Dell laptop ps - broken lead at the concentric power connector

Some heatshrink tubing over the connector body and part of the wire can help as a stress relief. This is a common problem though, either the wire flexes and breaks over time, or the wire is heavier and it breaks the soldering on the connector at the motherboard.

If the heat shrink is large enough to go over the connector, it's probably too large to shrink down nicely around the wire.

This is what I've done a few times; seems to work very well:

Get a tube of "Goop" at the hardware store -- no substitutions, and be sure you get plain "vanilla" Goop, and not the shoe repair kind or the stuff that works on space suits.

Clean all the finger oils off the connector and the first couple of inches of wire using mineral spirits (not a detergent of any kind, as it will leave a residue).

Put a blob of Goop around the wire where it leaves the connector. Spit on your fingers, and while they are wet, form the Goop into a nice smooth cone shape, tapering from the size of the connector down to nothing about three-quarters of an inch up the wire. If your fingers start to stick, add more spit (really; it works better than water).

Be careful not to get any spit on the connector or wire where the Goop is going to touch; you want it to stick there. If you put on too little Goop, it's hard to add more without having a seam, but if you start with a bit too much, you can pinch some of it off *provided you do it quickly and your fingers are nice and spit-coated*.

Hang the connector over the edge of a table so it doesn't touch anything, and leave it overnight to set up. You'll wind up with a nice, flexible, strain relief.

Isaac

This type of breakage is indeed a common problem. On the IBM type notebooks that I have had, the wire coming from the power brick to the notebook is a coax type with the outer conductor being a spiral wrapped construction. This type of cable is nice and flexible but I have had several with the sprial wrap completely break off inside the outer jacket. My fix was some replacement barrel type power plug connectors of the proper size from Mouser for about a dollar apiece. I bought a handful and if I get another break I'll just cut off the cord an inch or so and attach a new plug. The strain relief scheme on the replacement connector seems like it will last longer than the original molded on connector.

- mkaras