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Vend1

3 Posts

12841

January 31st, 2005 22:00

Latitude C600 Will Not Boot w/Battery but Will Boot On A/C

I have a C600 computer that just acted up all at once
The Battery I had in it has 1 light out near the big white button - the remainder are on except the last one flashes rapidly - Shows 100% on charger status.
I purchased new battery -
shipped in with 54% charge status. Installed it and it would not take a charge. Battery indicator was orange flashes then green flash. 
Pulled info off another board that said to change date and place unit in hybernation mode then turn back on. Now indicator light flashes as normally charging the battery - system now sees the new battery and says it is charging but battery indicator remains at 54% and battery lights show 3 lights on out of 5.
 
Now next problem is system will boot with A/C cord. Everything works ok on A/C but with battery in when power is lost it remains on for approx 5-10 seconds then shuts off. When you try to reboot it starts to access drives and Dell screen comes up. Indicator for load status gets 1/2 way across and computer shuts off. Will not boot except after a/c is on,
 
Already tried the memory re-install and traded bays with batteries and no luck.
Removed CD Drive and tried it. same result.
It has Win98SE on it and I was going to upgrade to XP but not sure with all the power issues I have read about on the forums and the trouble I am having now.
 
Any thoughts???
Thanks

Naramine

30 Posts

February 1st, 2005 05:00

Hi Vend1,

Given that the C600 model is getting on in years now, I'll assume that the battery you had prior to buying the new one, was what shipped with the system originally. The batteries only seem to work well for about 12-18 months (if you're lucky) so the fact that the charge status was 100% but you saw next to no battery life from it is not out of the ordinary.

Now, as far as the new battery is concerned, your first task should be to ensure that the system bios is updated to the latest revision. Given that you can't run the machine on battery, make absolutely certain that you have A/C power when you are updating otherwise you'll run into all sorts of problems. Then, boot the machine into the bios and navigate to the page detailing battery charge status. Monitor this when you have A/C power connected to see if the battery is being charged according to the bios. If the charge status does not alter, then I would suggest that you have an issue with your mainboard. If your system is still covered under warranty, then you should be able to get the mainboard replaced with relative ease.

Hope this helps you to diagnose the issue.

Naramine

30 Posts

February 2nd, 2005 02:00

Hi Vend1,

I am pretty confident that the issue lies in one of two areas -:

  1. The power supply (or more accurately, the portion responsible for charging the battery)
  2. The component responsible for drawing charge from the battery when the laptop is not running on A/C power.

The trouble with this, is that in either scenario the issue lies with a component that is part of the mainboard. Consequently, I feel the only way you can get this resolved is by having the mainboard replaced by Dell.

If you have access to another same or similar C-Series laptop (C600, C610 etc), just confirm that your battery can charge and run successfully in that machine. With this confirmed, and all the other troubleshooting we've done here, you should have no problem in convincing Dell Support that your mainboard needs to be swapped out.

If your machine is under warranty, you should have no problems. If not, you may need to decide if the replacement cost is worth it?

Vend1

3 Posts

February 2nd, 2005 02:00

Well,  I tried it!!
It changed the way the way the green light flashes but still no effect on battery.
I checked the BIOS and is says charging as well - Now at 52%
 
I also downloaded the Sys Diag. software to check everthing out. Everthing checks out ok except when I take the battery out to check charging rate it stays on for approx. 6 seconds and shuts down the computer. When I go to reboot machine it gets to the 1/2 way point and shuts down again. Battery is showing 3 solid lights out of 5 and seems to charge in other laptops at work.
 
I also took the CPU out and re-inserted it. checked connections and reinstalled Ram and HD, along with CD-Rom to see if bad connection - everything ok - works ok with A/C on and just a few seconds with battery in.
 
I think it has something to do with power management but can't seem to figure it out. No errors come up, just power disconnects after a few seconds. I thought maybe it was the board but everything check out including Temp ratings and speed test. BIOS showing a charging status but not charging battery.  Odd Problem
 
Any other thoughts,
Thanks

Vend1

3 Posts

February 16th, 2005 02:00

Well,  I did more testing and also purchased another used battery to test on the system.
The used battery worked and charged just fine. I examined the battery closer and found that after cleaning it several times that it worked. Seems that it had a coating over the ends of it - not sure why it was on it but after taking a knife and scraping it,  it made connection.
 
Just an FYI
I checked on the motherboard issue just to see what it would take, The unit was out of warranty and found the board to be around $350 from private source and $600 from Dell or just take chances with ebay or something. They say the board is a 9R587 but Dell support does not like to give that info out.
Had to make several phone calls to many departments to get that answer.
 
Thanks for the help

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