New Inspiron 1525 battery charging problems...?

I believe you have a short in your power adapter, The same thing happened to me with my 1520, the cord broke at the laptop conection and now it says 38% plugged in, but not charging  after rewiring it myself it does not charge anymore.

I sugest getting a new wer cord and trying that, but I am almost thinking it may have fried the battery.

If you are experiencing battery not charging on a 1525, there are two main causes. In one scenario, you need the battery replaced. In the other, the battery is functioning as designed, and just needs a lot of time for the first charge.

1. Your battery may not be charging at all, and will need to be replaced. To establish if this is the case, the method in step 2 is the best method to use.

2. If the battery appears not to be charging at all, but is actually just charging slowly, it is functioning as designed and does not need to be replaced. Boot into the BIOS using F2 at power up. Then navigate to the battery status page. From there, watch the charge for a few hours (I suggest booting to this BIOS page before going to bed at night). If there is any progress at all, just give it time, and it will eventually charge and behave normally. This is a design feature of the battery. It's typical to batteries that are stored after manufacturing for long periods of time before the pc's get to the customer. This scenario is more common to systems purchased from retail outlets as opposed to directly from Dell.

StarryIce:

I hope I'm not too late to help.  I had the EXACT problem today with a brand new Inspiron 1525.

Possible solution:

The battery indicator said that the battery was at 87% the adapter was connected but it was not charging.

The tech in support chat had me shut down the laptop, remove the battery and adapter, then hold down the power button for 5-10 seconds. Fixed!

Hope this helps!

0gre

I'm having the same problem with my Inspiron 1525.  Mine is about 6 months old and I just started having the issue.  The battery is not charging.  But, the issue is not consitant.  Sometime if I start the computer up with the ac adapter pluged in it will chage, but if I unplug the adaptor and re-insert it, then the battery will not charge.  Other time the battery does not charge at all, even if the adapter is pluged in on start up.  I contated dell support by email.  They assumed I had a bad batter and sent me a new one.  The new battery is having the same issue.

I tried what you suggested, 0ger.  I shut down the system, detached the ac adaptor and battery and held down the power button for 10 seconds.  And naturally, with no power to the computer this didn't seem to do anything.

I know I don't have bad battery, because the same problem occures with two different batterys, and sometimes they charge fine (most of the time they don't).

Like all of you, I'm having the same problem. I bought my computer almost a year ago and gradually the ac adapter stopped working. Or, at least that's what I thought. At first I was able to plug it in while on or off or asleep or hibernating or whatever and it would charge. Then I got to my dorm room and started having issues with it not charging unless I unplugged the cord from the wall and then plugged it back in. Just within the last few weeks I would have to try five or six times unplugging and plugging it back it for it to work. Now I'm completely without power. I've been trying for the last 72 hours to get my computer to charge and it refuses.

I tried unplugging the adapter, taking out the battery, and held down the power button. As Will Thompson has said, it didn't do anything. I doubt this is a problem with anyone's battery.

See, Dell has this funny way of making things really inconvienient for everyone by making an ac adapter that plugs into the side or back of the computer, but the adapter is not an elbow cord. My father has a gateway computer with this feature and he's never had a problem. The thing is that the more you plug in and unplug the cord from your computer, the easier the little ties are severed in in the spot where you plug it in. Even more inconvienient for all of us is that we will have to send our entire computers in to get this fixed. Not just the ac adapter or battery.

Try getting this looked at, I'm almost positive that's the issue.

I'm taking mine to get it checked out by the Geek Squad today, but I doubt they will tell me anything I don't know. Unfortunately I can't even go a day without using my computer, so I'm sure I will have to put up with this issue until my semester is over.

Hope this helped a little.

If your  Dell 1525 works fine while plugged in but stops working while unplugged it's likely that either your Dell 1525 battery is bad or your laptop is not charging the battery properly. Below are steps that can be taken to help identify the cause of this issue.

Leave power plugged in

Make sure the computer has been charging from the power plug for at least two hours before attempting to unplug it.

Remove and reconnect battery

In some situations the battery can become loose. Removing it and then put it back into the laptop.

If the problem still exsit, I'm afraid you have to buy a new one and this link may help you

http://www.eachbattery.com/dell-laptop-battery-c-66

Two ways to allow your battery to start charging again.

The first thing is to remove the 1525 battery from the laptop and left the AC cord connected, booting it up on the power cord alone until I was able to boot into Windows 7, at which point I then put the battery back into the computer while it was still on. This worked and while a tad unsafe for most people, I wouldn’t recommend you use this idea unless you absolutely had to, that is, if there was no other choice.

The second solution that I’d recommend a lot more is to open up your Device Manager (usually a right click on your Computer/My Computer) and remove all battery related devices from the Device Manager. Then after you’ve done that, right click again and select “Scan for Changes”, which should reinstall the proper services and allow for your laptop to charge again.

If the problem still exist,just like somebody said above you need the battery replaced.I find many websites sell the 1525 battery,hope these can help you

Amazon store:
http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Inspiron-replace-Laptop-Notebook/dp/B001M0JAVC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1289469886&sr=8-2

Udtek store:
http://www.udtek.com/dell-inspiron-1525-battery-cells-6600mah-p-31209.html

Could not have said it better myself. Great advice. I had a similar problem with my laptop, and bought a 85whr 9 cell 7800mah battery from notebookbattery.com. Dell had them too, but were double the price. Here is the link, in case someone is interested:

http://www.notebookbattery.com/dell/inspiron-1525/dell-inspiron-1525-battery.html

Cheers,

Anj

I had the "Power Adapter: Unknown Device"  issue that prevented the battery from ever charging, however, it would let the computer run on 'wall power'.  

The advice on this thread (http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19179843.aspx):solved my issue.  I had to replace the little power input board that attaches to the main board.  PIA to get to it, you have to dismount the main board just to plug it in :emotion-3:   Anyway, I found the part on eBay for about $8... the rest was my own labor to replace the part.  I'd say, if you were competent, focused and dedicated, you could replace the piece in about an hour.

This is what solved my issue:

"...  "plugged but not charging" problem with Inspiron 1525. All you need to do is  to replace power board (Part  number 48.4W006.021)  - looks  like  this http://www.laptopking.com/dcjack/999742.jpg   . Very easy to do ( takes 1,5 -2 h ) if  you know  how to operate screwdriver and use Dell service manual : http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1526/en/SM/index.htm    You can  find this board on ebay - I paid for mine 35 pounds"

Now my batteries are charging... it did take about an hour or so for the battery to come out of it's hibrination.  Thanks to the poster of that information, I for one REALLY appreciate it :emotion-2:

Good LUCK everyone!

Hello Starryice,

I can help with your Inspiron 1525. I had the exact same problem that I just fixed myself. It's a bit difficult and very time consuming but I was able to take my whole computer down to the motherboard where the Charging Board sits and was able to replace mine. Like I said, it's a very time consuming and difficult job (especially if you don't normally work inside computers). However, I don't mind telling you how you can resolve this issue yourself if you would like.

The problem with these computers is that Dell likes to equip their machines with faulty charging boards (aka "Daughter Boards") and sell them off to good paying customers like you and I. I have seen search engines flooded with this exact problem that seems to be popping up more and more.

Please let me know if I can help.

StarsBurnFyre

Hello guys, I hope someone can suggest some help.  I too had a dell inspiron 1525 with the  plugged in not charging problem.  I recently bought the power board off ebay and spent nearly 2 hrs dismantling the laptop to replace the faulty part.  After i reassembled the laptop, it started to flash the battery light for the first time but then within minutes it stopped and now it is in the same mess as before i replaced the power board.  My battery says something like 67% charged but if i plug out the mains it dies immediately.  There is not even enough power in the battery to flicker the lights if i start it up without plugging it in.  I am well aware that this laptop was of faulty design by dell but all I want now is to sort the problem out.  Any help would be appreciated.  I do not want to order a new battery if the fault is somewhere else.

Regards,

Chris

This solution just worked perfectly for me!

Sorry...I thought my reply would go with the post I selected!!  Anyway, removing battery, unplugging power, pressing laptop power button for 10 seconds seemed to do the trick.  Give it a try before spending the cash on adapters and batteries!!