Fixing a laptop power jack connection without solder

Problem: DC power jack on my laptop came out as I pulled on the cord. The wires that connected the jack to the computer board snapped and I couldn't charge my battery!

It pissed me off that two detached wires could not be fixed by simply reinserting them into the jack. The jack held little wires by a small dab of solder. A firm tug and they come off easily. I'm supposed to solder this back on, but I don't have the equipment to do it.

The jack is not designed to be tinkered around with. For safety and design reasons. But shit happens and when it does, it would be so much easier to have a re-attachable connection like electrical nuts, or a big hole to loop the wire through.

Well, I managed to patch up the jack and get it working without soldering. It is not a safe or long-term solution, so don't do it. Tell me it's bad and why I should never do this... yada yada yada. But until the new part I ordered arrives, I want to still be able to use my laptop. So, here's what I did.

The red wire carries the electricity in and the black is the grounding wire. I stripped a piece of the wiring off the red and then I cut a section of insulation below that and moved it up to the end of the wire. So the wire is insulated on both ends, and exposed about an inch in the middle.

I looped this exposed wire section around the ball in the center of the jack. Making sure that the insulation keeps it from touching either of the balls on the outer edge of the jack. If it did, that would short circuit and could create sparks, melt the wire, fry the motherboard, etc.

Then I took the black wire and wrapped that around the outer ball, making sure that the wrap was tight and the stray strands could not touch the middle ball or the red wire.

I took out my DVD drive so I have lots of room to put the jack where it won't get bumped around. Plugged the charger into an outlet, and success - my laptop is running again!

Now, my laptop case has already been messed up and taken apart so many times that a person who cares about looks would not dare look at it. My DVD drive slides right out. The casing is cracked and the power jack moves around inside. I've removed all the screws and left it that way so I can lift the corner of the case to fit the charger plug into the jack.

So I don't care that my laptop looks like broken plastic, I just want it to work.