Battery Charging problem

Before you spend money on that, check your terms of sale - you gave up the right to do that at purchase.

Hi,

I have a similar problem.

My father bought Inspiron 1525 in March 2008. A couple of days ago I noticed that when I plug in the AC adapter the battery charges upto 83% -84% and then it shows 'plugged in, not charging'. The battery charge doesn't vary as long as the laptop is running on AC power supply.The battery meter mentions that the primary battery is performing normally and reads as -

Total Battery Charge - 83%

Primary - 83%    Status - Idle

BIOS version is A16. And Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium is installed.

I'd really appreciate some help, especially since I'm sitting here with an expired warranty.

Thanks !

Hi, same problem with me , 

Inspiron 1525 , battery meter says 'plugged in, charging' , when connected to power , but its not actually charging the battery ... the charging indicator wont go up ...

laptop is still in warranty period ..

Need some help, Thanks

Hi,

   I purchased my Dell 1525 laptop in Feb 08. In July 9, it had developed some problem with charging the battery. Battery icon shows as "Plugged in, not charging". I have tried all sort of solutions which I could find on the net but nothing worked till now. The warrenty is expired and I don't have anywhere to go.

Here is the list of solutions which I tried but didn't work for me:

1)
- Click *Start* and type
device in the search field, then select
*Device Manager* .
- Expand the *Batteries*
category.
- Under the Batteries category, right-click the
*Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery*
listing, and select *Uninstall* .


*WARNING: *
Do not remove the Microsoft AC
Adapter driver or any other ACPI compliant driver.
- On the Device Manager taskbar, click
*Scan for hardware changes *[image:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA...c01176420.gif] .
Alternately, select *Action > Scan for hardware
changes* .


Windows will scan your computer for hardware that
doesn't have drivers installed, and will install the drivers needed to
manage your battery's power. The notebook should now indicate that the
battery is charging.

2)

right click power icon
open power options
open show additional plans
chose calibrate
remove power cable
allow battery to drain till laptop shuts down
reconnect power
start up laptop
open power options again and reset to original power plan.

 3) After I dissconnected the laptop, I took off the battery and
cleaned the teeth and put it back in and plugged it in, the problem was
gone. No more plugged in not charging. My battery might've been loose or
just drity from dust that it was not catching any power to charge and I
have had no problem after that. You can also try to restart your laptop
again while connected. Also it can happen if the laptop gets too hot,
try to get a cooling support table for laptops that should fix it too.

4) I have the same problem, so I think I found an answer. It is the
recepticle into which the AC plug goes into the laptop. I was wiggling
it around a little today as the problem showed up. Have that little
thing checked. All other answeres that I have read are not actually
fixing the problem. Eventually people repost and say so. So, I think it
is just a faulty recepicle into which the AC plugs since today, every
time my battery light went out I could just fool a litttle with the AC,
and immediately worked. This problem goes back at least 2 years, covers
windows XP and Vista......Dell, Toshiba, HP and more. So, that is
another reason I have continued to look for that common denominater.

5)

I had same problem and tried most fixes listed below. Finally, from Dell support,

 I tried disconnect both power cord and battery. Then, hold the on/off button

 down for 15 seconds. Finally reattached battery and cord and it began to

 recharge. Good luck everyone

6) http://www.digwin.com/plugged-in-not-charging-windows-vista-laptop

All of these didn't work for me. This may be useful for somebody else who is facing this problem and therefore good to have it there.

I am still looking to get a solution to my problem.

Thanks

-Deepak.

Hi, same problem with me ,  Inspiron 1525 , battery meter says 'plugged in, charging' , when connected to power , but its not actually charging the battery ... the charging indicator wont go up ... laptop is still in warranty period .. Need some help, Thanks

I found the following quote on this site http://www.kwaree.com/blog/2007/06/30/plugged-in-not-charging-windows-vista-laptop/

" I had the same problem on my Dell 1525 laptop computer, which is only four months old. I called Dell…restarting, unplugged the adapter, and taking out the battery didn’t work. So, they are sending someone out to replace the motherboard and the ac adapter. And they’re also going to replace the battery as well just to be sure. The parts and visit are free, if you are still under warranty. "

Why don't you get in touch with dell technical support at 1800-425-8045 ? You might have to be on hold for around half an hour though :)   (But they have promised that things will get better next week onwards !) 

I contacted them and told them that my battery was now down to 8% and it wouldn't charge no matter how long I plug in the AC adapter. The battery health option in Bios setup mentions that the battery is performing normally. I've tried all the troubleshooting methods mentioned on their site. I've tried to charge it with another adapter but with no help. And I know that my adapter is working properly since it works just fine with my friend's dell notebook. I asked if there was some problem with my motherboard or something. They told me, nothing of that sort, I just need to get a new battery. End of story.

Well, a pricey end !

PS: I'm still hoping to find an alternative solution.

Your Dell Power Supply has as ID chip in it.  Your motherboard has some stupid part of the system which looks for the signal from the PowerSupply chip.

If the bios can't get the ID code from the power supply then the Dell laptop refuses to charge the battery.

So a simple signal fault or power failure can result in needing to replace Power Supply and/or Power Supply!!!!!

And no Dell won't ship a useable patch or fix, they won't even admit that it is _a_bloody_stupid_idea_ to have a special ID chip in a power supply unit and special ID receivers in a motherboard.

So the only workaround is:  Borrow a friend or shops Dell PowerSupply and try it to see if you laptop will recognise it - if good then buy New Dell PowerSupply - if not, then it's your motherboard and you might as well toss the Dell laptop and buy a real one from Tosh.

How true! You can check this in the Bios. Go to the Bios during startup, and find the page that shows the battery charge and ac adapter. If the ac adapter says 'Unknown' , then the chip in the ac adapter is not being read, and it will not charge the battery. It should say '65W' or '90W' depending on your adapter.

It should and I got a new Dell AC Adapter to use (from Dell!).

  Except it and a borrowed adapter BOTH show up as 'unknown', so I have all the right gear but a simple powersupply fault = new Motherboard for the laptop!!

All because Dell are reta rded in creating this problem - just check out the number and age of the Google hits for Dell Adapter unknown/failure/battery not charge.

My research on this topic (for a dell 300m):

         the computer works with the adapters (I have two of them), but the battery is not charging when the adapter is hooked to the notebook directly. I also have a docking-station (or media base) for this notebook. The battery can be charged if the adapter is hooked into the media base.

This tells that the adapter connector on the notebook mother board is not good. This agrees with many uses who reported that the connector on the mother board is loose.

My labtop is 6 years old. So I don't expect Dell to fix my system even though the problem surfaced just 1-2 years after I bought my notebook.

Dell's reputation certain suffers as you can see from the massive problems related to battery charging ... I have a lenova T60 from my employer -- I have used it for 3 years the batter is just still like new -- lasting 4-5 hours. Also, one time (2 months after I got my new T60)  the strap of my laptop bag was broken so the T60 was dropped on the the cement ground with the cover and heat-sink on the corner broken, but the notebook is still working pretty well as of today.

Sony, Toshiba and Apple - among others - also use a PS detection system.

As for $100, that's well above what a Dell power adapter costs - they're more like $30.

$30 ???  I just bought one from Dell and it was $65.

Comparing a six-year old Dell and a three year old Lenovo isn't realistic.  Comparing apples to apples,

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/17/reliability.study.has.apple.4th.place/

Dells break, and Thinkpads break - I agree with you that Thinkpads are more solidly constructed than most Dell systems -- the same doesn't hold true for all Dells, or all Lanovos, though.

http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=299

I have 4 Dell laptops in my house 3 personal and 1 work.  The batteries of the personal INSPIRONs even though diffent models of INSPIRON seem to interchangeable. I tired all 6 or seven battery chargers (some came with extra chargers) when this problem showed up on one PC.  No go. Put newest BIOS on the one showing the problem. No fix.  Swapped batteries.  Probem went with Battery - about 2 years old. So at least in my case it appears to be the battery and nothing else. But it should last longer than that.