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I'm curious what the quoted repair cost was? Any good shop can replace the jack, they can be had for 30 or 40 bucks on the web, I usually charge around $170- $200 depending on the laptop. Some of them even only require a resolder job to fix the problem.
Wanna sell your old laptop cheap
So instead of the power jack taking the brunt of the damage from a sudden jerk, they make the USB or RJ45 port take it? Doesn't seem like that would be any better.
I didn't even look at the link, oops. I would seriously stay away from that thing, for the reason st33 stated, doesn't make much sense to sacrifice one port for another.
I have seen a similar thingamajig on someone's laptop at the airport. I don't know if it was a "Jerkstopper". Anyway, it took the whole laptop down, instead of just the power cord!!! I'm guessing because there were two points of attachments between the power cord and the laptop.
It was an accident waiting to happen. Clearly, it was the laptop owners fault for positioning himself at a location where people were moving about.
Maybe that's why they call it a "Jerkstopper". It clearly stopped him from using his crapped out notebook.
Basically, the power is attached to the Macbook via a "magnet-like" connection (haven't verified this) that when the wire is accidentally pulled, it just disconnects cleanly without causing any damage. I've also seen this happen a couple of times on a friend's Macbook. It works great. I hope other notebook makers adopt this way of attaching the power cord.
Last edited by fastninja500; 02-10-2009 at 09:23 AM..
Hi Marc ... I helped develop the JerkStopper. They are sold at more than 100 laptop repairs shops around the country. They work. Nothing is gonna help a laptop if it gets pitched on the floor btw. The product was designed to keep the strain from "normal" tugging and pulling on the cord from damaging the fragile little power pin. We have had guys like Chris Pirillo and Leo LaPorte give us good reviews for the product ... Leo even uses one on his MagSafe equipped MAC because the power cord keeps falling off at inappropriate times.
So instead of the power jack taking the brunt of the damage from a sudden jerk, they make the USB or RJ45 port take it? Doesn't seem like that would be any better.
When we designed the JerkStoppers we spent a great deal of time testing the product. The RJ series are actually hollow inside so their isn't anything to actually damage a RJ port. We tried and failed to actually damage a port. The USB JerkStopper is a snug fit but will release with some pressure (more than a normal USB device).
With thousands of JerkStoppers in use we have yet to have even a single complaint about damage to a port. In testing I could carry a mid-size laptop around by the power cord without damaging wither the power pin or the RJ11 port.
The only way I see one of these working is to have 3 or 4 in a line to reduce the strain on each port.
One works fine to take the strain off the power pin. The kits comes with 3 (1 each USB, RJ11 and RJ45) so that the laptop owner can fit the correct Jerkstopper to the configuration of his or her laptop.
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I'm guessing because there were two points of attachments between the power cord and the laptop. 
