I bought an HP Victus which is a very powerfull laptop for the price. Having lived near the ocean I knew the USB ports would corrode. So buying a laptop with a USB charger was out of the question. HP makes 3 sizes laptop plugs. The 65 watt the 90 watt for business laptops and later the 45 watt which is tha smallest. HP decided to go with the 45 watt on all new laptops. My charger is 135 watt and some of the workstation are 230 watt. The jack became corroded and the laptop stopped charging. You have 3 ground fault interupters doing battle. The one in the outlet the one in the charger and the one in the laptop. They cut off the power. A stupid charger would charge the laptop. I was cleaning the jack with a diamond file and broke it. Best Buy will not order anything without a phone number and I don’t have a phone. I got lucky and got an open box replacement for $440. The solution to this is gold. Electroplating a connector cost about a dollar. Some of the gold will rub off on the other connector. I looked into electroplating as a kid. It was too expensive for me and nobody would sell cyanid to a kid.
Were you using the laptop on the beach? I cant imagine this happening indoors in a climate controlled environment.
Grease.
There are all sorts of greases that are used for electrical connections to reduce oxidation/corrosion. You’ll find terms like conductive grease or non conductive Grease.
Even a non-conductive grease is still going to allow contact and current flow due to contact pressure in connections. Yes there may still technically be a small amount of added resistance but that’s better than corrosion and no current flow. Or worse the little sparky arkies that develop as corrosion progresses.
For connections or contacts where there is plenty of separation from nearby contacts I prefer a copper based never seize.
Car battery terminals, ground cables to frame and engine. Plenty of ac voltage connections also.
You also have various products that often refer to “no ox” or similar, commonly used in electric panels especially when using large aluminum wire.
A standard dielectric grease is probably your best choice for this application.
How to apply it in very small spaces?
Use a very fine steel or copper wire. Strip some number 14 12 or 10 stranded wire and use one strand that’s 2 in long or so to poke it into very small cavities.
It is obviously best to do this when the contacts are new before any corrosion has taken place.
Also, plug the charging connection into the device before you plug the power source into the wall.
It doesn’t take much.
Actually for a barrel type connector I might go with the copper base stuff, just a very very thin amount.
The salt is in the air. No one filters it. Even 100 miles from an ocean I can smell it. The power jack corroded quicker because it was undersized. The third wire is a resistor that tells the laptop what brand the power cord is. I have used HP power cords in Dell computers. They will cuss at you but allow it. This needs to be gotten rid of. This will make the plug more robust. Back in the old days I used a lantern light with a halogen bulb and a Radio Shack lead acid battery. When I switched NiMh I put the battery on the shelf. Ordinary humidity caused the terminals to electroplate a path across the top. This is 6 volts. Putting 100 watts in a USB port with the connectors .1mm apart is insane.