M570RU .. bad headphone jack; worth trying to solder?

Hey guys,

I've got a Sager M5791 with all sorts of upgrades; recently the headphone jack seems to have given up the ghost. I can use other jacks and pipe audio to them via the driver, but they sound pretty poor (I assume the headphone jack is designed for the purpose, while the others _can_ do it, they're not good at driving headphones. Or should they sound as good?)

The problem with the headphone jack is --

When I jack in, the system _knows_ (Windows will display the 'jack plugged in' 'unplugged' bubble), but no audio is forthcoming.

IS the 'jack detection' pin different then the audio pins? Presumably is.

Does this sound like a case of 1 or 2 pins got weak on the solder, and I could touch a bit of heat on there to get it sorted out? Or does this sound like something else?

I'm tolerably well acquainted with a soldering iron, but if these are very fine solder pads, my big old iron may not be right for it. I can make due using other jacks (not a lot of interest in getting a usb audio out either), but if this is an easy fix, I'll tackle it.

Advice?

jeff

 

unfortunately i cant provide any help to your problem but to prevent audio jacks from giving up in the future I have a good trick: purchase a cheap 3.5mm audio male to female extension and leave it plugged in permanently to your laptop audio jack. If you need to plug/unplug your headphones often your cheap adapter will take all the wear and your laptop jack will stay intact. If your extension jack fails it'll only cost a couple dollars to replace. Of course I cant use my speakers anymore but my laptop is hooked up to my home theater sound system so that's not a problem at all.

 

I'm extremely gentle with my gear, so this is a little surprising; I usually jack/unjacked maybe a couple times a week (when baby sleeping nearby -- but I think static is what got it this time, so doubtful an extension would have assisted much.

jeff

 

i repaired a number of them in the past. thing is a lot of times you had to actually go further out on the board to make the connections and then use a circuit board safe epoxy to glue down a new jack. on a lot of them the jack actually pulled up off the board and messed up the traces there. it is not at all a easy thing to solder there either unless you have the tools and know how. there were a couple that just needed some heat to them as they cracked probably due to poor heat control in the first place. but be careful is all

 

yeah, I want no risk of damaging the rest of the pcb for such a thing. It does annoy me that in so many electronics, regardless of how much you pay for them, that theheadphones are usually a weak spot. (ie: usually they either break off, or else they have a crappy in/out switch so end up always thinking somehting is plugged in. At least Clebo stuff is generally pretty good

Maybe I'll take a look with a magnifier and see if I can spot whats up, and default to not doing anything :/

Are the other jacks supposed to sound crappy compared to the headphone jack?

jeff

 

This model (Specifically the NP579X series) is well known to have jack problems. Mine does as well. There was a review somewhere that listed that something like 57% of people owning this laptop have had this problem.

It's just a bad soldering job with the motherboard.

I would not suggest trying to re-solder it yourself however, as you would have to be playing with the actual motherboard, and if something were to go wrong you might not be out just some audio.

My is very "touchy", but there is a workaround I find. I can plug my headphone jack in about 3/4 of the way, til it "locks" but isnt fully plugged in, then if I turn the audio off and then back on with the FN+F3 or whatever it is, it usually works fine. Its just a matter of plugging it in and out until you get the right spot.

Try with some music playing, mute your speakers, then unmute then, plug it all the way in, and then slowly remove it until the audio comes out of your actual speakers/headphones. Works for me everytime and my audio jack has been broken for at least 6 months.

 

Workaround doesn't seem to work for me

Can you confirm the other jacks sound like crap?

jeff

 

I must be lucky with only a half malfunctioning jack then. As my microphone jack I use still works perfectly, and my audio sounds 100% when I can get it to plug in with my workaround.

Sorry

 

I wonder if that remembered statistic was "of jack users" or "of Sager users" (ie: 100% of jack users, of which only 52% or whatever of Sager owners use the jack

Ah well

jeff

 

Well after 3 years of usage my m570u's jack has started to fail. I can get sound out of one speaker, but in order to get sound out of both, I have to use excessive force on the jack, which obviously won't be good in the long run. Sticking it in 3/4ths of the way doesn't work for me either.

I'd be down to solder my jack since i'm out of warranty. Is there any guide on how to open that part up? I've only taken off the fan grill and LCD (both my hinges broke...). I'd like to avoid taking it to Sager to repair (though I do live 40 minutes from their HQ).

What about buying a usb sound card? Would I notice a a big drop off in sound quality? Any recommendations on the better value ones? I only need one with two channels.

 

Well guys, I had to take my 5793 completely apart to get to the jacks. Soldering was not an option for me but I managed to bend some pins and now it works again.

 

Service manual in my sig for disassembly. A usb sound card would probably give you better sound than the onboard (as long as you bought a decent one).

 

Ugh, so looking at the manual (and hanko's post) it looks like I have to take the whole thing apart? As if I was removing the modem?

That is not something I want to do especially if the problem with the jack is beyond my soldering skill level.

I guess i'll give Sager a call and see how much it'll cost for parts/labor and see if they can fix it the same day I drive it up to their HQ (probably unlikely based on how many screws you need to take out).

Though i'm still going to look at usb sound cards, anyone know of good value cards?