Does it for a few seconds every few minutes. I stressed the computer by running furmark and handbrake at the same time and plugged in the iphone to suck up a little more juice, no effect. The ONLY way that it doesn't come up is when it's operating completely on battery mode.

Got a hold of a voltmeter, get a great 19.50V reading off the AC adapter for a straight 3 minutes.

 

Without stressing the adapter you won't really know if it's good or not. And i really don't know a good way to do it. Sometimes you can look at the green led on the adapter and see if it dims or blinks when you lose power. I'm confused when you say without the battery it goes from battery mode to ac mode, how exactly does it do that?

I'm guessing it's either the adapter, motherboard or dc jack at this point. Power up your laptop without the battery and load the bios, then rotate your power adapter in the dc jack and see if that makes it lose power. If it doesn't cause it to immediately power off then you can eliminate the dc jack as one of the culprits.

 

could be the front panel lights are just blinking crazy for no real reason. I've noticed at times with my asus G73jh that the Bluetooth light will come on even if bluetooth is off and same with the wireless Ethernet light. one night the notebook was just sitting powered down and the blue power light was on yet the notebook was off. those lights are clearly strange at times and don't really work right is what I am guessing is the problem. because if you had the battery out of the notebook and it was really blinking back and forth from power to battery the notebook would crash.

what happens when no battery is in the notebook, and it loads windows does it crash? if not then I would not really worry to much about it unless your seeing any signs in windows that its' really switching from one to the other.

I am no expert but I have seem strange things with those front lights at times.

 

Thanks everyone for the input...

After some testing. Decided it was the jack.

I eliminated the battery as the problem, as the computer did the same thing without the battery on.
I eliminated the adapter/plug as the problem as even messing with it while hooked to a multi-meter never broke the 19.50V (plus/minus .05)
I decided it was the jack after seeing some posts about the back copper leg coming loose from the original solder, and making it lose connection for a split-second. (this was exactly my problem once I got in and saw it)

$5 jack and C4RN1's guide = Money saved + fun