For anyone trying to replace the power jack on a Lenovo Ideapad U400 I wish you luck. After tearing the laptop down and getting to the power jack you are presented with a major problem. Lenovo who I thought was one of the “good guys” in the computer world has decided to follow Apple down the road of “don’t try to fix your computer” mentality.

Here is what happens when you get to the part of taking the power jack out of a U400. Lenovo uses a red glue to cement the power jack in place. This red glue has super human characteristics in that it is crazy strong and you end up spending an hour and a half with a dental pick to remove the embedded power jack attached to the aluminum undercarriage of the laptop. This is the first time I’ve seen a power jack glued to a laptop. Normally the power jack will lift out of place once you remove a lock down screw or remove the top cover of a laptop.

Let’s take a look at some pictures. This first one shows the power jack taken off using a set of small pliers. What remains is glued down with red glue. This is where the next hour with a dental pick comes into play. All that black you see is the remains of the old power jack and needs to be removed because the new power jack needs to fall into place exactly.

This next picture shows it cleaned up. Sorry for the quality as all I had was a cell phone to take pictures with.

 What I’m trying to say with this post is that computer manufactures when trying to design these Ultrabooks are starting to develop bad practices when it comes to repairing the computer at a later date. Using a high strength glue to hold something in place that normally is not glued down is not a good thing. Plan on more of this in the future as computer manufactures chase the sell cycle in trying to keep the consumer demand interested in the next best thing.