I'm posting this in case it may help others with Valueline power socket problems.
I've had my G560 since July 2011 and, while it's performing adequately, I 'm finding that the build quality is not up to much - certainly nowhere near as good as the HP Compaq it replaced. The most serious problem now is that the power socket is no longer firmly located - over the last couple of weeks there has been an increasing amount of lateral play in the socket and I was concerned that this could eventually lead to the complete failure of the connection. A quick Google search suggests that this is not an uncommon problem and it's not an easy repair as the socket is soldered to the mainboard.
As the cause seems to be that the design of the jack plug puts excessive lateral strain on the socket, I wondered if there might be an easy way of relieving this strain to stop any further damage. The solution I came up with was to take a small 'O' ring with an internal diameter just smaller than the the jack plug, and glue this to the plastic casing over the hole which takes the plug. This allows the jack plug to be inserted easily but supports the shaft of the plug so that there is much less opportunity for 'wobbling' of the jack and consequent strain on the socket. The 'O' ring doesn't allow the jack to go in quite so far as before but quite far enough to give a good, solid contact. I've been running with this kludge in place for a couple of weeks and the connection is still much more solid than before.
My computer is under warranty but I will do my best to avoid having to go through the hassle of trying to get the problem solved by Lenovo. What searching I've done suggests that Lenovo try to say that it's caused by abuse and is not a design fault. Also, I live in France but bought the computer from the UK - to add further complications.
Iain
Lenovo G560 - Windows 7 Home Premium x64
