I have a Dell Inspiron 5100, and after successfully repairing my DC jack on the motherboard and powering up the computer, I see my monitor isn't working. I've checked the cable multiple times, but am not sure what to do now. I can't mentally congratulate myself over the other fix when the monitor isn't working! If anyone can help, my sincere appreciation. . .

Thanks.

What do you mean "successfully repairing my DC jack on the motherboard"? Did you do some soldering on the mother board? If so I suspect you're repair was not quite as successful as you hoped.

Does it work if you connect an external monitor?

Ztruker, thanks for the response. Yeah, my "success" isn't certain yet, but I do know I had success with the the DC jack: before soldering, the computer was not taking a charge at all until a friend of mine -- who has plenty of experience soldering -- reflowed the joints. After re-assembling and plugging in, the computer started up and the jack was working. Only now, the monitor does not.

I'm not sure about the external monitor -- I think our last spare was recently taken to a thrift store. Any suggestions?

Fixing the DC jack on the laptop mainboard may need to consider if the power card component(s) needs replacement or not.

So the question is not just the DC jack connection problem, when the DC jack got shorted or out of order, the power regulator component(s) may also got shorted as well.

Try use external monitor to test.
If the ext mon works, check the LCD connection to the power card or to the parts nearby the DC jack including the LCD voltage itself as well.

I have seem some laptops with similar issue.
Hope this helps!
Bill
Tech Manager

Bill,

Thanks for your input. Here's what I'm thinking. The DC jack progressively got worse: at one point, the computer would receive a charge if I held it very still. As the joints got looser inside, I found that I was able to hold/push the cord right into the angle it needed to be in to keep the computer powered. A few weeks ago, this method stopped working and the computer wouldn't receive a charge at all.

Throughout the whole time, the monitor was working fine. Thus, I'm thinking it wasn't a blow-out: I just think it was my forgetting to do something (besides making sure the monitor wires is plugged into the board). I still don't have access to an external monitor.

How do I go about checking the power card and LCD voltage? This is unfamiliar terrain. Thanks to all willing to help.

Hi Roscoe13,

Sure, we just have some laptops come in with the similar problem.
Holding the connection in order to make good contact to power on the laptop is not the permanent solution.
Sometimes, we can see the electric sparks come out like "fireworks" near the DC jack when we connecting the power to the jack.

Checking the whole power module(or power card), requires professional skills and need to use some kinds of the measuring meter device that comes with a pair of metal pen with 1 red and 1 black.
Once we touch the small transistors on the mainboard using those electrode pens, we can see the numeric numbers to show on the screen of the meter, only professional technician know what number of reading is under spec and which is not for the transistors tested.

Please use the desktop PC monitor to see if you can see the screen display. You may need to press the Fn+F? to switch the video signal between the LCD and the ext Mon.

Hope this helps.
Bill
Tech Manager