Stupid pin power adapters!

[slackerinabox]

Why is it that every pc manufacturers use those easily breakable ac adapters with a single pin slot. Broke 3 laptops (in the past 10 years, mind you) because of the soldering breaking connecting the power adapter to the motherboard while the magnet latch on my macbook won't ever have this problem. Any windows laptop have a similar feature?

 

[WackyDan]

I've never had one go bad. I've had literally 18 laptops since 1996. one was a Mac and the rest were ThinkPads. Many I only had for 6 months at a time. A few I had for 2+ years.

All of them traveled over 100 flights a year. None of them were desk queens.

My parent had an iSeries ThinkPad - Consumer grade... and their power jack was loose after three years.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

Never had a problem with any of my Thinkpads: 600E, 600X, three T40s, T61, R61, X60t, X61t, W500, SL400, and a Thinkpad Edge. Then again I've never used anything other than a Thinkpad lol. Those things use some pretty big and sturdy connectors, bigger than the ones I've seen on other consumer-grade laptops.

I have more of a beef with the manufacturers who put the power button on the outside of the laptop at the hinge. I've seen it on Dell, Sony, and Gateway laptops, and I think it's stupid. I've had to replace the cable connecting the power button to the mainboard a few times because the power switch broke.

 

[C1]

Many notebooks use a straight connector jack instead of a right angled. Straight jacks are more vulnerable to the type breakage described because of the effective lever arm that is created. Otherwise, I never had an issue and all the Fujitsus I use employ right angled connectors.