If you have been using genuine Dell AC adapters and have replaced the DC jack board, the only other possibility is the motherboard.

Google for the Dell troubleshooting guide. That's what it will tell you.

.

I have followed the advice mentioned here (nyc10036) and got a new motherboard.  It fixed my problem, but I have something else that does not work.

As mentioned above, not more 'plugged in, not charging' issue.  The new motherboard is identical (same specs).  Once plugged in, it charged the battery to 100% (from 40%).  However, when the laptop is turned on, I have the front light blinks 1 white and 4 orange.  If I remove the power cable, the laptop shuts turn off immediately (hard shutdown).  From power off, laptop won`t turn on when using the battery only.

I have tried multiple combinations using the two genuine Dell power adapters, the two dc cable between power adapter and motherboard, and two different batteries.  Always same result (4 orange blink).  With old motherboard back in, the laptop works with the batteries (but the old motherboard still has the original issue of plugged in not charging).

Thoughts?  Could the new motherboard have an issue?  The seller has offered a return / reimbursement / seller pays for shipping.

C.

You should try Googling

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln296283/how-to-use-and-troubleshoot-the-inspiron-15-5558?lang=en

Thanks for the fast suggestion. I visited that page prior to posting this question. Maybe I missed a step. Here is what I did before.  I did everything again after your post, just to make sure:

Exploring that choice (6. AC adapters and Battery Issues), I get to another page with 9 choices.

Choice #9 is irrelevant for my situation. My AC Adapter is not damaged. I have two adapters and the issue is actually when the AC adapter is not used.

Choice #8 is also irrelevant. I am not traveling overseas with my laptop.

Choice #7 has nothing to do with my issue. No noise coming from my AC adapter.

Choice #6 will not help me. I do not need to force a BIOS Flash without the AC adapter. My BIOS is already at A16 (latest version).

Choice #5 is about LED indicator on AC adapter. Mine is turned on (green), and that is for both adapters I have. So that does not help either.

Choice #4? Nope. My system does not give me any error message.

Choice #1. I went through all of the Battery FAQ (choice 1) without finding anything that helps.

Choice # 2. Choice two is about bad performance of the battery, which is not my case (my laptop does not use the power coming from the battery to keep itself on, or to turn it on when unplugged).
Choice #3 was what was the closest in that list.  This brings me to another page.

-------

I went through it to make sure I was not missing anything. Under choice #3, there are 4 sub-choices:

a.AC Adapter Power or Battery Charging issues
b.AC Adapter Not Powering on the Computer or Charging the Battery
c.AC Adapter Damage
d.System battery shows "plugged in not charging" when you hover over the battery icon

3a. That is not it. I have no AC adapter power issues (laptop works fine when plugged in), and no battery charging issues (that was my initial issue, and changing the motherboard fixed that. See my initial post in this thread for more info).

3b. That is not it either. The AC adapter powers the laptop just fine, and it charged the battery up to 100% when I first plugged it in with the new motherboard.

3c. I see no physical damage to the two adapters I have. Also, they work just fine with the new motherboard I installed. They both power the laptop, charge the battery to 100%. All is good.

3d. The plugged in not charging message is not there (again, that was my initial problem, which was fixed by changing the motherboard).

By selecting 3a or 3b (my issue is for sure not with 3c and 3d), you get to the same support article. There you can isolate the issue to a AC adapter issue or a battery issue. I am confused a little with the battery symptoms. The second bullets (out of 4) says 'Battery indicator LED does not glow or blinks always'. Does that refer to the indicator on the battery itself? I do not have a led indicator on my battery, but I think some models do. If that line refers instead to the led indicator on the laptop case, then that describes my situation: it blinks. That being the only viable course of action out of everything that I have read so far. I followed the link to "How to troubleshoot Dell laptop battery".  This brings me to another page.

------

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln292953/how-to-troubleshoot-dell-laptop-battery-issues?lang=en#Battery

At that page (link above), there are 7 choices.

1. Verify AC adapter functionality. the BIOS shows "AC Adapter = 45W", which is normal. It also shows battery health "Excellent".

2. Charge the battery in BIOS mode and/or with PC turned off. As mentioned above, that is not my issue. I actually completed that step when I first connect the ac adapter to the laptop for the first time after the motherboard exchange. The case led was white, and the battery charged all the way to full. That was before turning the laptop on. Exactly as described here.

3. Run the Dell ePSA or PSA hardware diagnostic test. I ran the ePSA built-in hardware diagnostics. No issue. The help article says "When no issue is reported by the diagnostics, it means that no hardware issues were found. This most likely means your are having an issue with the Operating System on your computer". It says "most likely Operating System". I will explore that route but will not rule out the hardware. I also completed the online hardware test by visiting the battery diagnostic page. Ran the test and no issue we fine. Specifics about the battery: it passed the Battery Life Test.

4. Check the battery health status. There are multiple ways to do that. (1) In BIOS. hit F12 at Dell splash screen. Done that (See step 1 above). In Windows: same. all is good.

5. Update the BIOS and Dell Quickset. Running "SupportAssist for PCs (version 3.2.2), I realized that despite me updating the bios earlier this week, I did not use the latest version. I used A16 and the SupportAssist says that A17 exists. Installed BIOS version A17. No change to the power situation. Still blinks, cannot run on battery power. About Quickset: There are no Quickset drivers needed or available for Windows 10 (from a Dell mod). With A17 installed, SupportAssist completed all the tests.

6. Run Microsoft Fix-It or Troubleshooter for battery issues. The Troubleshooter did not find any issue.

7. Uninstall and reinstall Microsoft ACPI Battery driver. Did that, restarted the laptop, drive is installed again. No change.

8. Verify if battery is under recall program. No Bulletins Found.

----------------

So, I have exhausted that troubleshooting guide, with no result.

To sum:
With the new motherboard, the laptop works almost fine: battery is charging, CPU runs full speed (2.2Ghz). EXCEPT: the laptop does not work on battery power. When the AC adapter is not plugged in, the laptop will immediately shut down, or will not power up if in power off state. I have the case led blink 1 white, 4 orange. The old motheboard works fine when using the power from the battery (but it will not charge the battery, that is why I cannot return to using the old one.

Other thoughts?

I just wanted to say thank you for posting your problems with your Dell and how you solved them.  I have been experiencing the same exact issues for years and until now I haven't been able to figure out what is wrong other than keep replacing my charger every year and fight with it.  I was getting ready to buy a new one but thought I might do a new search to see if anybody else is having problems.  I will try a new motherboard.  Must have been a faulty batch in these Inspiron 5558.  I had heard so many good things about Dells only to have soooo many issues with this one that we purchased four years ago. 

Thanks again! 

I have the SAME exact problems with the same model laptop.  I have to bypass BIOS every time I start my computer. No help from Dell for over a year.  They wanted to me to send in my computer at my expense. My computer is slow and shuts completely down if the adapter is pulled out. Very frustrating. I was hoping a fix, but it seems everyone is still experiencing with this model. I remember this happened right after a windows update. 

For this exact problem I had with my laptop, 60W charger worked, the default I had was 40W.

I tried initially replacing old battery with a new one, replaced charging port, nothing worked, finally 60W adapter worked

THIS METHOD WORKED FOR ME

I opened the AC ADAPTER charger jack pin and the center wire was broken so i fixed and it worked for me.

detailed version of how to do it is given in this post :

ALERT! The AC adapter wattage and type cannot be determined. "Tutorial"

All BELOW MENTION METHODS DIDN'T WORKED FOR ME:

1.I cleaned the AC adapter charging pin and also laptop jack both but didn't worked for me

2.I tried disbale "Battery ACPI" driver then turn off the PC and put battery out from the laptop and wait for 1-2 hours then put battery again. this didn;t worked for me.

3.Update windows to latest . this also didn't worked for me.

4.I updated bois to latest using usb tool and code "boisn34945a19.exe/forceit" without 10% battery but on "UPS" also this didn't worked for me.

5.I installed all the latest drivers using "auto update our internet" this also didn't worked for me.

6.Installed Fresh Copy of windows i thought it will just refresh everything but it didn't worked for me..

(please note this only happens most of the time with dell laptops only they don't update their jack design my friends have cheap hp laptop and they never faced any problem like this and i bought very expensive laptop and this happened there I recommend not to buy from Dell Until they don't update their Laptop charging design)

and

I found all these solution here on dell community this community is great, thanks for your help everybody

This worked for me!

After replacing the internal power adapter and the motherboard. 

My last hope was to replace the 45 Watt AC adapter to a 65 Watt AC adapter.

As soon as I plug it in the computer started to charge the battery. 

Hopefully this helps someone out there. 

I think in my case there was no need to replace the motherboard. 

Regards, 

The first thing I replaced was the AC ADAPTER charger jack inside the laptop since it was broke and make sense to replace it first. " After this the 45 Watt adapter was connected and did not charge the battery and the error was showing when starting the computer.
I read all this articles and the recommendation was to replace the motherboard, I when ahead and order a new one. " After replacing the motherboard same issue, 45 Watt adapter was connected and did not charge the battery and the error was showing when starting the computer..
I search on google what will it happen if I connect a more powerful adapter on the laptop.
https://www.thelaptoppowersupplyshop.co.uk/can-i-use-a-laptop-charger-with-a-higher-wattage#:~:text=Yes%2C%20Your%20laptop%20has%20been,when%20running%20at%20full%20power.&text=This%20means%20that%20you%20can,power%20required%20at%20the%20time.
Once I got this information I feel more confident about replacing the AC adapter with more power.
I order the 65 Watt adapter from amazon and 'voila" The computer started to charge the battery.
So maybe expend the 30 buck on a more powerful AC adapter first instead of replacing the motherboard.

Good Luck!

Hi @Rene23 , thanks for your post. So in your case you think just changing the AC power adapter fixed the issue? You said you probably didn't need the Motherboard replaced. 

I have the same issue and glad I searched here. Can you tell me precisely what all you did?

Thanks in advance for your help. 

I believe I might have found the issue, thanks to clues from Bilalpervariz58 posting on 06-13-2020:

I own a Computer service shop in McKinney, Texas (North Texas PC Rx, LLC.). A customer of mine sold me two identical Dell 5558 laptops her twin daughters used for school. Neither laptop would take a charge. When the power adapter was plugged in, the laptops would run on adapter power and not battery, but the battery would not charge. I tried everything that RedFive5 suggested, but nothing worked. After plugging in the power adapter, I would see the animated charge icon moving (charging) then stop after five movements. Thinking it was a battery issue, I ordered two new Dell OEM batteries ($72 each from Parts-People out of Austin), but results were no different. Sometimes, while power adapter was plugged in, I would randomly receive the error message, " ALERT! The AC adapter wattage and type cannot be determined" would appear after restart. After reading postings about people buying higher 65 watt power adapters, and the Bilalpervarz58 article about the center pin wire repair, I took a look into the face of the power adapter plug and saw the center pin was bent and touching the inside wall of the plug barrel (see photo). This particular 45 watt adapter model has a smaller power plug barrel size that other Dell laptops, and none of my universal power adapter plugs would fit, so I had no choice but to straighten out the center pin or purchase new power adapters. I chose to straighten out the plug pin. The power plug pin is recessed further down into the plug barrel which makes it difficult to see and well as to work with. I had to place a pen flashlight in a small vice and use magnifying eyeglass lenses, tweezers, and a small jewelers screwdriver to work the pin.....then success! I carefully plugged the power adapter plus into the each laptop and the animated charging icon did its usual five movements then stopped, but the charging continued to 100%.

Side Note: It appears to me that great care needs to be exercised when plugging in this small barrel power plug into the laptop socket because it appears the insertion must be perfectly straight for the pin to hit the very small pin socket. I receive a lot of laptops with broken power sockets from people tripping over the power cord where stress is placed on the plug and socket. This type of stress could easily bend the center pin, even slightly. After the pin is bent, and will no longer perfectly fit to the laptop plug inner-barrel sub-socket, the plug pin easily bends if the user has the tendency to push on the plug with more force, thus bending the pin toward the plug barrel wall. For those readers who purchased new power adapters, the pin only needs to be slightly bent (uncentered), followed by pushing on the plug during insertion, to end up with the same symptoms as before. 

NOTES:

1. The center pins of many of these power plugs have a very low tinsel strength and you might be able to re-center the pin once or twice but after that the pin might break off, OR, even worse, break off while inside the laptop power socket.

2. BIG KUDOs for the detailed note documenting by RedFive5 and Bilalpervariz58 !!

I forgot to mention, in my original posting, that my exact symptoms were the same a what RedFive5 experienced.