M17x R?, power plug tinkering

<Which M17x? Dell-Admin> 

Hello everyone, i am having an issue with my old alienware M17x, especially the charging port, and i did some things you may... disapprove.

but before we dive into that, a bit of context :
i've bought this machine in 2011, and because i live in a place with little room available, i tend to open it, plug it, play, and then unplug and fold it back before going to sleep, this basically everyday for the last seven years or so.

so it goes without saying that both the cable of the AC adapter and the jack port in the computer are not in a good shape. i can do some tinkering so through all those years i went through two chargers, had to cut some damaged wires and solder them together, that kind of things. no issues on that part.

you're probably thinking that the solution to my problems -whatever they are- is a new computer, yes, that's what i did, but i still want to keep the old one alive because i like it.

Okay, so the cable from the old computer was dying again, except i'm seriously running out of cable length on the male jack side, and honestly the female part has now so little ability to keep the cable plugged in that i often have the computer shutting down on me because the wire just fell off. really annoying.

so i resorted to do what i did with my even previous computer : removing the entire plug and solder the cables directly in the mother board. Barbaric ? yes. but it did work with the previous one.

anyway, i did exactly that, being easy to take apart is one of the reasons i buy alienware. despite my tools i managed to de-solder the power jack, and put some new wires instead. identifying what goes where is pretty easy with a volt-meter so i'm confident my work is correct, but what i'm confused about now is what to do with the center pin.

at first i though the center pin was just the ground, or that maybe it was for the tiny Led ring that glows at the tip of the power cord. because i assumed it was one of those and i don't really care about that (i didn't even bother replugging the ground when cutting damaged wire segments a couple years ago) so i just left it unplugged.

buuuuuuut... since i'm here you guessed that something is wrong, and yes, it doesn't power up. which led me to think that maybe this pin is some sort of security ? you know how the power block of desktop computers are designed to NOT work unless they are actually plugged onto a motherboard, right ? well there is a green cable to connect to just any 0 Volts that solves the problem. Are we in some similar situation here ? what should i connect it to ? mass ? black ? white ?



yes, I shouldn't be doing this in the first place, but I really don't want to spend 50€ on a third charger for a ten-years old computer, especially since i bought a brand new one.

thank you !