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How To Repair Asus Nexus 7 (2013) Not Charging

By Jestine Yong on October 16, 2017

A customer brought in his Asus Nexus tablet that had a charging issue. He stated that his kids would grab it off the charger, pulling the cable at different angles. This resulted in a distorted charging port and this in turn would not create a good connection onto the terminals.

Therefore the charging was inconsistent. Sometimes the customer would leave it on charge all night only to find that it had not charged. He was frustrated!

The Nexus is fairly easy to remove the back cover and access the circuit boards. You can simply run your fingernail around the edge to release the clips that hold it in place.

After connecting the charging cable to the tablet, a wiggle test was carried out. Not only was it clear from the looseness of the cable in the port, but also when connected to the charger, the state of charge would constantly change with every little wiggle.

After close inspection of the port, it was clear that the outer frame was distorted. This was due to his kids pulling the cable from tablet roughly rather than holding the tablet and carefully removing the cable.

After research on the internet, some people had found success in trying to reshape the frame and therefore reapply pressure to the connections. I had nothing to lose, so I used pointy nose pliers to reshape the frame. This seemed to improve the connection, but not to the stage where I felt confident in the repair.

There was no other choice but to replace the charging port if I wanted to do the repair correctly.

The port itself was very cheap and the repair not too hard. The hardest part was getting enough heat into the outer connections for it to release from the circuit board. For future similar repairs, Robert Calk (thanks Robert!) suggested I use ‘Chip Quik’, which I had not heard of before, but will definitely invest in.

After disconnecting the battery, I started removing the port. Another helpful suggestion I found was to physically cut the terminals off the back of the port. Although this might sound strange, the logic behind it is sound. By cutting the terminals with a knife, the port is no longer connected to the circuit board and therefore no damage can be done to the board trace when removing the port from the board. This worked well and after removal of the port, further removal of the terminals still attached to the board was easy. Obviously, you would want to ensure that there is no circuitry that could be damaged when using this method. In this case, the terminals hung over an empty space, so there was no risk of damage.

With the old port removed, old solder removed, all areas fluxed and tinned, I was able to fit the new port. It sat into place nicely, although it did take some time and persistence to completely solder into place.

It is one thing to solder a component into place and another to be sure that the repair is done correctly. For this I use a 300X digital microscope. After first inspection, I felt that one of the connections needed to be resoldered.

After resoldering and inspection, it was time to reconnect the battery and test the charging system. Another wiggle test was carried out and this time the tablet continued to charge with no intermittent fault.

I was able to hand back a fully charged and successfully repaired tablet to the customer, with one word of advice – ‘keep the kids away from the tablet’!

If you are interested in this repair, you can see a video on my channel following the link below.

This article was prepared for you by Mark Rabone from Australia.

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Note: You can check out his previous repair article below:

https://jestineyong.com/iphone-6s-plus-screen-replacement/

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Smart Phone Repair

15 Comments

Robert Calk

October 16, 2017 at 1:43 pm

Good job, Mark. You are welcome. Chip Quik can make life easier.

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- Robert Calk
  
  October 16, 2017 at 1:49 pm
  
  BTW, be careful cleaning the pads after removing an IC or component, especially IC's that sit on tiny pads. If you're not careful there may be a dab of solder on a pad and you can rip it up when cleaning the pads, so be careful.
  
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  Reply
  - Mark
    
    October 16, 2017 at 2:56 pm
    
    Hey Robert,
    
    Good tip - thanks
    
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    Reply
suranag Electronics

October 16, 2017 at 5:59 pm

Hi, Mr. Mark,
Very Good Replacement SMD Part Repair Job.

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Albert van Bemmelen

October 16, 2017 at 11:18 pm

Good repair job Mark. I've heard of Chip Quick but never needed it although I have replaced several micro USB smartphone connectors successfully in the past. I am sure Chip Quick works great like Robert says but after I have seen the asking prices on eBay (Aliexpress apparently doesn't sell the product?) I don't think I'll buy it. Upto now I do just fine by using enough heat and flux using solder station or hot air station. And none of my engineer friends ever used or needed it either. But if prices significantly drop it could be worth the money.

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- Mark
  
  October 18, 2017 at 8:10 am
  
  Hey Albert,
  You are right, the prices are fairly high for what is, but perhaps I need a better soldering station 🙂
  That being said, it looks like it works well.
  
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  Reply
  - Robert Calk
    
    October 20, 2017 at 8:18 am
    
    It's worth every penny!
    
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    Reply
  - Robert Calk
    
    October 20, 2017 at 8:31 pm
    
    It's cheaper if you just buy the alloy like here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/FAST-CHIP-Removal-Alloy-for-Quik-SMD-Rework-4-5-ft-/121716224906?hash=item1c56da338a:g:vTEAAOSwT~ZZugRZ
    You can buy the alloy and use your own flux and cleanup stuff.
    
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Parasuraman

October 17, 2017 at 12:13 am

Well done! Still, I don't want to give it a try!

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Mark

October 18, 2017 at 8:12 am

Hey Parasuraman,
My eyes aren't what they used to be, so all of my detailed work is done under a magnifying lens or digital microscope. Makes life a lot easier!

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Justice

October 18, 2017 at 4:04 pm

Thanks Mark your expertise is to be marked, chip quick brillaint.

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- Mark
  
  October 19, 2017 at 8:12 pm
  
  Thanks Justice,
  Glad to hear a good review of Chip Quik.
  
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Basavaraj

October 25, 2017 at 2:56 pm

Hi sir,Nice article I have seen these kind of faults in many smart phones, good method in repairing such faults and happy to see this
Regards
Basavaraj
India

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Ulises Aguilar Pazzani

October 26, 2017 at 9:18 am

Good after Mr Robano, grate fix sir

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Han Bijl

October 5, 2019 at 10:16 pm

Thanks Mark,
it looks easy enough to try myself but I am completely new to this. Can you tell me where I could buy a micro USB port for my Asus Nexus 7.
And what type of soldering station do you use?

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