Brooks Moses

My wife's Psvilion ZE43xx series was yet another victim to the broken power connector. After getting a couple of $300 estimates on fixing it, we decided that I would tear it apart and attempt the fix. If I broke it she would get a new laptop, but it didn't make sense to pour that much money into a 2+ year old laptop. Your post and all the comments were very helpful - thanks! I was originally going to use a Radio Shack panel mount coaxial power jack (274-1582) but when I got it home, I found that the logic circuit is reversed (default closed to ground and plugged in open). After calling around town, I did find one place that happened to have the connector for my laptop, so I went with a copy of the original, soldered it in, reassembled the laptop, prayed for a minute, then powered it up. It works! Woohoo! Anyways, it seems like these original connectors are only made by 1 manufacturer (I don't know who) and they are quite hard to come by and not cheap. I bought mine for $30 and another place that would order it wanted $50. I would add one suggestion. After all is said and done, I'll be taking a trip back to radio shack to pick up both male and female power connectors to make a pigtail that can stay plugged in and that I can zip tie to the case. This should decrease the stress on the internal part and put it on the external wire at the tied points. Thanks again!
- Adam