Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

[graham01]

Hi everyone, I recently dropped my laptop (Toshiba R630-13R) while it had a USB stick in it, it landed on the USB stick pushing it inward and removing a tiny surface mounted component behind it. Sods law eh?

From looking at the tracks on the board, it connects the 5V VCC to the GND. Can anyone help me identify what it is? I *think* it will be a surface mounted capacitor.

I am not that bothered about getting the USB port working again, but this board also connects to the internal speakers, and the audio outputs, both of which do not work any more, which is quite annoying.

I have uploaded some pictures of the board and the damage, please see below;

http://i42.tinypic.com/a48w03.jpg

http://i41.tinypic.com/17y0ch.jpg

Thanks for reading! Regards

[tom66]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

Is this a separate board just for the USB and audio?

If you look at other USB ports on the motherboard, what component is used there?

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

Is this a separate board just for the USB and audio?

If you look at other USB ports on the motherboard, what component is used there?

Yes it is a separate board, I did some voltage checks on it when it was turned on. All pins on USB are dead, strangely audio does have power going to it, all pins connecting to the internal speakers are about 2.3V.

I tried to look at the USB connector on the other board and that just confused me more, there are 2 surface mounted components connecting the VCC to the GND. They are both pink in colour, one is the same size as what you can see on the pictures (closest SMD to the missing component) and the other one is about 3x the size.

Regards

[tom66]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

Yes it is a separate board, I did some voltage checks on it when it was turned on. All pins on USB are dead, strangely audio does have power going to it, all pins connecting to the internal speakers are about 2.3V.

I tried to look at the USB connector on the other board and that just confused me more, there are 2 surface mounted components connecting the VCC to the GND. They are both pink in colour, one is the same size as what you can see on the pictures (closest SMD to the missing component) and the other one is about 3x the size.

Regards

Ah pink is probably an ESD protection device. It's designed to prevent you from zapping the laptop's motherboard if you touch the ports.

2.3V (DC) would quickly fry the speakers are you sure about that reading?

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

Oh dear, yea I just checked again, there is 4 cables, 2 for each speaker, they read 2.32V, 2.32V, 2.28V 2.30V.. I am guessing there is something not quite right then..

[shovenose]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

If it's on a seperate board and you can't get it working again it would probly be easy to source the little board on eBay or something...

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

If it's on a seperate board and you can't get it working again it would probly be easy to source the little board on eBay or something...

Yea I found one on eBay but only in America with a 4 week wait I also can't afford it yet.. I really don't want to go that long without music!

regards

[mariushm]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

You can use one of these as a temporary solution :

http://www.amazon.com/External-Chann...3133025&sr=8-1

Use amazon.co.uk if you're in UK (or Europe)... assuming it since that Toshiba model number looks like an European one. Just search for "usb sound card" ...

Though a bit of warning - the sound quality of these usb toys is not that great.

[tom66]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

Oh dear, yea I just checked again, there is 4 cables, 2 for each speaker, they read 2.32V, 2.32V, 2.28V 2.30V.. I am guessing there is something not quite right then..

Measure the voltage across each speaker, it should be less than 0.1V.

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

Measure the voltage across each speaker, it should be less than 0.1V.

Haha, I know nothing about electricity.. one is 0V the other is 0.01V. Why is is 2.3V compared to the ground? Is that just nonsense?

[tom66]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

Haha, I know nothing about electricity.. one is 0V the other is 0.01V. Why is is 2.3V compared to the ground? Is that just nonsense?

Voltages across a device are what the device sees.

MOST but not all devices on the motherboard are relative to the ground. But in this case, it turns out it is cheaper to make one end more positive and one more negative, rather than make one side positive or negative and one side ground; it reduces the cost and means you don't need a second (negative) supply.

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

That is crazy and confusing, i wish i knew more about electronics.. i can solder anything, but i don't have a clue what it does lol.

Anyway, how can I fix my USB problem? And why has that component removed my sound? Do those ESD's have a +ve and -ve? I tried to solder one on but it didn't fix anything

[tom66]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

That is crazy and confusing, i wish i knew more about electronics.. i can solder anything, but i don't have a clue what it does lol.

Anyway, how can I fix my USB problem? And why has that component removed my sound? Do those ESD's have a +ve and -ve? I tried to solder one on but it didn't fix anything

I think you should check if the audio jack is broken. Maybe it is being held in "headphones mode" where the speaker output is muted?

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

I thought I had a driver problem first, my only audio devices the laptop can recognise is HDMI out, the volume control on windows has a constant X over it and placing the cursor over it says 'No speakers of headphones plugged in', clicking the speaker icon brings up a 'Diagnosing problems' window which doesn't find anything.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

last time I had a usb port damaged on a laptop, I found a dead board of a similar model and literally unsoldered the usb port from the bad board, and replaced it on the working laptop. worked too, 'twas a old P4 dell inspiron desktop cpu laptop

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

http://i41.tinypic.com/24y8jr7.jpg

managed to solder a similar looking component to it.. I wasn't really expecting much, it was only to see how easy it would be. Even without this component, shouldn't I still be seeing 5V on that rail? There are a few rails showing 5V around that area connected to that 'AQR' chip, but the rail connected to the VCC is cold.

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

I don't believe it, I am now getting 5V on that rail (however not on the pin, think it is broken) and my speakers are working!! How is that even possible? I thought it didn't work in the previous post because I only had my hard drive plugged in, and when I connected the battery there was no life. Unbelievable!!

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

That part probably doesn't have anything to do with sound which means you might have another problem.
.
The 5v is for power.
There are no sound related IC chips on that card that need power. [Unless they are on the other side.]
That means it's just a pass-through from somewhere else to the jacks.
.
The 5v for USB is to power things you plug into USB.
That usually has it's own regulator and rail. [To protect the motherboard from bad USB devices.]
.

[Evil Lurker]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

The component that broke off the board is a multilayer monolithic ceramic capacitor. It is used for decoupling purposes I am guessing. Capacitance of the original component could have varied from anywhere down in the pF range to around 1uF depending on size and construction, perhaps .1 or .01uF... who knows.

[graham01]

Re: Laptop Damaged USB Port - Missing Component

Thank you for all your responses!

PCBONEZ: Yes there is more components underneath the board

Evil_Lurker: Thanks, so do you think the component I replaced is doing its job then? I just finished repairing the part, just created a connection between the pin and a component on that rail.

I just did successfully did the ultimate test of playing music through my laptop speakers from an external hard drive connected through that USB port, worked like a charm.

My repair jobby: http://i39.tinypic.com/2j3lke0.jpg

Thanks for all your input guys